From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Sep 14 09:34:08 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 48C8416A4CE for ; Tue, 14 Sep 2004 09:34:08 +0000 (GMT) Received: from anduin.net (anduin.net [212.12.46.226]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C0BD943D46 for ; Tue, 14 Sep 2004 09:34:07 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ltning@anduin.net) Received: from mailnull by anduin.net with spam-scanned (Exim 4.42 (FreeBSD)) id 1C79fB-0000fq-C6 for current@freebsd.org; Tue, 14 Sep 2004 11:31:49 +0200 Received: from eirik.unicore.no ([213.225.74.166] helo=[10.0.16.10]) by anduin.net with esmtp (Exim 4.42 (FreeBSD)) id 1C79f9-0000fb-RP; Tue, 14 Sep 2004 11:31:47 +0200 Message-ID: <4146BB3E.2070804@anduin.net> Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 11:34:54 +0200 From: Eirik Oeverby User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.7.1 (X11/20040709) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?S=F8ren_Schmidt?= References: <8AA611E5-05B1-11D9-831C-000D9335BCEC@anduin.net> <414695D0.1020202@DeepCore.dk> In-Reply-To: <414695D0.1020202@DeepCore.dk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.64 (2004-01-11) on anduin.net X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.0 required=7.5 tests=none autolearn=no version=2.64 cc: current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: atacontrol and creating raid-1 arrays X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 09:34:08 -0000 Søren Schmidt wrote: > Eirik Øverby wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> I have just done a 'cp /dev/ad4 /dev/ad6'. Those drives should be 100% >> identical (even the same drive models). Will the command >> 'atacontrol create RAID1 ad4 ad6' ruin the data on my drives? >> >> I ask because I am hoping to avoid the need for another 150 gigs of >> space just to copy the data off of the drives before creating the >> array... > > > "depends" > > Since the RAID metadata has to be put on disk it wont work if you have > that area used for real data. Depending on what controller you use the > metadata can be stored in different places. Other than that it works if > you are *sure* the disks are identical (dd with a decnet blocksize is > *much* faster tha cp). Yea, I used dd (blocksize 256kbyte proved optimal; ~40mbyte/sec) for my final operation; was testing with cp first to make sure. This is a Silicon Image SATA RAID controller which isn't supported by the ATA driver in RAID mode, so it's purely software. Which, according to another reply I got, uses the last 255 sectors on the disk. These were already free, so I just tested - seems to work fine. Fsck has no complaints. Other things I should do to verify? Thanks, /Eirik > > -Søren > > >