Visit Open-E website
Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 25

Thread: Initializing File-IO Volumes

Thread has average rating 5.00 / 5.00 based on 1 votes.
Thread has been visited 16184 times.
  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Posts
    236

    Default Initializing File-IO Volumes

    A couple of questions here:

    1. what are good reasons to do this?
    2. Why does it take so darn long?
    3. Why did my memory usage skyrocket once the process started


    I'm trying to init a RAID10 volume on an areca 1680xi-24 SAS controller. The volume 2500 GB and is made up of 15 drives and it's the system is very slow right now, its been running about an hour and is only 8% complete......

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Posts
    236

    Default

    UPDATE:

    So at this point my system is almost frozen and it's been running overnight (the volume init)
    So I'm really upset about this because this means that if I init a volume I bring the system to it's knees.

  3. #3

    Default

    Initilization is made for data protection. Basically when you initilize your volume you fill it with zeros, then when you write over the volume the space that has no data will be protected.

    Its a low level format, and many big companies are using this, EMC for instance. Its a good feature. It may take time for big volumes, but its so important..

    Maybe you need to add memory here.. or break down the volume

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Posts
    236

    Default

    Okay. So if I had more memory I would not have run into this issue? Because the box is unusable at this point and I didn't expect this...
    This means that adding and init'ng additional volumes would be out of the question on a production system because it would die on the floor

  5. #5

    Default

    mmm.. This should not be true.. I create volume 250G and they took some time but then they work fine.

    What version you are using?

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Posts
    236

    Default

    I'm using Version: 5.0.DB46000000.3084

    Perhaps I need some extra ram and another CPU. What I notice is that when I init a volume, all my available memory, 1GB+ gets cached and I start swapping a small bit

    I have 2GB in this server - which i thought would have been sufficient. I'll need to test with a bit more ram.

    -Errol

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Posts
    236

    Default

    UPDATE:

    So I init'ed a smaller volume. It was 750GB. Afterwards, I looked at the stats in Open-E. For the duration of my init, the load average skyrocketed to 6 and my CPU was maxed out.

    Is this how it's supposed to work? I'd rather us block io and suffer the performance woes because that is horrible.

    Any takers on this question?

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    80

    Default

    Just my 2cents worth...

    The initialization process writes/initializes the single large file that becomes the iSCSI Lun under File-IO mode. It does seem to write at "full speed", so bottle-necks may be exposed (disk, mem, cpu etc.). Your 2GB of memory I would have thought is a little small for a 2.5GB File-IO Lun. It will certainy take many hours, and in your case, have an effect on other traffic, tho I dont recall our systems being affecting traffic quite that much. Initialization of the Lun file is a good idea.

    Just another random thought re mem & vol sizes. If you ever need to run a repair on a large volume (via the console), you MUST have plenty of memory, otherwise the xfs repair utility used can never complete and leave you stranded. In fact, really large volumes require 64-bit operation and plenty of Ram - something Open-E doesn't document. This may only affect NAS volumes, but something to remember.

    I dont wish to be show my age, but a "low level format" is not something we do these days to drives, more back in the heady days of 20MB half- or full-height MFM/RLL drives! Anyone remember ">debug g800" or whatever the command was?!

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Posts
    64

    Default

    A possibility to set the priority for the init. task would be nice.

    I am right now initializing a 1.4TB Volume.

    The VMs that are running on the XenServer hosts are terribly slow now because of this.
    I would not mind if the init. procedure would take twice as long or even longer if my VMs would work normally then..

    It has nothing to do with CPU or RAM in my case. RAM usage is at 7% and CPUs are at normal temperature. BTW: is there a way to look at the CPU usage using the console? I can only see my CPU Temperatures using the IMPI module..

    The init is quite fast -aprox. 1.5h for an 1.4TB volume on a Raid-6 (5x1TB discs on areca 1261 controller).

  10. #10

    Default

    Dear Laxity,

    THe CPU tempreture can be only seen from your IMPI card. But you can get other server stats from the check-Sys option in the system GUI. (STATUS_>Hardware)

    Regards,
    SJ

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •