Quote Originally Posted by webguyz
Same problem here with initializing a File i/o volume that was created after we had production sites running. The production servers started timing out so bad we had to stop the initialization. Now we just use File i/o volumes without initializing them first and they seem to be working ok <fingers crossed> Never could get a straight answer on the downside of not initializing a file i/o volume. Was told that EMC forces everybody to initialize there File I/O volumes so it must be good. But I bet when EMC users do initialize a File i/o volume they don't kill their production sites access at the same time.
My advice - use block IO OR don't init file/io volumes.
The initialization process simply uses dd to write zeros out the blocks.

I've never gotten an answer from Open-E on what will happen if you don't init the volume.