Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:12:53 -0400 | From | Ric Wheeler <> | Subject | Re: [patch] document flash/RAID dangers |
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On 08/25/2009 08:06 PM, Pavel Machek wrote: > On Tue 2009-08-25 19:48:09, Ric Wheeler wrote: >> >>> --- >>> There are storage devices that high highly undesirable properties >>> when they are disconnected or suffer power failures while writes are >>> in progress; such devices include flash devices and MD RAID 4/5/6 >>> arrays. These devices have the property of potentially >>> corrupting blocks being written at the time of the power failure, and >>> worse yet, amplifying the region where blocks are corrupted such that >>> additional sectors are also damaged during the power failure. >> >> I would strike the entire mention of MD devices since it is your >> assertion, not a proven fact. You will cause more data loss from common > > That actually is a fact. That's how MD RAID 5 is designed. And btw > those are originaly Ted's words. >
Ted did not design MD RAID5.
>> events (single sector errors, complete drive failure) by steering people >> away from more reliable storage configurations because of a really rare >> edge case (power failure during split write to two raid members while >> doing a RAID rebuild). > > I'm not sure what's rare about power failures. Unlike single sector > errors, my machine actually has a button that produces exactly that > event. Running degraded raid5 arrays for extended periods may be > slightly unusual configuration, but I suspect people should just do > that for testing. (And from the discussion, people seem to think that > degraded raid5 is equivalent to raid0).
Power failures after a full drive failure with a split write during a rebuild?
> >>> Otherwise, file systems placed on these devices can suffer silent data >>> and file system corruption. An forced use of fsck may detect metadata >>> corruption resulting in file system corruption, but will not suffice >>> to detect data corruption. >>> >> >> This is very misleading. All storage "can" have silent data loss, you are >> making a statement without specifics about frequency. > > substitute with "can (by design)"?
By Pavel's unproven casual observation?
> > Now, if you can suggest useful version of that document meeting your > criteria? > > Pavel
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