What is the difference between Build / Verify, Clear, Quick Init and Skip Init when creating an array?
Answer ID 10062 | Published 10/02/2003 05:46 AM | Updated 12/08/2014 01:26 AM
What is the difference between Build / Verify, Clear, Quick Init and Skip Init when creating an array using one of the listed RAID controllers?
This information applies to the following Operating System(s):
- This information is not Operating System specific
When creating a redundant RAID array using one of the HostRAID controllers (1220SA, 1225SA, 1420SA, 1430SA, 44300, 48300, 58300) listed, there are 3 choices for the Build method:
- Build / Verify
- Clear
- Quick Init
When creating a redundant RAID array using one of the Hardware RAID controllers listed, there are 4 choices for the Build method:
- Build / Verify
- Clear
- Quick Init
- Skip Init
The differences between these options are listed below. If unsure of which option to use, it is recommended to choose "Build / Verify".
Build / Verify
This information applies to the following Operating System(s):
- This information is not Operating System specific
When creating a redundant RAID array using one of the HostRAID controllers (1220SA, 1225SA, 1420SA, 1430SA, 44300, 48300, 58300) listed, there are 3 choices for the Build method:
- Build / Verify
- Clear
- Quick Init
When creating a redundant RAID array using one of the Hardware RAID controllers listed, there are 4 choices for the Build method:
- Build / Verify
- Clear
- Quick Init
- Skip Init
The differences between these options are listed below. If unsure of which option to use, it is recommended to choose "Build / Verify".
Build / Verify
- Array is available for use immediately. The Build operation continues in the background. Therefore, an operating system installation may begin while the array is going through the Build process, although performance will be impacted until the process has completed.
- Creates parity/redundancy for each disk in the array. Example: For a RAID 1 logical drive, data is copied from the source drive to the mirrored drive. For RAID 5 and RAID 6, parity is computed and written.
- A Build can take up to 20x longer than Clear (due to parity generation).
- Array is not available to use until the operation completes.
- Fastest way to set the disks into a known good state.
- Writes only zeroes to the disk.
Although no real redundancy/parity is created, all disk sectors contain zeroes (no data) so none is required. Any future write operations will create required redundancy.
- Array is available for use immediately.
- Only creates metadata on member disks of the array, the build process is bypassed, the first few and last blocks in the user addressable area (incl. partition tables) will be wiped off. While this is the fastest method for creating a RAID array, it is only recommended for use with new drives. Performance will be impacted while the logical drive is in Quick Init mode until a Verify with Fix is performed from the Adaptec / ICP Storage Manager software.
- For striped arrays (such as RAID 0, RAID 10, RAID 50, RAID 60), write performance is affected when less than a full stripe is written. The array remains in full-stripe write mode until a Verify with fix operation is completed to validate redundant information.
- Default Setting for RAID 1, RAID 1EE, and RAID 10 arrays.
- Updates metadata only.
- If multiple disk drives fail in the same logical device, it may be possible to recover the data by recreating the logical device without the initialization step (skip init). Omitting the initialization step reconstructs the logical device metadata without modifying or destroying other data on the disks.
- Not available on HostRAID (1220SA, 1225SA, 1420SA, 1430SA, 44300, 48300, 58300) controllers.