Re: Some RAID levels do not support bitmap
From: Bill Davidsen <hidden>
Date: 2007-06-11 23:15:59
Jan Engelhardt wrote:
Hi, RAID levels 0 and 4 do not seem to like the -b internal. Is this intentional? Runs 2.6.20.2 on i586. (BTW, do you already have a PAGE_SIZE=8K fix?) 14:47 ichi:/dev # mdadm -C /dev/md0 -l 4 -e 1.0 -b internal -n 2 /dev/ram[01] mdadm: RUN_ARRAY failed: Input/output error mdadm: stopped /dev/md0 14:47 ichi:/dev # mdadm -C /dev/md0 -l 0 -e 1.0 -b internal -n 2 /dev/ram[01] mdadm: RUN_ARRAY failed: Cannot allocate memory mdadm: stopped /dev/md0 Right... md: bitmaps not supported for this level.
Bitmaps show what data has been modified but not written. For RAID-0 there is no copy, therefore there can be no bitmap to show what "still needs to be updated." I would have thought that RAID-4 would support bitmaps, but maybe it was just never added because use of RAID-4 is pretty uncommon. BTW: RAID-4 seems to work fine with an external bitmap. Were you trying to do "internal?" -- bill davidsen [off-list ref] CTO TMR Associates, Inc Doing interesting things with small computers since 1979