Re: md extension to support booting from raid whole disks.

"NeilBrown" [off-list ref] writes:

On Sat, May 9, 2009 7:50 am, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:

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So I still plan to offer a "--reserve-space=2M" option for mdadm to
allow the first 2M of each device to not used for raid data.  Whether
any particular usage of this option is viable or not, is a different
question altogether.

How exactly would that layout be then?

Block  0   bootblock
Block  1   raid metadata
Block  x   2M reserved space
Block x+2M start of raid data

Like this?

When using 1.2 metadata, yes, possible with bitmap
inserted  between the reserved space and the start of raid data.

That realy seems to be the best option. Simple to implement, simple to
use and if mdadm copies the reserved space from old to new drives when
adding one it gives us exactly what we want.

Are you working on that already or do you think it needs more discussion?

When using 1.0, it would be

  Block 0..N-1   boot block and second stage
  Block N..near-the-end raid data
  Block x..y     bitmap
  block z        superblock

I never liked the idea of 1.0.

What actualy does happen when you have raid on partitions and resize a
partition? Am I right that the raid then can't be assembled until the
raid itself gets grown (and the superblock gets moved to the new end)?

NeilBrown