Re: raid is dangerous but that's secret (was Re: [patch] ext2/3: document conditions when reliable operation is possible)

From: Jesse Brandeburg
Date: Mon Aug 31 2009 - 13:57:07 EST


On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 8:20 AM, Theodore Tso<tytso@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> So we *do* have the warning light; the problem is that just as some
> people may not realize that "check brakes" means, "YOU COULD DIE",
> some people may not realize that "hard drive failure; RAID array
> degraded" could mean, "YOU COULD LOSE DATA".
>
> Fortunately, for software RAID, this is easily solved; if you are so
> concerned, why don't you submit a patch to mdadm adjusting the e-mail
> sent to the system administrator when the array is in a degraded
> state, such that it states, "YOU COULD LOSE DATA".  I would gently
> suggest to you this would be ***far*** more effective that a patch to
> kernel documentation.

In the case of a degraded array, could the kernel be more proactive
(or maybe even mdadm) and have the filesystem remount itself withOUT
journalling enabled?  This seems on the surface to be possible, but I
don't know the internal particulars that might prevent/allow it.
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