>> It would be interesting to know whether hardware RAID would behave any >> differently or allow the sync to perform in the background. I have >> only 1.5TB in RAID5 across 4 x 500gb drives at present; IIRC the >> expansion from 3 x drives took some hours, but I can't recall the >> initial setup.
LSI, 3ware and Areca hardware raid controllers are capable of doing a background init but their performance is impacted, I can't speak on other controllers as I haven't used them before. I've built many RAID6 arrays with all three controllers - 8x 1TB and 8x 1.5TB and I'll usually start a foreground init and let them run overnight because it does take a long time. Also, RAID10 is much faster to get up and running because it doesn't have to calculate parity. -- Kyle
