On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 10:04 AM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
So, where's the big issue with std. labels?
You power down, add some disks that you want to re-use. Maybe even add a controller. Just because a bay looks like you can hot-swap doesn't mean it is a good idea if you don't have to. You boot up.
Okayyyy... We differ, here - I've come to adore hot-swap bays, and hate having to take a system apart to add another drive.
Same here, in terms of the actual swap. But I'm old enough to remember electronics that were sensitive to static, power fluctuations, etc., so I generally power down while doing it. And I don't want to create a scenario where the machine might do something unexpected if it did happen to reboot with the disks added.
Reused disks - I reformat them, usually in a hot swap bay.
Same here, but I've had unwanted surprises from duplicate labels before the format. Hence the conclusion that duplicate labels are as bad and idea as duplicate hostnames, IP addresses, or any other identifier would be.
Of course, I *do* have some additional concerns - I have to worry about PII and HIPAA data that may, *possibly*, be on the drives.
I normally don't have to worry about contents unless the disks leave the site.
When the label scheme was first rolled out, the machine wouldn't boot if it found a duplicate. Now it will pick one. Possibly the wrong one. As you might when you do a rescue boot for the relabel since you won't know which controller is detected first.
But you can do a rescue, mount, and look at what's on what the controller found.
And they all look alike...