[CentOS] Race condition with mdadm at boot

[Drew]

> I assume the long power-on pause is due to the BIOS silently checking RAM,
> with the side effect of giving the disks ample time to spin up.

Most likely. I have an old Supermicro board (Dual Athlon MP) that's
being retired from frontline service and it has a long delay from when
you power it up to when it shows the POST screen. Swapping the 4GB of
ECC RAM for a single non-ECC stick greatly speeds that process up so I
assume there's some sort of tests it runs that can take a while.

-- 
Drew

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."
--Marie Curie