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Date:      Sat, 28 Feb 1998 09:33:32 +0100 (MET)
From:      Wilko Bulte <wilko@yedi.iaf.nl>
To:        karl@mcs.net (Karl Denninger)
Cc:        sthaug@nethelp.no, andreas@klemm.gtn.com, scsi@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: how long does it take to low level format a 9 GB Baraccuda ?
Message-ID:  <199802280833.JAA21565@yedi.iaf.nl>
In-Reply-To: <19980227160819.41343@mcs.net> from Karl Denninger at "Feb 27, 98 04:08:19 pm"

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As Karl Denninger wrote...
> On Fri, Feb 27, 1998 at 10:52:36PM +0100, sthaug@nethelp.no wrote:
> > > I had to power cycle my machine when a low level format wasn't
> > > finished. I felt that this preformatting already took a long
> > > time ( > 30 min).
> > > 
> > > Now I connected the drive Led and see the LED blinking
> > > during preformat 1 1/2 sec. red light, 1 sec. pause,
> > > alternating....
> > > 
> > > How long do I have to wait to preformat this drive ?
> > 
> > I remember when we got the first 9 GB disks on SunOS systems. If you
> > wanted to (low level) format it, you needed to change the definition of
> > SD_FMT_TIME (default was a max of 2 hours) and recompile the kernel :-)
> > 
> > So I would *not* be surprised if it takes 3-4 hours.
> > 
> > Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug@nethelp.no
> > 
> > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
> > with "unsubscribe freebsd-scsi" in the body of the message
> 
> A couple of hours is about right.  We use a lot of Quantum 9G drives here in
> our RAID systems, and the RAID controller takes about 2 hours to format one.
> 
> As a matter of good practice, its probably a good idea to turn on a new
> drive in its working orientation, allow the temperature to stabilize, and
> then low-level format it.

There is no reason whatsoever to low-level format a factory-fresh modern
SCSI drive. Unless you want 520 bytes/block or something like that (some
RAIDs use non-standard block sizes)

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