3Ware 9550SX-4LP User Manual page 36

Chapter 3. First-Time RAID Configuration Using 3BM
4 Type Y to continue, delete any existing data on the drives, and create the
unit.
Depending on the RAID configuration you are creating, initialization of
the unit may begin immediately. The initialization process can take
several hours, depending on the size of your drives.
5 If you want to use a RAID configuration which has started initializing,
you can press Esc to cancel the progress box. (Before doing this, be sure
to read "Trade-offs to cancelling initialization," below.)
You can then exit 3BM and boot to the operating system before the
process of writing zeroes to the drives is complete. Once you have booted
to the operating system, background initialization of the RAID 5 or RAID
50 unit will begin after a delay of up to ten minutes.
For complete information about initialization of RAID units, see "About
Initialization" on page 177.
26
Trade-offs to cancelling initialization:
• Performance of these units will be lower until initialization is
complete.
• When initializing is done after booting to the operating system,
the process of initializing takes longer than it does if
initialization is done by writing zeroes to the unit in the BIOS.
Consequently, it will be a longer period of time until the
performance of the unit is fully optimal. Data remains intact
when initialization is done in the operating system.
3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide