[DRBD-user] Questions regarding the initial syncing of a drbd partition

Joerg May Joerg.May at ericsson.com
Thu Sep 10 14:21:02 CEST 2015

Note: "permalinks" may not be as permanent as we would like,
direct links of old sources may well be a few messages off.


Hi,

I have some questions regarding the initial syncing of a drbd partition,
where I could not find answers for in the drbd documentation.

Let's assume the following case:
Two computers have their own hard disks, each of them has a partition 
which is synced via drbd
with the other computer's hard disk partition.
Let's say this partition is only used to one third, so two thirds of it 
are still free.
Now on one machine the hard disk has a physical problem and is replaced 
by a fresh one.
Of course now for the fresh hard disk an initial syncing needs to be done.

Now my questions:
- How efficient is the initial syncing ?
   Will only the used blocks be synced or the complete partition (so 
also the unused, free blocks) ?
   Would it be useful to delete unnecessary files before the initial 
syncing to reduce the syncing time ?

- Are there any means (e.g. drbd configuration options) to shorten the 
initial syncing time ?
   Would e.g. checksum-based syncing help to identify faster the free 
blocks and skip them for syncing ?

Thanks and best regards,
Joerg May



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