Server Administrator Storage Management 8.3 User’s Guide

Slow And Fast Initialize

Considerations For Fast Initialize

The Fast Initialize task initializes all physical disks included in the virtual disk. The Fast Initialize task updates the metadata on the physical disks so that all disk space is available for future write operations. The initialize task can be completed quickly because the existing information on the physical disks is not erased, although future write operations overwrite any information that remains on the physical disks.

CAUTION: Performing a Fast Initialize causes existing data to be inaccessible. This task should be considered data destructive.

In comparison with the Slow Initialize task, the Fast Initialize task has the following advantages:

• The Fast Initialize task takes less time to complete.
• The Fast Initialize task does not write zeroes to the disk blocks on the physical disks. It is because the Fast Initialize task does not perform a write operation, it causes less degradation to the disk than does the Slow Initialize task.

If you have had trouble with a physical disk or suspect that it has bad disk blocks, you may want to perform a Slow Initialize task, as this task remaps bad blocks and writes zeroes to all disk blocks.