re: install/17593 suggestions to improve sysinst wrt disk handling

["Brian A. Seklecki" <lavalamp%spiritual-machines.org@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR install/17593; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: "Brian A. Seklecki" <lavalamp%spiritual-machines.org@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%gnats.netbsd.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: re: install/17593 suggestions to improve sysinst wrt disk handling
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2008 23:39:40 -0400 (EDT)

 I agree with #1
 
 As for #2 -- that would have been a great featre to add in 2002!
 
   - Almost all pure non-RAID SCSI HBAs are off the market (at least in
     servers)
   - Everything is SAS now, and logical volumes w/o camcontrol format
     support are presented (e.g., mfi(4) and amr(4))
   - This could have been implented as an NT-like "Quick format" and "Full
     Format"
   - Some might argue that media testing isn't the role of sysinst, maybe
     under a utilities menu (is camcontrol(8) in the minirootfs?)
   - ATA/IDE lacks a similar low-level function.
 
 How about this instead:
 
    In #1, when you present the drive details (geometry/etc), also read the
    S.M.A.R.T. status, if supported.
 
     - If SMART isn't available, read whatever meta-data the controller
       provides (We don't have megacli(8)/megarc(8) support, but the
       controller has a "healthly/degrated" flag, at least in these drivers.
 
 
 l8*
        -lava (Brian A. Seklecki - Pittsburgh, PA, USA)
               http://www.spiritual-machines.org/
 
      "Guilty? Yeah. But he knows it. I mean, you're guilty.
      You just don't know it. So who's really in jail?"
      ~Maynard James Keenan