Is it safe to set kern.geom.debugflags=16?

[orjan-]

I want to run a badblocks test on some new disks, and most of the guides in "breaking in disks" say that kern.geom.debugflags should be set to 16(0x10).
Is it safe to do this on a production server running with one z2 raid with 8 hdd's and one zpol with a single disk while these are mounted?

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

As long as you don't make a typo and accidentally write to the wrong disk it is perfectly safe. The setting disables the write protection for mounted devices.