Rebuilding a RAID5 array...

[BoB-O TiVo]

Hey all,

If you want to rebuild a RAID5 array with fresh or faster drives, can you just replace them one-by-one, letting the array rebuild each time?

Also, if I want to make a larger array without losing data, can I do the above but with all bigger drives and just grow the array? Is it dependant on the controller?

Thanks,
BoB

 

[unhappy_mage]

You could replace them one at a time, but only if they're the same capacity. Otherwise you'll end up with an array the same size as the original, with disk space above that size wasted.

 

[ohknats]

If the card supports OCE you can swap the drives out one at a time with larger ones to expand the array.

 

[QwertyJuan]

If you ghosted all of the drives to larger drives, then hooked them back up to the array, would that work?? Just asking....

QJ

 

[feigned]

I've done this before, upgrading 10k disks to 15k's...it..."works."

You might have to fiddle with the software and actually fail a disk then remove it from the array, upgrade to the new disk, then add it back to the array. It's just one of those things.

If you ghosted all of the drives to larger drives, then hooked them back up to the array, would that work?? Just asking....

QJ

Good question. If it was a disk to disk copy I'm not sure if the controller would look at the RAID information that would be stored on the disk and realize that the disks were bigger and fail the array or not.

To be safe, backup backup backup!

 

[BoB-O TiVo]

To be safe, backup backup backup!

How exactly do you, as a home user, backup a 1TB array?

BoB

 

[unhappy_mage]

In all honesty, I don't. I use raid1 for stuff I even vaguely care about (misc junk), and maintain multiple copies on different machines of things I sorta care about (music collection), and upload stuff that's really important to somewhere offsite (ssh keys, homework).

And if I lose an array, I say oh well and upgrade.