From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jon Hardcastle Subject: Raid 5 to 6 is it do-able/safe? Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2009 03:55:54 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <305721.15040.qm@web51302.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Reply-To: Jon@eHardcastle.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Return-path: Sender: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org To: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-raid.ids Hi, I run a 6 drive array with a multitude of drive sizes with 1 drive spare and 1 bay left. I am running out of space! I want to take my drives past 1TB per drive (currently 500GB~1TB) but want RAID 6 for when the array goes to > 1TB per drive (coming soon) I have deliberately kept 1 drive as a spare to give me the option of going to raid 6. Is this something mdadm can do? I have mdadm - v3.1.1 - 19th November 2009 I run gentoo with kernel 2.6.22-gentoo-r8 Don't know if it is relevant but have lvm on top LVM version: 2.02.56(1) (2009-11-24) Library version: 1.02.40 (2009-11-24) Driver version: 4.11.0 I have seen talk on Neil's site, just not sure if the support is definately there. If it is would i run something like this mdadm --grow /dev/md4 --level=6 --raid-disk=7 to convert my 6 drive +1 spare raid 5 to a 7 drive raid 6? ----------------------- N: Jon Hardcastle E: Jon@eHardcastle.com 'Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.' *********** Please note, I am phasing out jd_hardcastle AT yahoo.com and replacing it with jon AT eHardcastle.com *********** -----------------------