Fwd: Majordomo results: Re: Majordomo results: .

Fwd: Majordomo results: Re: Majordomo results: .

[Felipe Alvarez]

Hi list. I've 4 X 320GB Sata disks in Raid 5 (mdadm - v2.6.7.1 - 15th
October 2008). They all have a 0xFD raid autodetect parition, filling
100% of the drives. One drive failed, and I bought a 500GB disk
(instead of 320GB). Should I just add /dev/sde as-is, allowing mdadm
to automatically rebuild it as required? Or, should I partition it to
exact same dimensions/size as the other disks, with part-type 0xFD?
TIA

Felipe
end

Re: Fwd: Majordomo results: Re: Majordomo results: .

[Jon Hardcastle]

--- On Wed, 24/2/10, Felipe Alvarez <felipe.alvarez@gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Felipe Alvarez <felipe.alvarez@gmail.com>
> Subject: Fwd: Majordomo results: Re: Majordomo results: .
> To: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org
> Date: Wednesday, 24 February, 2010, 8:54
> Hi list. I've 4 X 320GB Sata disks in
> Raid 5 (mdadm - v2.6.7.1 - 15th
> October 2008). They all have a 0xFD raid autodetect
> parition, filling
> 100% of the drives. One drive failed, and I bought a 500GB
> disk
> (instead of 320GB). Should I just add /dev/sde as-is,
> allowing mdadm
> to automatically rebuild it as required? Or, should I
> partition it to
> exact same dimensions/size as the other disks, with
> part-type 0xFD?
> TIA
> 
> Felipe
> end
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe
> linux-raid" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> 

AFAIK

You can - after you have failed/removed etc the old drive. Create a new partition that is the same type - but not necessarily the identical size(i.e. fill the whole drive if you like but not smaller) and add it to the array.

The beauty of that being that when all the drives have been retired/failed and the smallest partition size is now 500GB or whatever you can --grow=max and get that unused space.

-----------------------
N: Jon Hardcastle
E: Jon@eHardcastle.com
'Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.'

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Re: Fwd: Majordomo results: Re: Majordomo results: .

[Felipe Alvarez]

> The beauty of that being that when all the drives
> have been retired/failed and the smallest partition
> size is now 500GB or whatever you can
> --grow=max and get that unused space.
>
Thanks. That's a good idea, because I would eventually like to make
the array larger than it is as the drives get replaced, one at a time.
Would the command be:
$ mdadm --grow /dev/md0 --size=max DEVICE1 DEVICE2 DEVICE3 DEVICE4

Felipe

Re: Fwd: Majordomo results: Re: Majordomo results: .

[Jon Hardcastle]

--- On Wed, 24/2/10, Felipe Alvarez <felipe.alvarez@gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Felipe Alvarez <felipe.alvarez@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Fwd: Majordomo results: Re: Majordomo results: .
> To: Jon@ehardcastle.com
> Cc: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org
> Date: Wednesday, 24 February, 2010, 9:45
> > The beauty of that being that
> when all the drives
> > have been retired/failed and the smallest partition
> > size is now 500GB or whatever you can
> > --grow=max and get that unused space.
> >
> Thanks. That's a good idea, because I would eventually like
> to make
> the array larger than it is as the drives get replaced, one
> at a time.
> Would the command be:
> $ mdadm --grow /dev/md0 --size=max DEVICE1 DEVICE2 DEVICE3
> DEVICE4
> 
> Felipe
> --

Think it is simply mdadm --grow /dev/md0 --size=max 

But speaking from experience you'll likely run out of space before the bitter pill of retiring the drives/being unlucky enough for them to fail happens. You'll be adding new drives before you know it! And then... you'll probably want to consider RAID6 once you go over ~1TB per drive.