From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Leslie Rhorer" Subject: RE: Growing a RAID array Date: Fri, 13 May 2011 00:57:41 -0500 Message-ID: <6C.05.28813.F48CCCD4@cdptpa-omtalb.mail.rr.com> References: <20110513112313.54fbb717@notabene.brown> Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <20110513112313.54fbb717@notabene.brown> Sender: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org To: 'NeilBrown' Cc: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-raid.ids > -----Original Message----- > From: NeilBrown [mailto:neilb@suse.de] > Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2011 8:23 PM > To: lrhorer@satx.rr.com > Cc: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org > Subject: Re: Growing a RAID array > > On Thu, 12 May 2011 20:02:01 -0500 "Leslie Rhorer" > wrote: > > > > > I am shortly going to be growing a 10 drive RAID6 array with two > > additional drives. Can this be done in a single grow operation by > setting > > n=12, or do I have to grow it 1 drive at a time? > > > > Experiment with loop-back devices created on modest sized files. > > > (but yes, you can grow by any number you like. You should test the drives > fairly heavily first, because if they both die during the reshape, you > lose > your data). Actually, the "drives" won't be physical drives, but RAID0 volumes made of 2 drives each. 'Ugly, I know, but I really have little choice for the time being. As to losing the data, this is a backup system in the first place, and all its data is backed up to offline storage, as well, so a loss of data would not be the most hideous thing ever. All four drives have been operating continuously without error for over a year, having been completely read and written over several times, so I'm pretty confidant of their reliability, enough so I don't think any additional testing is worth the time and effort.