[rhelv6-list] Megaraid on RHEL6: Replacing the disks in a RAID-5, one after the other..?

[Michael Schumacher]

Hi Vincent,

Monday, September 16, 2013, 10:38:09 PM, you wrote:


> I have a Dell T410 with hot-swap bays that hold the following config:

[...]

> I'm currently wondering if I could just swap the disks one after the other
> (waiting for the resync to finish in-between swaps) and then extend the Logical
> Drive.

That way you would have to go through three rebuild processes with a
large RAID5 array. I think that is too risky.

I did that recently in a different way. These were the steps:

-- connect first new drive temporarily to the computer (via USB or
SATA)
-- copy about 3TB data from RAID to the first drive
-- connect second new drive and continue filling it with data from the
array.
-- now you have two copies of your data.
-- tear apart the old RAID5 and copy all data from the new drives to
the individual old drives.
-- only one copy of data existing at this time!!
-- take new drives and build RAID5 array
-- copy data from old drives to new drives.

Advantage of my method. If a drive fails, about a third of my data is
gone, but not all of it. You could use the remaining space on the
drives for additional copies of your data.

You should consider using RAID6 :-)


 best regards
---
Michael Schumacher
PAMAS Partikelmess- und Analysesysteme GmbH
Dieselstr.10, D-71277 Rutesheim
Tel +49-7152-99630
Fax +49-7152-996333
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