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Raid 5 spare? Help

Erfurt
By Erfurt
in Storage Devices
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Posted

Hey guys, I have a kind of theoretical question to ask you.

 

So I'm planning on making a small home file/media server. And I want to have a raid 5 over three drives, to start with. I want to make it raid 5 with a spare disk. But at the moment I don't have the money to buy another disk (already have three disks that i will be using). I was wondering if it's something I can do rather easily, or if I have to rebuild the raid from scratch. I should mention that I will be using Linux ubuntu for the server OS, and it will be a software raid.

 

Any help would be lovely and very much appreciated :)

 

I should also mention, that I'm not interested in hearing that I shouldn't be using raid 5 with a spare disk. I have already decided, that I will use it :)

My setup: i5 3570K  - Corsair H100i - MSI Z77 GD65 - 256 GB Samsung 840 pro SSD - Corsair AX760i - Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 2GB - 4x4 GB Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracer RAM - Corsair Carbide 500R (modded side window)

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Posted

Hey guys, I have a kind of theoretical question to ask you.

 

So I'm planning on making a small home file/media server. And I want to have a raid 5 over three drives, to start with. I want to make it raid 5 with a spare disk. But at the moment I don't have the money to buy another disk (already have three disks that i will be using). I was wondering if it's something I can do rather easily, or if I have to rebuild the raid from scratch. I should mention that I will be using Linux ubuntu for the server OS, and it will be a software raid.

 

Any help would be lovely and very much appreciated :)

 

I should also mention, that I'm not interested in hearing that I shouldn't be using raid 5 with a spare disk. I have already decided, that I will use it :)

You are going to want to check the controller. I know some don't support this. Every RAID controller I have used (admittedly they where all enterprise controllers) supported adding new disks to an array, or changing the RAID type (i.e. 5->6). 

 

For the software RAID in linux, I am sure it is possible like a HW controller, you'd just need someone with Linux knowledge to fill you in.

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Posted

-snip-

 

Yeah, you will have to look at the RAID controller's manual. Some do, some do not. My LSI MegaRAID 9260CV-8i does not. For my RAID card, all hot spares have to be created at the same time with the original array, otherwise you have to rebuild the whole thing.

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