I've got a small server ( 4 drive bays ) with a RAID1 (mirrored) md
array on two drives that I'd like to convert to RAID5 ( adding two new
drives -- one active and one as a spare).
I'm starting with 4 drives. Two active in the current mirror and two
unused. The process I'm considering:
Fail and remove a drive from the current md mirror, leaving three
unused drives
Create a new RAID5 array
Add the new md RAID5 device as a member of the degraded mirror
Wait for mirror to sync (thus copying the existing data to the new
device)
fail the remaining drive in the RAID mirror
remove the old md device
update GRUB and boot from the new RAID5 device
Does anyone know if md can be used recursively like that? More
importantly -- will if cause major problems if I try? I'm guessing that
md won't let me do it; but it sure would be easier than moving the files
by hand.
Dave Alitz