CentOS Increasing Raid volume

fixx

fixx

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2006
Messages
288
Reaction score
7
Location
South Africa
Hi Guys

I have a file server running raid 0. The raid 0 consists of a 1TB drive and a 2TB drive. The 1TB started giving SMART warnings and has bad sectors. I would like to replace it with a 2TB drive so that my raid volume consists of 2 x 2TB drives instead of the 1TB and the 2TB.

The key is, I don't wanna have to reinstall if possible.

So I want to use clonezilla and clone the 1TB raw to the the 2TB so I can just swap them around, but I want to harness the full capacity of the new 2TB.

If I clone them, it will only transfer the 1TB partition. So, how can I expand that raid0 volume after the cloning of the drives?

Thanks a mil.
 
fixx said:
Hi Guys

I have a file server running raid 0. The raid 0 consists of a 1TB drive and a 2TB drive. The 1TB started giving SMART warnings and has bad sectors. I would like to replace it with a 2TB drive so that my raid volume consists of 2 x 2TB drives instead of the 1TB and the 2TB.

The key is, I don't wanna have to reinstall if possible.

So I want to use clonezilla and clone the 1TB raw to the the 2TB so I can just swap them around, but I want to harness the full capacity of the new 2TB.

If I clone them, it will only transfer the 1TB partition. So, how can I expand that raid0 volume after the cloning of the drives?

Thanks a mil.
Click to expand...

You should be able to clone the disk then resize the partition afterwards. But please make sure you have a recoverable backup before attempting
 
Save yourself any hassles:

1. Make sure your backups are up to date.
2. Destroy the array.
3. Create a new array with the new disk installed.
4. Restores files.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Save yourself any hassles:

1. Make sure your backups are up to date.
2. Destroy the array.
3. Create a new array with the new disk installed.
4. Restores files.
Click to expand...

+1

This will save you a lot of hassles.

And as Tinuva said, RAID 0 is wrong for a file server. Almost any other configuration will be better.
 
heahehae, yes yes I know!
The file server only holds my movies and series and stuff, there is absolutely no critical information on it (maybe one bind zone, but that gets backed up to Crashplan).

I make monthly rsync dumps to my NAS at the office of all the warez on the file server so I have a fairly recent copy of the stuff on it. I just don't want to reinstall Linux and samba thats all. I did however ordered another drive to expand my raid 0 volume :p

I will just bite a bullet and re install after adding the extra drive.

I know, raid0 is bad but its really not such critical data :)
 
Ok cool. Rather call it a media server then :P Fileserver make it sound like the data is more important than just media :P
 
Never seen the benefit of raid 0 for a media server. The bit of ease of use from using a "single" drive always seems pointless compared to the risk. My media server has grown from two disks (excluding disk for o/s) to eight over the last 4 or 5 years with several being changed for size upgrade or smart errors. The original o/s still running smoothly, and disk changes hardly requiring breaking a sweat.
 
PoisonedPawn said:
Never seen the benefit of raid 0 for a media server. The bit of ease of use from using a "single" drive always seems pointless compared to the risk. My media server has grown from two disks (excluding disk for o/s) to eight over the last 4 or 5 years with several being changed for size upgrade or smart errors. The original o/s still running smoothly, and disk changes hardly requiring breaking a sweat.
Click to expand...
My media storage also grew with time, to where I sold all my old drives, and built a fileserver, running raidz2 on 6 drives, upgrade-able in pairs of 6 going forward (can be different but I decided for optimal performance to keep to a standard) with the OS running on 2x SSDs in raid1 (raidz mirrors actually). This server case can take 24 drives in it's hotswap bayes, with the OS drives in pci brakets which is also hot-swappable from behind.
 
Got bitten by RAID 0 as well. Never using it again. Too dangerous.

Array consisted of 3 disks. 2nd disk started to flake out.

Luckily I was able to copy data off before the 2nd disk packed up totally.

Learnt my lesson. Only RAID 5/RAID 6 or better from now on.
 
fixx said:
OK so, I decided to buy another hard drive and do raid5 :p
Click to expand...
Good choice :)

I currently use 4TB drives in my Media Server. Imagine if they were raid 0 or even just JBOD. Losing a single 4TB drive...thats a lot of data to restore from the internet, and that is even if I can find everything again!
 
Tinuva said:
Good choice :)

I currently use 4TB drives in my Media Server. Imagine if they were raid 0 or even just JBOD. Losing a single 4TB drive...thats a lot of data to restore from the internet, and that is even if I can find everything again!
Click to expand...

The reason I invested in a tape drive backup solution. Raid is definitely not a replacement for backups, I learned that the hard way a while back :D
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
The reason I invested in a tape drive backup solution. Raid is definitely not a replacement for backups, I learned that the hard way a while back :D
Click to expand...
True, but it is a personal media server, and I have 2 parity drives vs just 1. Also instead of opting for 2 parity drives in a 10 drive configuration, I settled for 2 parity drives in a 6 drive configuration.

Also instead of waiting for a crash to happen, I run a scheduled check once a month at least to ensure consistency over the raid. Still, this is for personal home use, so doubt I need tapes.
 
Tinuva said:
True, but it is a personal media server, and I have 2 parity drives vs just 1. Also instead of opting for 2 parity drives in a 10 drive configuration, I settled for 2 parity drives in a 6 drive configuration.

Also instead of waiting for a crash to happen, I run a scheduled check once a month at least to ensure consistency over the raid. Still, this is for personal home use, so doubt I need tapes.
Click to expand...

Well, I got the tape unit for a bit of a bargain so gives me piece of mind for very little initial outlay. Tapes are a bit pricy though, at R300 per 800GB but will rather spend the extra than have to sit with 6TB of data loss.

The failure I had last time wasn't due to the disks failing but due to a controller failing which took two of my disks offline while the server was busy trying to write to them, I only have raid5 so was catastrophic. I'm actually contemplating getting rid of raid altogether and just using single disks now that I have a proper backup solution capable of handling TBs of data.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X