[CentOS] Software Raids Questions (I have only ever used hardware?)

James Bensley

jwbensley at gmail.com
Sun Sep 27 20:03:55 UTC 2009


Hey List;

I have no experience with software RAIDs; at work we only use hardware
RAIDs and I'm looking to implement, probably a RAID 5 set up at home
for a media server however I have a few questions;

I have three 1TB drives in various places; one is inside a USB caddy,
one is inside my PC and in is inside my existing media centre.

Is it possible to add these three drives to another one to give me
4TBs of space in a RAID setup without having to wipe the drives as in
my experience which is only with hardware RAIDs, I have normally
formatted all the disks before creating the RAID? The thing is, if
that is the case I will need to transfer 3TB of stuff somewhere (I
have an idea where, if this were the case), make the RAID then
transfer it all back but I really don't want to do that as I'm sure
you can imagine.

Also, if the above where possible; in the future could I then keep
adding more drives and expanding the RAID?

Note: Obviously I know for this to be a RAID 5 I would need extra
drives but the RAID level is undecided, but provisionally I think it
will be RAID 5.

On a side note, I cobbled together my new media centre running Ubuntu
but I might move it back to CentOS, it was originally CentOS and that
is my favoured distro, but I would rather not now it is running Ubuntu
happily I'm just wondering, is this all achievable in Ubuntu? Granted
people on the CentOS mailing list might not know that, but if anyone
knows that it is all achievable in CentOS then I would move back?

Thanks for reading.

Regards,
James ;)

-- 

Ted Turner  - "Sports is like a war without the killing." -
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/ted_turner.html



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