On 7/25/2011 4:05 PM, Brian Mathis wrote: >> On 7/25/2011 1:42 PM, Brian Mathis wrote: >>> >>> I've wondered many times, though haven't tried it, if the issues with >>> hard links and backuppc could be solved by using a container file with >>> a loopback mount, and then that file could be moved around as needed >>> without running into hard-link issues. >>> >>> In this case, you could format the external drive in the optimal mode >>> for 4k sectors, then create a container file and mount it using >>> loopback. Then add the loopback device to the mdraid and have it >>> sync. >> >> It doesn't really help with the problem as it stands, which is that the >> target disk (a swappable sata, not really external) has no extra space >> that would permit shifting the alignment. It might work to shrink the >> existing size, then partition the new drives with the right offset, but >> I may just start from scratch and keep the old drives around in case I >> need the old history. > > I thought this was a 3-disk RAID1? Can't you repartition the hotswap > disk and still have the data on the other 2? Why would you need to > shrink the existing partition? Just blow it away and resync the data > once you rebuild the disk. The disk I want to add is the same size as the existing disks if expressed in 512 byte sectors - and they have one partition taking all of the disk space. If I add a leading offset to get the 4k alignment, there won't be enough room for the existing partition size. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com