On 2004-03-31 at 08:24:34-0600 "Rodolfo J. Paiz" <rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > At 05:14 3/31/2004, you wrote: > > > I'm thinking about setting up a software raid level 5. > > Is it possible to start with 3 HDs and then later add more? > > I mean, without loosing the data on the first 3 HDs. > > Yes, on most *good* hardware RAID cards and also (I think) on Linux > software RAID. Linux software RAID (md) cannot do this: you can add and remove hotspares at will, but the number of active disks in the RAID 5 array is set when the array is created, and cannot be changed. If you're using RAID 1+0 (i.e., striping across a series of mirrors), you can do what you want by juggling degraded arrays. -- James Ralston, Information Technology Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
