I've got a really old Linux Server which began life as a Ubuntu Server V5.10 and has been upgraded over the years (currently V14.04.03).

I'm considering retiring the motherboard/CPU and transplanting into a more modern system.

My primary concern is that this system currently uses a mdadm RAID-0 configuration with 8TB of critical data on it. Can a Linux mdadm software RAID be transplanted onto a new Linux installation without losing any data?

On my Windows Server there is a feature called Microsoft Storage spaces, which is their software RAID and I recently experienced a motherboard failure. To my surprise, I was able to replace the motherboard and CPU and the new Windows installation instantly recognized the software RAID and I didn't lose any data.

I'm hoping it's a similar situation on this Linux server; that I can put this mdadm RAID into a new Linux server and it can mount the mdadm raid with all the previous data intact?

Is this possible?

It can't be too critical if you are running RAID 0.

If you move the drives to a system with a different hostname you will have to assemble the array manually. If the hostname is the same it should automatically assemble. Drive order doesn't matter.

Yes it is mission critical to the business (kindly spare the lecture). Everyone knows that RAID is not a backup solution, its only an emergency hardware failure solution and this org has automated nightly backups. They have run RAID-0 for over a decade and have never lost data.

Fantastic, thank you.

Not RAID 0!

RAID 0 actually INCREASES the risk of failure, there is ZERO redundancy. Every drive that's added to the array makes it even MORE likely to fail and lose everything.

If the system is regularly backed up, then why is this data so critical? And if the data is so critical, why on EARTH would ANYONE stick it on a RAID 0??? RAID 0 should NEVER be used for ANY application where data integrity is even a remote concern.

I find that impossible to believe. Unless they're regularly digging into their backups to recover the entire array every time they have a failure.

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Believe or don't believe it, makes no difference to me. I'm just stating the facts.

Never lost any data, never had a drive failure, and never restored from backups unless migrating to a larger RAID-0 array.

In any event, I'm not here to debate RAID types. I just need to be sure that if I replace this ancient motherboard and CPU that I can drop the existing RAID-0 into the new server without compromising the data in that array and according to the Linux RAID wiki it appears I can do this.