Dismantle Raid 1 Array, then re-assemble...?
 

Hi Everyone,

I have a Linux software raid 1 on 2 drives at home. Is it possible to dismantle that array (as in pull the drive out for use in another machine), so that only 1 drive is operational...

Then, in a little while reformat and add that drive back to the array?


If so, how hard is this to do on a Linux Software raid?

Cheers,
Justin

Very easy. After you --fail and --remove the drive you can take it out. (Actually, unless you can hotswap, just take it out before booting up)
This obviously requires that your machine is still bootable with the leftover drive (BIOS- and grub-wise).

Then later put the drive back in and --add it.

Hey, Thanks for your reply...

The drive is used as storage only, so no system files are on it...

When you say --fail and --remove, what command is that for, as when i setup the raid, it was in the graphical setup of opensuse 10.2...?

Cheers,
Justin

Hi Justin,

sorry, I just assumed that mdadm would be the natural tool for softraid. Anyway, that's it: mdadm.

Hi rupertwh,

Thank you very much for the help. Much appreciated.

Cheers,
Justin