Hello,

I have a file server setup with Ubuntu 12.x, where the OS (Ubuntu) is installed to an SSD and I have a software raid on 4 other harddrives. Today, the OS drive crashed. I was able to boot into Helix and get the mdadm.conf off, but nothing else would read and after another reboot I could not read anything. It still seems like the drive is dead now as well.

I ordered another SSD from newegg and was hoping it would be a straightforward task to get the raid readable again by reinstalling Ubuntu on the new SSD and then loading the old mdadm.conf on it. From there, hopefully the raid would just be readable and start as normal.

Will this work? Is there something else I should know about the process?

Thanks!!

I don't know the answer to your question.

But I have a question myself. Since RAID is designed to keep your system up and running when faced with a disk failure, why would you RAID the other disks, but NOT the most important one ... your OS disk?

The OS only holds config files and runs some daemons (FTP,CIFS,etc). All the important data is on the RAID. I am fairly certain I can just reinstall the OS and use the old config and my RAID will come back to life, but wanted to double check before doing it.

Thanks for your thoughts on RAID. I always felt RAID was for keeping systems running when faced with a disk failure, not for backup.

I hope it will be simple for you to get your system back up and running. I would think it should be, but I have no experience to back up that hunch. Good luck!