raid 5 volume question

[bluesherpa]

Will installing an additional drive allow you increase the size of an existing raid 5 volume? Or do you have to delete the old volume and create a new one that includes the additional drive?

Thanks,
Ed

 

[bluesherpa]

I've continued to research this and I'm not sure if I have a complete answer, but I thought I would share what I've found so far.

So far...

It seems as if the answer depends on the raid controller and on whether you're trying to expand a system / boot. Some raid controllers support volume expansion, while others don't. Some operating systems will let you expand data volumes.

If anyone knows better, please clarify.

-Ed

 

[nbat58]

Will installing an additional drive allow you increase the size of an existing raid 5 volume? Or do you have to delete the old volume and create a new one that includes the additional drive?

Thanks,
Ed

I would sujest you do a thorough research on your controller or Raid system you're using before you start deleting volumes, you don't want to loose all of your precious data.

 

[thiggins]

It depends on what the NAS supports for RAID expansion. If you start with a minimum three-drive RAID 5, adding a fourth drive will add additional volume capacity.

But if you have an N drive NAS and replace one of the drives with a larger-capacity drive, the volume size doesn't change. You need to swap out all the drives (one at a time and wait for a volume rebuild each time) with larger capacity drives before you get a larger volume.

Keep in mind that if a drive fails during the expansion, you'll probably lose the volume. But that's ok, since you'll have a backup on another device any way, right?