From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "John Stoffel" Subject: Re: Removing a failing drive from multiple arrays Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:35:40 -0400 Message-ID: <20369.29756.761374.308057@quad.stoffel.home> References: <4F905F66.6070803@tmr.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <4F905F66.6070803@tmr.com> Sender: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org To: Bill Davidsen Cc: Linux RAID List-Id: linux-raid.ids Bill> I have a failing drive, and partitions are in multiple Bill> arrays. Ugh! Why? This is why I love LVM on top of MD. I just mirror drives, then carve them up as needed. Yes, you need to have two (or more) drives of the same approximate size, but that's easy. Mirroring partitions just seems to be asking for trouble to me. Bill> I'm looking for the least painful and most reliable way Bill> to replace it. It's internal, I have a twin in an external box, Bill> and can create all the parts now and then swap the drive Bill> physically. The layout is complex, here's what blkdevtra tells Bill> me about this device, the full trace is attached. Bill> Block device sdd, logical device 8:48 Bill> Model Family: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 Bill> Device Model: ST3750640AS Bill> Serial Number: 5QD330ZW Bill> Device size 732.575 GB Bill> sdd1 0.201 GB Bill> sdd2 3.912 GB Bill> sdd3 24.419 GB Bill> sdd4 0.000 GB Bill> sdd5 48.838 GB [md123] /mnt/workspace Bill> sdd6 0.498 GB Bill> sdd7 19.543 GB [md125] Bill> sdd8 29.303 GB [md126] Bill> sdd9 605.859 GB [md127] /exports/common Bill> Unpartitioned 0.003 GB Bill> I think what I want to do is to partition the new drive, then one array Bill> at a time fail and remove the partition on the bad drive, and add a Bill> partition on the new good drive. Then repeat for each array until all Bill> are complete and on a new drive. Then I should be able to power off, Bill> remove the failed drive, put the good drive in the case, and the arrays Bill> should reassemble by UUID. Sounds like a plan to me, esp if you script it and let it do all the work over night while you're asleep. Bill> Does that sound right? Is there an easier way? Niel has the better way if you're running a new kernel, but since that implies downtime anyway... I doubt you'll do it until you've got the data moved. Personally, I'd move to LVM on top of MD to make life simpler... John