[PLUG] Can RAID0 be converted to RAID5?

[Chris Jantzen]

On Tue, Aug 17, 2004 at 10:55:42PM -0700, Scott Van Hoosen wrote:
> I've got a server with two 9 GB SCSI drives, striped. I have a third 9
> GB drive, and was wondering if it is possible (or practical) to add the
> third drive, convert the RAID0 array to RAID5, with the new drive as
> parity, without losing data...

Convert RAID0 to RAID5: Theoretically? Maybe. Practically? No.

However, what you are describing is RAID4, actually. In RAID5, parity
is distributed across all of the drives, so a conversion process would
have to very carefully restripe all the data row by row. RAID4 support
does exist in the kernel. What you might try, if you really want to
pursue this, is to try modifying the configuration to describe your
existing array as a degraded RAID4 array missing its other drive. Then
hot add the new drive and watch it rebuild. In theory. Possibly.

-- 
chris kb7rnl =->
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