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I wish to stop using RAID 5 and return to a series of individual drives. How can I do this without losing the data?

I'm using intel rapid storage technology

lankylad
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2 Answers2

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If the total amount of data on the array is less then the capacity of a single drive, you can remove one drive from the array and format it as a normal drive, then copy over the data and after that, dismantle the rest of the array.

If the amount is larger than a single drive, it's impossible. It's also impossible to step down from a RAID without copying the data around at all.

Anyway, as you absolutely need a reliable and up-to-date backup anyway, it's easier to make that backup, dismantle the array and restore from the backup.

Sven
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  • I had hoped that there would be an easy command that would undo the Raid volume, but that's unfortunately not the case. – lankylad Feb 08 '14 at 22:12
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I wish to stop using RAID 5 and return to a series of individual drives. How can I do this without losing the data?

Trivial.

  • Copy the data over to other storage. You do that regularly to take backups.
  • Break the Raid 5
  • Format the new drives
  • Cpopy the data back.

Besides that - no way. Simple like that. Being a profesoinal administrator you do take backups, right?

TomTom
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  • I'm holding copies of my music and films on the array so the backup is the original media. – lankylad Feb 08 '14 at 22:12
  • Well, then - superuser.com is a better site for you. In case you did not bother to read the FAQ, this place here is for questions in a professional admin context. The proper answer to backups here is "I have a tape drive" or "I have a disc based backup system", not "it is my home cd collection". – TomTom Feb 09 '14 at 06:36