[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Replacement RAID hard drives - do they have to be "clean"?



On 16/09/14 03:03 PM, Ken Heard wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

One of my boxes has a RAID1 using two Seagate SATA 3.0 1 tb hard drives.
  I need to replace one of them, and I would like to use as a replacement
a Samsung SATA 2.0 1 tb drive which already has on it data which I do
not need to keep.

My first question is: although both drives are the same size, can I get
away with having one drive a Seagate 3.0 and the other Samsung 2.0?

It occurred to me that if I made the change described in the first
paragraph -- but without somehow making the data already on it
unreadable -- there would be a different data set on each drive; so that
the RAID1 software would not necessarily know which drive should be the
data source to copy to the other drive.  It also occurred to me that the
software could combine the data on each drive, so that both drives would
have both data sets.

I consequently assume that the data on the replacement drive must
somehow be made unreadable.  Is that assumption correct?  If so, do the
data have to be "shredded", or is it sufficient simply either to
"delete" them or simply reformat the drive?

Finally, once I have a "clean" new drive installed, will the RAID1
copying process partition the new drive the same way as the other drive
and copy the files without further human intervention?

Regards, Ken Heard


Any replacement drive has to be large enough to hold the RAID data. If your current RAID1 array is 3T, you cannot add a 2T drive to it without first shrinking the file system then the RAID array.

You could however copy all the data to a new RAID1 array consisting of the 2T drive only, then add a 3T drive to it. The new array will again only hold 2T.


Reply to: