RE: status of raid 4/5 disk reduce

-----Original Message-----
From: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org [mailto:linux-raid-
owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of Mikael Abrahamsson
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 8:47 AM
To: John Robinson
Cc: Linux RAID
Subject: Re: status of raid 4/5 disk reduce

On Thu, 11 Dec 2008, John Robinson wrote:

quoted

But my 1U server only physically has room for 4 drives. It doesn't
matter how many extra controllers I buy, I can't attach more drives.

You can use a temporary external eSATA enclosure, pvmove the data if
you're using LVM, then take downtime when you exchange your new drives
into the internal drive bays (or you could even move them one by one

by

hotremoving one drive from the eSATA enclosure into the internal drive
bays.

--
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike@swm.pp.se
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid"
in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Or you can crack open another PC and get power from that via long power
cables. Since you have a rack-mounted system, chances are good you have
more rack-mounted systems.   Of course this is still all moot, because
John insists that the RAID reduce function doesn't need to address
reducing mounted file systems  ... and your 1U system is booted to the
very file system that needs to be reduced.

So we have come full circle.  A md reduce isn't practical unless it
includes on-line file system support, which is a deal-killer as it not
only requires massive development efforts outside of the LINUX RAID
group, but has to be done in conjunction with the developers in this
group.  

Just suck it up and mount all the disks somehow (or use backup).  Either
give up on resizing, or install Solaris with ZFS boot, then you can
resize all  you want.


David