On 1/13/13 11:00 AM, "chris" [off-list ref] wrote:

Neil/Dave,

Is it not possible to create imsm container with missing disk?
If not, Is there any way to recreate the array with all disks but
prevent any kind of sync which may overwrite array data?

The example was in that link I sent:

mdadm --create /dev/md/imsm /dev/sd[bde] -e imsm
mdadm --create /dev/md/vol0 /dev/sde missing /dev/sdb /dev/sdd -n 4 -l 5

The first command marks all devices as spares.  The second creates the
degraded array.
 
You probably want at least sdb and sdd in there since they have a copy of
the metadata.

--
Dan