remove disk from raid 5 array

[Shane Vincent]

Hi i have 3x144Gb + 1x72Gb currently in raid 5 array (total 216Gb avalible space), can i remove the 1x72Gb completly from array to be left with total 288Gb avalible space??

[Basil Vizgin · Accepted solution]

No, you must replace it with 144Gb and only after this you can use all space.

[Joe Martinello]

Hi All, Nobody has answered the real question and I have the same question can you remove a drive from a raid array to make it a smaller size. Have 5 72GB drives in a raid 5 array. Would like to remove one and make it a 4 drive raid array. Without recreating everything from scratch. I know I can do a backup remake the arrays and a restore but would like to avoid that.

Thank you,

joe

[Mike Naime]

I do not believe that you can do that. When you create a Raidset, you setup some basic allocation on where your data and the copy/parity of the data is stored. You would have to re-format the raid to spread that same data across 3 volumes instead of 4.

The configuration that you are listing above seems real strange. I wonder who decided to make it a 4 volume set with one mis-matched drive. Rather than to make a 3-drive 288 GB LUN.

[Shane Vincent]

Hi Mike, The reason for the strange config was that i had acted before researching lol, i assumed that i could upgrade from 4x72Gb to 3x144 and hence the question.