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Reducing a RAID Set?

 
Ayman Altounji
Valued Contributor

Reducing a RAID Set?

Is it possible to reduce a raid set from 5 drives to 4? If so how, Thanks.

Brian
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Mark Cloutier
Respected Contributor

Re: Reducing a RAID Set?

no it is not...it will always be looking for the extra drive for the parity calculation...technically if you pull the fifth drive the raid will still work as it will calculate the missing bit (as raid 5 is designed to do) however you will have a slower access time on the drives AND no raid 5 reliability ie if another drive goes your toast...the only way around this is to backup your data..then remove the 5th drive...destroy the raid set as it exists now and recreate it with four drives and then restore your data to it...note make sure the data being backed up will fit on the new set..
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