Raid Question with a NAS

[magibeg]

This isn't really a problem so much as a theoretical question. Right now i'm running a thecus n5550 NAS in raid 5. What would happen if i put in another hard drive not with the purpose of running raid. Would that drive be accessible or would the NAS want me to rebuild the RAID to include that new hard drive? A friend of mine needs files pulled from a hard drive and i was curious if i could slip it in, pull the files he wants, then pull the drive after with no negative consequences on my current setup.

 

[Geekoid]

I have a caddy for that sort of thing I don't have any direct experience with the exact model you have, but I do have a different Thecus device and in that you have to manually add a drive to a RAID set - it won't automatically just add it regardless. Without a caddy, you should be able to just pop it into your regular desktop anyway?

 

[magibeg]

I have a caddy for that sort of thing I don't have any direct experience with the exact model you have, but I do have a different Thecus device and in that you have to manually add a drive to a RAID set - it won't automatically just add it regardless. Without a caddy, you should be able to just pop it into your regular desktop anyway?

Yea it was more of a theoretical question than anything, but I didn't want to try it and have a negative consequence.

 

[fretrvxd]

Are you using a single drive with 4 partitions in RAID5?

As stated by the other poster, backup any data you don't want to loose. And if you are using a single drive in your RAID5, then backup everything.

To actually answer your question, if you lost Ubuntu, you can boot from a live media or simply reinstall the OS to access your RAID. Ubuntu uses md for software RAID. The config file is stored in /etc/mdadm.conf or /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf. The config file is only used to start your RAID automatically so it is no big deal if you loose it. Each device in your RAID5 will contain metadata (stored in the superblock) about the RAID so you can easily start it manually by specifying each device.

You can do "man mdadm" or search for mdadm in your favorite browser for more reading.