Home > Linux, RAID > Useful Mdadm Commands

Useful Mdadm Commands

December 16th, 2007 Leave a comment Go to comments

Below is a collection of commands for mdadm that I have found useful. Use these at your own risk.

Create RAID

mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=5 --raid-devices=4 /dev/sd[bcde]1
mkfs.ext3 /dev/md0

Remove disk from RAID

mdadm --fail /dev/md0 /dev/sda1
mdadm --remove /dev/md0 /dev/sda1

Copy the partition structure (when replacing a failed drive)

sfdisk -d /dev/sda | sfdisk /dev/sdb 
mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sdb

Force the kernel to reread the partition table

partprobe

Add a disk to a RAID array (to replace a removed failed drive)

mdadm --add /dev/md0 /dev/sdf1

Check RAID status

cat /proc/mdstat
mdadm --detail /dev/md0

Reassemble a group of RAID disks

mdadm --assemble /dev/md0 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdd1 /dev/sde1

Steps to emulate mdrun (which has been depreciated)

mdadm --examine --scan --config=partitions > /tmp/mdadm.conf
mdadm --assemble --scan --config=/tmp/mdadm.conf

Convert a RAID 1 array to RAID 5 (follow the steps to add a disk after running this command)

mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=5 -n 2 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1

Add a disk to an existing RAID and resize the filesystem

mdadm --add /dev/md0 /dev/sdg1
mdadm --grow /dev/md0 -n 5
fsck.ext3 -f /dev/md0
resize2fs /dev/md0

Stop and remove the RAID device

mdadm --stop /dev/md0
mdadm --remove /dev/md0
Categories: Linux, RAID Tags:
  1. pmichel
    October 5th, 2012 at 15:32 | #1

    Thanks for the info,
    I’m re-setupping a failed array…
    short story:

    I had a Raid 5 with 4 disks,
    I wanted to replace a failed drive, because I could not afford to lose another disk
    and when I inserted a new drive, (freshly fdisk’ed)
    and added it to the array,
    mdadm somehow identified the disk as a disk that was used in the array a long time ago, and I went from a perfectly working degraded array, to a completely screwed up array…I lost everything

    I thought to myself…how can mdadm be so stupid !!?

    So..
    Now I want to do a lot of adding/removing to make sure I have the proper set of commands

  1. No trackbacks yet.