Clearing drive for removal

[devros]

Two questions here.

 

1) if I'm running the command "dd bs=1M if=/dev/zero of=/dev/md1 status=progress" in screen so I can zero the drive and then remove it from the array without losing parity, is reason I couldn't just suspend the process this evening when the server is going to be under high use and then resume it much later tonight?  Based on what it's doing I think that should be ok.

 

2) if I have a new, bigger drive that I have already pre-cleared could I just change the drive assignment and preserve parity?

[JonathanM]

If you are replacing the drive, why not just do the normal drive replacement procedure?

 

For parity to remain valid, the bits on the drive you are removing must be exactly the same as the bits on the replacement. So, either both the old and new drives must be all zeroes, or the new drive rebuilt from parity to match the old drive, or rebuild parity based on the new drive content.

 

I suppose you could pause the zeroing process, I've never tried.

[devros]

Looking like the Plex server is going to survive the night without me having to pause.  I was originally just going to remove a drive, but then realized I had a larger one that was already pre-cleared around, so figured I would just try to kill two birds with one reboot.