Score:1

How to delete an inactive RAID array - Centos 6

cn flag

I have recently resized a logical volume group and a logical volume to fit into a RAID-0 configuration on Centos 6.10 system. Everything seems to be working fine.

However, the disk utility shows two Raid arrays, one with a status of "clean" and "running", the other with a status of "inactive" and "not running, partially assembled".

The clean one is named on /dev/md125 and has all the good stuff, e.g. the root volume and the lvm physical volume.

The second one is named /dev/md126, and the disk utility reveals little detail other than what I've previously described.

here's the output of the "mdadm --detail" command:

[root@Centos6svr guest]# mdadm --detail /dev/md125
/dev/md125:
      Container : /dev/md/imsm0, member 0
     Raid Level : raid0
     Array Size : 1937872896 (1848.10 GiB 1984.38 GB)
   Raid Devices : 2
  Total Devices : 2

          State : clean 
 Active Devices : 2
Working Devices : 2
 Failed Devices : 0
  Spare Devices : 0

     Chunk Size : 128K


           UUID : 2eac1934:ec8965c9:96e64de0:00020788
    Number   Major   Minor   RaidDevice State
       1       8        0        0      active sync   /dev/sda
       0       8       16        1      active sync   /dev/sdb
[root@Centos6svr guest]# mdadm --detail /dev/md126
/dev/md126:
        Version : imsm
     Raid Level : container
  Total Devices : 2

Working Devices : 2


           UUID : ec0c211b:e1d9358d:38d5ecf1:2a09f082
  Member Arrays : /dev/md/Volume1_0

    Number   Major   Minor   RaidDevice

       0       8        0        -        /dev/sda
       1       8       16        -        /dev/sdb

I'm not sure how this got there, or if it existed on the previous image. I had to delete and recreate the RAID volume initially, using the "ctrl-I" option from the bootup display.

It seems like it's harmless, but all the same I'd like to get rid of it. Any ideas how?

in flag
Which partitions are you actually using? The only way to get rid of these is probably to nuke/zero the part of the disk that contains this meta information. One thing to note here that this is `imsm` and not regular `md`, which might need consideration when searching for information on this.
Score:0
cn flag

This is normal for Intel Matrix Storage Manager (imsm) raid. It uses containers which do show up as separate md devices.

From the mdadm manpage:

          imsm   Use the Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager metadata format.
                 This creates a CONTAINER which is managed in a similar
                 manner to DDF, and is supported by an option-rom on some
                 platforms:

                 http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/matrixstorage_sb.htm

You can see in your output it says Raid Level : container and contains the member array, which in turn refers back to its container.

Don't change anything or you'll break it.

If you don't like this, you'd have to migrate to native mdadm metadata.

mangohost

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