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How to move a Linux software RAID setup from 1 server to another (Debian)

de flag

Currently, I have three USB drives running as a RAID-5 set on a Debian-9 server. All is well. I would like to safely move them to a different server, running Debian-10.

The host name of the current server is stored in the metadata for that RAID set. How do I change it to reflect the new server name?

Or am I better off just telling mdadm to ignore host names by using "HOMEHOST ignore" in my mdadm.conf file?

When I move the mdadm.conf file from the old server to the new one, do I leave the name= parameter alone? Or do I change it to the name of the new host?

Are there any issues with moving the RAID set from Debian 9 to Debian 10? Possible incompatibilities with the metadata?

One final question. I assume there is no guarantee that the disks on the old server, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, /dev/sdd, will come up with the same names on the new server. Does mdadm care?

us flag
You should not use RAID5 if data is important to you.
Mikael H avatar
br flag
Please check out SuperUser for home setups. Even so, a RAID5 across USB drives doesn't sound like something you should be running at all if you value your data.
Stephen Daniel avatar
de flag
Thanks for the redirect to SuperUser. Not a platform I was aware of.
Stephen Daniel avatar
de flag
I'm using RAID5 as the primary leg of my modified 3-2-1 data protection system for a media library. Seems perfectly appropriate to me. There is a second copy on a physically district server, backed up daily, and a third copy, off line in a fireproof lockbox, backed up monthly. While not up to "enterprise" standards, it is a low-cost way of protecting against a number of threats.
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