Now, Having read back on this list the stock answer to "I want to expand my RAID5 array" seems to be (at the moment) "Use raidreconf, but at your own risk, and it'll take ages". I don't have a problem with the "ages" bit, but I'd like to be as datasafe as possible.
Could I start up a Raid 5 array with one or two real disks and three or four faulty drives which I would then activate as and when copying from them onto the new array has finished?
No, sorry, that wouldn't work. You can have one one drive missing. raidreconf is probably your best bet.
On a slightly similar note, I'm used to using ext2 and ext3, but I've heard a lot of people talk positively about XFS recently, so I'm wondering if any of you have any opinions on whether I should use ext3 or XFS for this new array?
Depends on your application. I quite fond of XFS in my fileservers, but it has the added hassle of requiring patches to the standard kernel, unless you use a distro with XFS support, but they tend to lag a bit behind.
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