Using: Debian 7 mdadm - v3.2.5 - 18th May 2012 I had a working 5 disk (3TB each) Raid 6 array. I was running out of room so I wanted to expand it. I added a SATA controller card and 3 more 3TB drives following the https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Growing guide. The three additional drives failed shortly after the grow command and further testing shows that the SATA card that I added is flakey at best. It went to reshaping mode and the time to complete was about 25 years :). Not able to get anywhere, I decided to reboot assuming I am probably going to lose my data. I have already have moved to plan B but recovering some data would be nice if possible. So I now have a RAID 6 array that wont start because it does not have enough drives. I cant really try to re-add those drives because the I don't trust the SATA card. It really only ran for probably 10 minutes before it failed. Here is what I wanted to ask before I tried it. I basically want to rebuild my array with the original 5 drives and see if I can recover any data. I was going through the recovery guide and am now at the bottom section "restore array by recreating." Would it be foolish to try and recreate the array with only 5 original drives, something like this. mdadm --create --assume-clean --level=6 --raid-devices=5 --size=2930133504 /dev/md0 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdd1 /dev/sde1 /dev/sdf1 I had to change the size as when I used the value in the guide "Used Dev Size/2" mdadm reported mdadm: /dev/sdf1 is smaller than given size. 2930133504K < 2930263552K + metadata for each drive. If I use the 2930133504 it appears now that I can hit Yes an proceed. The guide said before getting hasty post here so any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks, Jared /dev/sdb1: Magic : a92b4efc Version : 1.2 Feature Map : 0x4 Array UUID : aad17236:47b3d29e:124f709c:5e61a7be Name : backy3:0 (local to host backy3) Creation Time : Tue Oct 11 14:27:53 2011 Raid Level : raid6 Raid Devices : 8 Avail Dev Size : 5860528128 (2794.52 GiB 3000.59 GB) Array Size : 17581581312 (16767.10 GiB 18003.54 GB) Used Dev Size : 5860527104 (2794.52 GiB 3000.59 GB) Data Offset : 2048 sectors Super Offset : 8 sectors State : clean Device UUID : 0b6dd63f:091a9e59:30443384:41314df2 Reshape pos'n : 199680 (195.03 MiB 204.47 MB) Delta Devices : 3 (5->8) Update Time : Wed Mar 5 10:46:19 2014 Checksum : e0b50220 - correct Events : 98709 Layout : left-symmetric Chunk Size : 512K Device Role : Active device 0 Array State : AAAAA... ('A' == active, '.' == missing) /dev/sdc1: Magic : a92b4efc Version : 1.2 Feature Map : 0x4 Array UUID : aad17236:47b3d29e:124f709c:5e61a7be Name : backy3:0 (local to host backy3) Creation Time : Tue Oct 11 14:27:53 2011 Raid Level : raid6 Raid Devices : 8 Avail Dev Size : 5860528128 (2794.52 GiB 3000.59 GB) Array Size : 17581581312 (16767.10 GiB 18003.54 GB) Used Dev Size : 5860527104 (2794.52 GiB 3000.59 GB) Data Offset : 2048 sectors Super Offset : 8 sectors State : active Device UUID : a3a2d182:8492d2a3:ad7e389e:54cd2955 Reshape pos'n : 199680 (195.03 MiB 204.47 MB) Delta Devices : 3 (5->8) Update Time : Wed Mar 5 10:46:19 2014 Checksum : eac6871c - correct Events : 98709 Layout : left-symmetric Chunk Size : 512K Device Role : Active device 1 Array State : AAAAA... ('A' == active, '.' == missing) /dev/sdd1: Magic : a92b4efc Version : 1.2 Feature Map : 0x4 Array UUID : aad17236:47b3d29e:124f709c:5e61a7be Name : backy3:0 (local to host backy3) Creation Time : Tue Oct 11 14:27:53 2011 Raid Level : raid6 Raid Devices : 8 Avail Dev Size : 5860528128 (2794.52 GiB 3000.59 GB) Array Size : 17581581312 (16767.10 GiB 18003.54 GB) Used Dev Size : 5860527104 (2794.52 GiB 3000.59 GB) Data Offset : 2048 sectors Super Offset : 8 sectors State : active Device UUID : ab14917c:3077a9fe:a14ec7d1:5de769d1 Reshape pos'n : 199680 (195.03 MiB 204.47 MB) Delta Devices : 3 (5->8) Update Time : Wed Mar 5 10:46:19 2014 Checksum : ef2bc777 - correct Events : 98709 Layout : left-symmetric Chunk Size : 512K Device Role : Active device 2 Array State : AAAAA... ('A' == active, '.' == missing) /dev/sde1: Magic : a92b4efc Version : 1.2 Feature Map : 0x4 Array UUID : aad17236:47b3d29e:124f709c:5e61a7be Name : backy3:0 (local to host backy3) Creation Time : Tue Oct 11 14:27:53 2011 Raid Level : raid6 Raid Devices : 8 Avail Dev Size : 5860528128 (2794.52 GiB 3000.59 GB) Array Size : 17581581312 (16767.10 GiB 18003.54 GB) Used Dev Size : 5860527104 (2794.52 GiB 3000.59 GB) Data Offset : 2048 sectors Super Offset : 8 sectors State : active Device UUID : 3d574712:561cbf1f:1efc6ca8:c987b6f8 Reshape pos'n : 199680 (195.03 MiB 204.47 MB) Delta Devices : 3 (5->8) Update Time : Wed Mar 5 10:46:19 2014 Checksum : a3e9fd18 - correct Events : 98709 Layout : left-symmetric Chunk Size : 512K Device Role : Active device 3 Array State : AAAAA... ('A' == active, '.' == missing) /dev/sdf1: Magic : a92b4efc Version : 1.2 Feature Map : 0x4 Array UUID : aad17236:47b3d29e:124f709c:5e61a7be Name : backy3:0 (local to host backy3) Creation Time : Tue Oct 11 14:27:53 2011 Raid Level : raid6 Raid Devices : 8 Avail Dev Size : 5860528128 (2794.52 GiB 3000.59 GB) Array Size : 17581581312 (16767.10 GiB 18003.54 GB) Used Dev Size : 5860527104 (2794.52 GiB 3000.59 GB) Data Offset : 2048 sectors Super Offset : 8 sectors State : active Device UUID : 9d0d3e75:76c85286:c3597412:13530f39 Reshape pos'n : 199680 (195.03 MiB 204.47 MB) Delta Devices : 3 (5->8) Update Time : Wed Mar 5 10:46:19 2014 Checksum : 17d48888 - correct Events : 98709 Layout : left-symmetric Chunk Size : 512K Device Role : Active device 4 Array State : AAAAA... 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