RAID-5 in Ubuntu with mdadm

Couldn’t really find anyone who’d documented setting up a RAID 5 array with Linux and mdadm, so figured I’d jot down the method I used in Ubuntu 6.10. It basically boils down to four commands (I am assuming you have a fresh install):

sudo apt-get install mdadm
sudo mdadm --create /dev/md0 --raid-devices=5 /dev/sd[abcde]1 --level=raid5
sudo mke2fs -j /dev/md0
sudo mount /dev/md0 /mnt/raid

To explain a little:

The first command installs mdadm.

The second command creates the raid array /dev/md0, then sets how many disks – and their respective locations – there’ll be in the array. In my case, we have 5 750GB drives, which are /dev/sda through to /dev/sde. The 1 is the partition identifier. Level sets the raid level, which in this case is raid5.

The third command ‘sudo mke2fs -j /dev/md0 ‘ makes an ext3 filesystem on the array.

And finally ‘sudo mount /dev/md0 /mnt/raid‘ mounts the array to /mnt/raid (you can mount it wherever you like)

Note 1: Make sure you have mdadm installed. If you don’t: sudo apt-get install mdadm

Note 2: If you’re not using Ubuntu, su to root and run the commands without ‘sudo’

Note 3: If you get an error stating ‘mdadm: error opening /dev/md0: No such file or directory’, you need to bypass udev and use this command instead: sudo mdadm --create /dev/md0 --raid-devices=5 /dev/sd[abcde]1 --level=raid5 --auto=yes

Note 4: To view the status of your array: sudo mdadm --detail /dev/md0

Note 5: If you need to view a list of your hard drives, try these commands: ls -l /dev/sd* or ls -l /dev/hd*

I am certainly no Linux expert. Corrections, and suggestions on how to improve this method are encouraged 🙂

Update: There’s a very thorough guide here, but it seems to cover some GUI elements – which wasn’t an option for me.