On Friday 12 November 2021 08:49:21 Dan Ritter wrote: Ok, zeroed them, nuked mdadm.conf & rebooted. gparted each one, setting 2 partitions in GPT format on each of 900000 MIB (sde1) with label MDV1 and 5000 MIB (sde2) labeled MDV2 and applied that to each of the 4 drives. Double check as /dev/sdf somehow swapped positions on the drive, fixed that: Wash rinse and repeat for sdf, sdg, and sdh with labels of MDX1, MDX2, MDY1, MDY2 and MDZ1 and MDZ2. And of course gparted makes a file system when Apply is clicked.
but: root@coyote:~$ mdadm -C /dev/md0 --level=10 --raid-devices=4 /dev/sde1 /dev/sdf1 /dev/sdg1 /dev/sdh1 mdadm: /dev/sde1 appears to contain an ext2fs file system size=921600000K mtime=Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 mdadm: /dev/sdf1 appears to contain an ext2fs file system size=921600000K mtime=Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 mdadm: /dev/sdg1 appears to contain an ext2fs file system size=921600000K mtime=Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 mdadm: /dev/sdh1 appears to contain an ext2fs file system size=921600000K mtime=Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 Continue creating array? yes mdadm: Defaulting to version 1.2 metadata mdadm: array /dev/md0 started. root@coyote:~$ mdadm -C /dev/md1 --level=10 --raid-devices=4 /dev/sde2 /dev/sdf2 /dev/sdg2 /dev/sdh2 mdadm: /dev/sde2 appears to contain an ext2fs file system size=51200000K mtime=Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 mdadm: /dev/sdf2 appears to contain an ext2fs file system size=51200000K mtime=Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 mdadm: /dev/sdg2 appears to contain an ext2fs file system size=51200000K mtime=Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 mdadm: /dev/sdh2 appears to contain an ext2fs file system size=51200000K mtime=Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 Continue creating array? yes mdadm: Defaulting to version 1.2 metadata mdadm: array /dev/md1 started. root@coyote:~$ mkfs -Text4 /dev/md0 mke2fs 1.43.4 (31-Jan-2017) mkfs.ext2: invalid blocks '/dev/md0' on device 'mkfs' There are a few unallocated blocks at the ends of all drives. gparted chose alignment and prespace in MiB. Do I need to add a 3rd partition to use them up? All drives seem to be identical sizewise but the pages recommend identical partition sizes. Theoreticly I could expand the smaller partition to use it up. rerunning gparted, I find 4 870 GIB partitions labeled coyote:0 and 4 47 GiB paartitions all labeled coyote:1. Which isn't what I told gparted to label them as with about 3.5 GIB unallocated on each one. So I am lost as to Whats next? Or do I start doing it all over again using some other partitioning tool? Thanks all. Cheers, Gene Heskett. -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940) If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. - Louis D. Brandeis Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>