Does growing a RAID 5 destroy the data on the RAID?

Question

For a linux software RAID using madadm, does adding a harddrive and growing onto the RAID, destroy the data that's already on the RAID or does it preserve everything?

Answer 1

No, if you add a new drive and grow, you should not loose your data.

If you don't have a tested backup already you should make one. While nothing should go wrong there is always a small chance that something will go wrong.