Subject:  ANNOUNCE: mdadm 2.4-pre1 - development release for testing only

I am somewhat cautious in announcing the availability of
   mdadm version 2.4-pre1

It is available at the usual places:
   http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~neilb/source/mdadm/
and
   http://www.{countrycode}.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/raid/mdadm/

pre-release 2.4-pre1 contains support for growing a raid5 array i.e.
adding extra drives and restriping the whole arrays.

This requires a kernel more recent than 2.6.16-rc6-mm2.

During a restripe, there is a crtical section at the start where a
system crash can leave the contents of the raid5 unrecoverable.  This
version of mdadm will backup that section, and can restore it when
reassembling the array after a crash.

Have fun, but use it carefully and report any problems.

NeilBrown 20th March 2006