RAID card convert RAID 5 to RAID 10

[beaudamore]

I have an MP 4,1 2009
OSX 10.11.5

HD Setup:

• 1 X 120gb Intel SSD on PCIE card (named OSX)
  
• Apple RAID card
• 4 X 2TB Western Digital Red drives in RAID 5 (named RED)
• 1 X 4TB WD USB 3 External HD (on USB 3 PCIE) Time Machine

I originally setup my RAID as 5 because I thought I needed that last 1.23 TB.. ('go to 11' if you will) but now I need more speed so I want to swap to RAID 10 (since the RAID 5 writes are so much slower).

I have my user home directories set to use /Volumes/RED/Users/*USERNAME*.
I also have another user 'Admin' that is basically a blank user homed on OSX.
I want to know if I:

1. login as 'Admin' (since Admin is homed on OSX and not RED)
2. wipe out the RAID 5
3. recreate the RAID as 10 (keeping the name 'RED' or Time Machine won't link up)
4. restore 'Users' from Time Machine
5. logout Admin, login as me

Will this work correctly with permissions and all?
Or, do I need yet another external HD, login as Admin, run that terminal command to copy the users folder to the new external, re-RAID, and terminal command it all back again?

Thanks in advance.

 

[deconstruct60]

...

I want to know if I:

1. login as 'Admin' (since Admin is homed on OSX and not RED)
2. ....
3. restore 'Users' from Time Machine
4. logout Admin, login as me

Will this work correctly with permissions and all?

Depends upon "restore"...
If the GUI Time machine utlility prompt for system admin authentication (and privileges ) then it should.
Going to the command line interface ( tmutil ) and wrapping a sudo around that :

sudo tmutil restore /path/to/tm/source/snapshot /Volumes/RED/Users

would escalate to where things are mapped the way the should be.


However, first should check that your TM backup is actually clean and complete.

Or, do I need yet another external HD, login as Admin, run that terminal command to copy the users folder to the new external, re-RAID, and terminal command it all back again?

Similar issue need to be using a tool that has a complete backup (including metadata about the files in the users dir ) and will either invoke a prompt for admin password or can be wrapped around by a sudo command.

 

[nigelbb]

You currently have your files plus a Time Machine backup. If you destroy the RAID array you will only have the backup. If anything goes wrong you are hosed. For peace of mind buy a 4TB external disk for $100 & use Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper to backup the RAID array to the external disk before you reconfigure the RAID array.