[lug] kernel/distro upgrade - RAID questions

[jef vratny]

Hi folks,

Just covering all bases here as I prepare to upgrade some hardware. I
for the past year I've had a 1.7TB XRAID hanging off an RH 9.0 server as
a RAID 50 device over a Fibre-Channel card (the XRAID has 2 RAID 5's
which I am combining with software RAID 0 = RAID 50). I'm replacing the
existing XRAID with two 3.5TB XRAIDs (believe it or not, I'm actually
running out of space...i run a small music download site). Since the
2.4.x kernel doesn't support devices larger than 2TB I'm upgrading to
the 2.6.X kernel so I can use these monsters. I've never moved around
this kind of RAID device, so between that and the rather large amount of
data with no practical way to back it up...let's just say I'm a bit
nervous ;o)

My first option is upgrading RH 9.0 to the 2.6.x Kernel. My question for
this is actually pretty simple, I'm just wondering what effect, if any,
the kernel upgrade might have on the existing RAID 50?

Another option I am considering is changing the server over to SUSE 9.1
(comes with 2.6.x kernel). This is one of my last RH boxes, most of the
others were converted over to SUSE when RH "shifted it's focus" last
year. So what I was wondering is if a clean install would  mount the
existing RAID 50 without any data loss? (with the appropriate
/etc/raidtab & /etc/fstab file configurations of course)  It seems like
this should work, but I figured somebody here could let me know if I'm
completely out to lunch on this.

Any help would be appreciated, Thanks in advance!

Jef Vratny
Beatport.com