I created a RAID 5 array with four 4TB NVMe and then added 3.3TB to the RAID from an external drive. Everything seems to be working normally, but the RAID status is “Protecting.” There doesn’t appear to be any process running for parity calculation, and the console shows that the RAID has finished being created.
cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid6] [raid5] [raid4]
md0 : active raid5 nvme4n1[0] nvme1n1[4] nvme3n1[2] nvme0n1[1]
*11720658432 blocks super 1.2 level 5, 512k chunk, algorithm 2 [4/4] [UUUU]
bitmap: 0/30 pages [0KB], 65536KB chunk*
unused devices:
Is this state normal?
Yes — “Protecting” is normal for RAID5 after creation or expansion.
From your cat /proc/mdstat:
md0 : active raid5 ... [4/4] [UUUU]
bitmap: 0/30 pages
That tells us:
- All 4 drives are active
- Array is clean (
UUUU)
- No rebuild or recovery running
- Bitmap enabled (write-intent bitmap for protection)
On ZimaOS, “Protecting” typically means:
- RAID is healthy
- Bitmap protection is enabled
- System is monitoring parity consistency
It does not mean a rebuild is running.
If you want deeper verification, run:
cat /sys/block/md0/md/sync_action
Expected output if idle:
idle
You can also confirm state:
cat /sys/block/md0/md/array_state
Expected:
clean
If both return idle and clean, your RAID is fully healthy.
No action required.
Muchas gracias por tu respuesta. he obtenido el idle y clean me quedo mas tranquilo.