I noticed mdadm being installed with the minimal pattern on a newly
installed system - as I have no mdraid on this machine, I wanted to
remove mdadm:

# zypper rm mdadm
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Resolving package dependencies...

The following 14 packages are going to be REMOVED:
  autoyast2-installation libstorage-ruby libstorage5 mdadm
patterns-openSUSE-minimal_base patterns-openSUSE-yast2_install_wf
yast2-add-on yast2-bootloader yast2-installation yast2-ldap
  yast2-network yast2-storage yast2-update yast2-users

The following 2 patterns are going to be REMOVED:
  minimal_base yast2_install_wf

14 packages to remove.
After the operation, 12.7 MiB will be freed.
Continue? [y/n/? shows all options] (y):


Surely that can't be right??

I think it's caused by libstorage5 needing mdadm, but maybe that ought to be
just a recommends?