Adding A New Drive To A Software RAID 5 Array

Edit 3: Just mounted the partitions and I can delete them because they contain nothing special. Is it safe to expand the 2nd partition of each drive to fill up the left over 22 GB?
Edit 2: I just deleted all the partitions off of my new drive and created one partition, then added it to the array and it works just fine. My next question is, can I delete all the smaller partitions and expand /dev/sd[x]2 to reclaim all the space (about 70 GB)?
One of my drives failed and Western Digital sent me a new drive, except it was an external drive instead of an internal drive, so I cracked it open and the label looked different. Turns out it's just refurbished and it's the same model as my other drives (WD Caviar Green 3 TB).
I've read through the wiki article on Software RAID and created the partitions exactly the same as my other drives, but while creating the main 2.7 TB partition it says that the ending sector is out of range when it isn't. I'm new to all this so I have no idea what to do. From what I've read there normally aren't this many partitions per disk, correct? I also have md124, md125 and md126 for the other partitions. md127 is for the 2.7 TB partitions. I took the array out of my Thecus N4520. I have a 3 TB external drive and a 1TB internal, along with another 500 GB drive. Would I be better off at destroying the RAID set and creating a fresh RAID 5 set, considering I'm losing about 90 GB if I don't need the smaller partitions.
/dev/sdc
Disk /dev/sdc: 5860533168 sectors, 2.7 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 00636413-FB4D-408D-BC7F-EBAF880FBE6D
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 5860533134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 43941 sectors (21.5 MiB)
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 41945088 46139375 2.0 GiB FD00
2 47187968 5860491263 2.7 TiB FD00 THECUS
3 46139392 47187951 512.0 MiB FD00
4 2048 20973559 10.0 GiB FD00 i686-THECUS
5 20973568 41945071 10.0 GiB FD00
/dev/sdd
Disk /dev/sdd: 5860533168 sectors, 2.7 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): C5900FF4-95A1-44BD-8A36-E1150E4FC458
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 5860533134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 43941 sectors (21.5 MiB)
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 41945088 46139375 2.0 GiB FD00
2 47187968 5860491263 2.7 TiB FD00 THECUS
3 46139392 47187951 512.0 MiB FD00
4 2048 20973559 10.0 GiB FD00 i686-THECUS
5 20973568 41945071 10.0 GiB FD00
/dev/sde
Disk /dev/sde: 5860533168 sectors, 2.7 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 2B5527AC-9D53-4506-B31F-28736A0435BD
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 5860533134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 43941 sectors (21.5 MiB)
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 41945088 46139375 2.0 GiB FD00
2 47187968 5860491263 2.7 TiB FD00 THECUS
3 46139392 47187951 512.0 MiB FD00
4 2048 20973559 10.0 GiB FD00 i686-THECUS
5 20973568 41945071 10.0 GiB FD00
new drive: /dev/sdf
Disk /dev/sdf: 5860467633 sectors, 2.7 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 93F9EF48-998D-4EF9-B5B7-936D4D3C7030
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 5860467599
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 5813281700 sectors (2.7 TiB)
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 41945088 46139375 2.0 GiB FD00 Linux RAID
2 47187968 47187969 1024 bytes FD00 Linux RAID
3 46139392 47187951 512.0 MiB FD00 Linux RAID
4 2048 20973559 10.0 GiB FD00 Linux RAID
5 20973568 41945071 10.0 GiB FD00 Linux RAID
when I type in 5860491263 as the end sector gdisk does nothing, just wants more input. If I type +2.7T it accepts it, but really it just creates a partition that's 1KB in size!
I am able to create a 2.7 TB partition with an end sector of 5860467599, this won't screw anything up will it?
Edit 1: just tried it and got this
[root@ra /home/bran]# mdadm --add /dev/md127 /dev/sdf2
mdadm: /dev/sdf2 not large enough to join array
[root@ra /home/bran]# fdisk -l /dev/sdf
Disk /dev/sdf: 2.7 TiB, 3000559428096 bytes, 5860467633 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 93F9EF48-998D-4EF9-B5B7-936D4D3C7030
Device Start End Size Type
/dev/sdf1 41945088 46139375 2G Linux RAID
/dev/sdf2 47187968 5860467599 2.7T Linux RAID
/dev/sdf3 46139392 47187951 512M Linux RAID
/dev/sdf4 2048 20973559 10G Linux RAID
/dev/sdf5 20973568 41945071 10G Linux RAID
Last edited by brando56894 (2014-04-28 00:47:29)

Sorry I numbered them to show the flow of information, this was also just a place for me to store info as I worked through it. I managed to get it to work by creating a partition that takes up the whole drive and is actually 22 GB larger than all the other drives (since I found out that the had root, swap and home partitions that are no longer needed).
I should be able to resize the other partitions without a problem, correct? They're EXT4. Should I unmount the raid array and do them individually, remount the array, let it sync and do the next? Or just unmount the array, resize all of them, mount it and let it sync?

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Hi,
I've been happily using an Apple 3,1 MacPro with Apple RAID Card installed and connected to 4-500 GB Apple OEM drives. I'd like to redo my setup and replace the Apple drives with bigger drives. Someone said I could only use up to 2 TB drives - is this correct?
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I thought it was an oxymoron to be using Apple RAID card, and to be happy.
It does not support drives larger than 2.2TB
Seagate's just seem to be more trouble. Any enterprise drive should do.
If you really really need RAID5 then maybe this card is useful, otherwise, no.,
There is much less than 300MB/sec x 4 in bandwith, they are shared and not independent, but the total is more like 800MB/sec maximum. Less overhead and other factors comes in more like 700MB/sec total max. \
SSDs have come a long way.
Use a PCIe cards to manage 2 x SSDs of 500GB up to 1TB
Use Disk Utility or SoftRAID 4 to manage 2-4 drive mirror or stripe arrays
10.8.4 has a bug that interferes with using 3TB and larger drives, just introduced bug.
This is the FIRST time there have been limits on drive size. And Apple RAID card. Seems the card is not getting updated firmware to address the need for larger drives. For those using SAS it is also a viable candidate.
SSD on its own to hold the system. 4 x 2TB WD Black for data and media storage. 4 x SSDs for scratch and graphic catalogues and media... all depends what your goal and use and type of programs.
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What is the process for adding a new disk to make a Mirrored Array?

Hi,
I have a second120GB SATA drive I wish to add to my existing sytem in order to create a RAID-1 array.
What is the correct process to configure this, as the mobo/Promise documentation is not clear?
thanks
Danny

I have got a similar system except with 80Gb SATA HDD.
Try this link if you have not already got it
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/manual
You will find the utilities/manual link and one of the links there is the SATA Quick User's Guide. Look at page 7, I think that this is what you are looking for.
Good luck
(Sorry just looked at that link and it does not work, but if you follow the stages to that page you will find it. Let me know how you get on)

Software RAID - deconstructing

Hi all -
What I've done on my machine is set up a backup system whereby Silverkeeper backs up my internal 'work' drives to a LaCie 160gb external drive. I then set up a software RAID in Disk Utility (RAID 1), and so the 160gb is backed up by another LaCie 200gb drive right next to it.
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bump
Dual 2.0 PM G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Software RAID failing constantly

Dear all,
I need help as I cannot work out what is going wrong the the Mirrored RAID i set up.
I bought 2 x 1TB drives and setup Mirrored RAID (software) through the GUI Disk Utility Application. I assumed it would all "just work".
After about a month the RAID failied. It happened after I ran TechTool Pro 5. Could this have caused permanent damage which leads me to where I am today (see below)? I unplugged the drives and plugged into my laptop (I don't know why I didn't just unplug and plug them into the Mac Mini they were in). Anyway it came up saying "Rebuilding" and it took about 9 hours. All was good again.
Until early October 2009 when Disk Utility reported that the RAID was "degraded" and one of the drives had "failed".
I was pretty shocked as it was a new drive. I thought the best thing to do would be to get a new 1TB drive to rebuild the RAID and then deal with the failed drive.
It took over 2 weeks to get the new drive and enclosure (long story). I setup the new drive last night, plugged it in and the "Rebuilding" message came up with the same "it will take 9 hours message".
I left it over night and when I got up Disk Utility told me that the older drive of the two has "failed". There has to be something weird going on here and this is where I need your help.
Configuration
1. The drives are 1TB Hitachi 3200rpm SATA I/II, 32 MB Cache drives
2. The 'old' enclosure is an Icecube G2 SuperS 800/400/USB2/eSata 3.5" Enclosure
3. The 'new' enclosure is an OWC Mercury Elite-AL, Quad Interface eSata/FW 400/FW 800/USB 2/USB 1
4. The Mac Mini only has one FW800 port and I connect the 2 drives up in serial.
<hr />
Here is the behaviour I'm seeing now.
I'll start with both drives off and turn both on.
1. Both drives mount in Disk Util
2. 20 seconds later a message comes up about rebuilding slices for "disk1 ... ?" and "disk (null)" and disk util crashed 2 seconds later (thus why didn't catch all of the message)
3. I turn to the terminal:
bsmith@kanga ~ $ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUIDpartitionscheme *298.1 Gi disk0
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Mini 297.8 Gi disk0s2
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUIDpartitionscheme *931.5 Gi disk1
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk1s1
2: Apple_RAID 931.2 Gi disk1s2
3: Apple_Boot Boot OSX 128.0 Mi disk1s3
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUIDpartitionscheme *931.5 Gi disk2
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk2s1
2: Apple_RAID 931.2 Gi disk2s2
3: Apple_Boot Boot OSX 128.0 Mi disk2s3
/dev/disk3
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_HFS terra *931.2 Gi disk3
bsmith@kanga ~ $
bsmith@kanga ~ $ sudo diskutil listRAID
Password:
RAID SETS
===============================================================================
Name: terra
Unique ID: 2AC46C49-5F0B-4BD5-B1FE-C322A6F51DD9
Type: Mirror
Status: Degraded
Size: 999860895744 B
Rebuild: automatic
Device Node: disk3
Apple RAID Version: 2
# Device Node UUID Status
0 disk1s2 A12D748F-0779-4217-8C75-B31D9AE45B4E 0% (Rebuilding)
1 disk2s2 CF03D24E-AB5D-4F86-A7B1-26A1F4589CB7 Online
===============================================================================
bsmith@kanga ~ $
Run it again 10 seconds later:
bsmith@kanga ~ $ diskutil list
It just hangs.
bsmith@kanga ~ $ sudo diskutil listRAID
It just hangs.
4. Now I turn off the 'old' drive and look at the terminal (that was hanging). When I turn it off I'm told (through the Hardware Growler Growl extension to show the status of hardware) that the old drive ("Macpower"), the new drive ("OWC") and the RAID disk ("terra") have all unmounted. The diskutil commands follow.
bsmith@kanga ~ $ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUIDpartitionscheme *298.1 Gi disk0
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Mini 297.8 Gi disk0s2
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUIDpartitionscheme *0.0 B disk1
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk1s1
2: Apple_RAID 931.2 Gi disk1s2
3: Apple_Boot Boot OSX 128.0 Mi disk1s3
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUIDpartitionscheme *931.5 Gi disk2
/dev/disk3
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_HFS terra *931.2 Gi disk3
bsmith@kanga ~ $
bsmith@kanga ~ $ sudo diskutil listRAID
RAID SETS
===============================================================================
Name: terra
Unique ID: 2AC46C49-5F0B-4BD5-B1FE-C322A6F51DD9
Type: Mirror
Status: Degraded
Size: 319728959488 B
Rebuild: automatic
Device Node: disk3
Apple RAID Version: 2
# Device Node UUID Status
0 disk1s2 A12D748F-0779-4217-8C75-B31D9AE45B4E 0% (Rebuilding)
1 -none- CF03D24E-AB5D-4F86-A7B1-26A1F4589CB7 Online
===============================================================================
bsmith@kanga ~ $
I don't know alot about this output, though its weird that disk2 is still in the list but only shows the GUIDpartitionscheme. And its interesting that disk1 is also in the list but shows 0.0B against the GUIDpartitionscheme for it.
5. Just for kicks I turn off the 'new' drive aswell and run the commands again. When i do it Hardware Growler doesn't say anything has unmounted (I guess since they all did so before).
bsmith@kanga ~ $ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUIDpartitionscheme *298.1 Gi disk0
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Mini 297.8 Gi disk0s2
bsmith@kanga ~ $ sudo diskutil listRAID
Password:
No RAID sets found
As expected I guess.
6. Now I'll turn both drives back on and confirm I get back to the same state I was in before after both drives were turned on.
This time I get the Hardware Growler message that both drives have mounted followed by the RAID drive about 20 seconds later.
bsmith@kanga ~ $ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUIDpartitionscheme *298.1 Gi disk0
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Mini 297.8 Gi disk0s2
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUIDpartitionscheme *931.5 Gi disk1
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk1s1
2: Apple_RAID 931.2 Gi disk1s2
3: Apple_Boot Boot OSX 128.0 Mi disk1s3
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUIDpartitionscheme *931.5 Gi disk2
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk2s1
2: Apple_RAID 931.2 Gi disk2s2
3: Apple_Boot Boot OSX 128.0 Mi disk2s3
/dev/disk3
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_HFS terra *931.2 Gi disk3
bsmith@kanga ~ $
bsmith@kanga ~ $ sudo diskutil listRAID
RAID SETS
===============================================================================
Name: terra
Unique ID: 2AC46C49-5F0B-4BD5-B1FE-C322A6F51DD9
Type: Mirror
Status: Degraded
Size: 999860895744 B
Rebuild: automatic
Device Node: disk3
Apple RAID Version: 2
# Device Node UUID Status
0 disk1s2 A12D748F-0779-4217-8C75-B31D9AE45B4E 0% (Rebuilding)
1 disk2s2 CF03D24E-AB5D-4F86-A7B1-26A1F4589CB7 Online
===============================================================================
bsmith@kanga ~ $
Now let me run the commands again:
MMM, the exact same result is returned - it didn't hang this time.
It's 21:44, I'll leave this a while and see if the rebuilding continues.
Its 13 mins later and this time the commands are just hanging. Before I went away at 21:44 the lights on the front of the drives where flashing showing something was happening. They had stopped by the time I returned.
7. Now I turn off the 'new' drive and run the terminal commands again. When I turn it off I'm told by Hardware Growler that the new drive ("OWC") and the RAID disk ("terra") have both unmounted. Last time (when the 'old' drive was turned off) Growler told me all 3 drives unmounted. The diskutil commands now show.
bsmith@kanga ~ $ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUIDpartitionscheme *298.1 Gi disk0
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Mini 297.8 Gi disk0s2
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUIDpartitionscheme *931.5 Gi disk1
It hangs at this point and hasn't completed yet.
bsmith@kanga ~ $ sudo diskutil listRAID
Password:
RAID SETS
===============================================================================
Name: terra
Unique ID: 2AC46C49-5F0B-4BD5-B1FE-C322A6F51DD9
Type: Mirror
Status: Offline
Size: 999860895744 B
Rebuild: automatic
Apple RAID Version: 2
# Device Node UUID Status
0 disk1s2 A12D748F-0779-4217-8C75-B31D9AE45B4E Failed
0 -none- CF03D24E-AB5D-4F86-A7B1-26A1F4589CB7 Missing/Damaged
===============================================================================
bsmith@kanga ~ $
So HELP PLEASE!. Does the above provide enough information to suggest to someone with more knowledge than me about this, what is going on and what can I do to fix this? Let me know if there are any more tests I can run.
I have a backup of the data so can erase and recreate the RAID drive. But what would stop this happening again? Could it have been TechTools Pro 5 which was running when the problem first happened that caused some permanent damage?
Any and all help appreciated.
Thank you,
Brooke

Thanks ridogi and Antonio for your replies,
For clarification, both drives have dual FW 800 to allow them to be connected. No FW 400 involved (I'm not that silly .
I can't say i've done extensive research into setting up RAID drives but I've never come across advice to not use multiple external drives. Here is an extract from a Nov 2007 MacTech article on using RAID for backup:
{quote}
The Desktop Mac User:
The second user I want to look at is the professional who relies on his desktop Mac for his business. He is a lawyer, developer, architect or other professional whose business relies totally on the contents of his computer. If he loses the files on his computer, his business will really suffer. In addition, the time lost when dealing with a failed hard disk is money down the drain. This user relies on a three disk mirror volume. His Mac has two internal SATA disks which are used as the primary and secondary disks of a mirror volume. If one of the disks fails at any given point, the other one will take over and become the new primary disk, so his files are always protected from a hard disk failure. The third disk is an external FireWire disk which is also a secondary disk. It is stored offsite (either at home in a fireproof safe or at another safe location). Every Friday, he brings this third disk into his office and connects it to his desktop Mac. Once this disk is connected, a mirror rebuild starts automatically. He can perform this rebuild as he continues to use his Mac during the day. At the end of the day, when he shuts his Mac down, he disconnects his external secondary disk and returns it to its offsite location. This offsite secondary disk becomes his insurance against his building getting broken into or his building burning down. Like the laptop user, if his Mac gets destroyed, he can just purchase a replacement Mac and then boot up from his external secondary disk. At most, he will use one week's worth of work.
{quote}
So I just assumed it is ok to use external drives. This is discussing a software product called SoftRAID and perhaps that is able to handle the situation. Or perhaps one external drive is ok???
My plan, developed when deciding to buy the Mac Mini April 2009 was to amortize costs by buying external drives first for doing backups and then buying a NAS within 12 months. I guess I should have just gone the NAS.
However ridogi I see you've recommended WiebeTech which don't seem to have NAS devices but DAS (direct attached storage) as the devices are connected directly to a network machine via Firewire etc. (Whereas NAS connects via the Network - I'd connect such a device to the Airport wireless router). Do you prefer DAS over NAS? I guess the downside of NAS is that the complexity is somewhat greater.
And reading http://www.wiebetech.com/just-say-no-to-nas/ they say:
{quote}
Let's face it - Networked or "shared" storage is a great feature but most NAS devices are just too slow for many applications. 3MB/s for a NAS device is common and 10MB/s is considered fast. Direct Attached Storage (DAS) performs much faster while still having the ability to be "shared". The RTX400-QR can transfer data to your computer at speeds exceeding 100MB/s.
{quote}
How can this be? If connected via Gigabit ethernet (128MB/s) then isn't that faster?
Though it is true that if you connect via Wifi then the best speeds you are going to achieve is 6.75 MB/s (802.11g) or 17.5 MB/s (802.11n).
Of course the speed advantages for DAS are only going to be on the machine its connected to as the other machines will connect to it (via the machine its on) over the network anyway!
Why I like the idea of NAS is to move the drives away from the Mini (noise and powerpoint reasons), make it easier to share with other Macs/PCs in the house (including via SMB) and I have a vague hope that this might stop the delay caused by the connected external drives spinning up when an open/save dialog box is activated (or is this just me?!).
Your thoughts appreciated! And thanks for the help so far.
Cheers,
Brooke

Possible to increase the total size of a software raid set?

Hi,
I need to increase the size of a software raid set which is internally in one of the Xserves - originally it had 2x 400G drives.
I've swapped drives into the raid so they are both now 500G drives.
diskutil info drive XX (ie raid set) shows that the raid is still a 400G raid volume as expected.
Question is - can I grow the Raid Total Size to use all the capacity of the member volumes?
I guess the alternative is to remove the drives from the raid, enable raid on one of them and then add the other drive as a member... but this would mean I would have to take the raid offline.
The raid sets are not my system disks.
Any clues?
TIA
Campbell
XServes Mac OS X (10.4.5) 12 Macs & far too many PCs

Thanks for your help.
I rebuilt the array using enableRaid. Worked fine with Raid Volume offline for approx 5 minutes - although I had to degrade the array (and go bare with no mirror) twice in the process.
In case anyone is interested, this is what the process was:
1 Swap into Raid array larger drive (say, disk 2) and let array rebuild
2 Disable file services.
3 removefromraid disk 2 (leave it mounted).
4 Unmount the raid set and eject drives (say, disk 1) Remove drive - it's the only original backup.
5 enableRaid on disk 2
Providing enableRaid is ok -
6 Insert a fresh larger size drive in the place of the removed drive (disk 1)
7 Unmount new drive and addToRaid
8 (Rebuild array). Providing rebuilding ok -
9 Start file services again.
Data, permissions & ACLs were all intact. So now users can fill the rest of the raid up with more MP3s this week <sigh>
Maybe not the best approach but it worked well for me.
XServes Mac OS X (10.4.5) 12 Macs & several hundred too many PCs

Loading CS4 on new drive

I`m runnung CS3 and windows Vista 64bit.........I will be removing this drive and adding a new drive that I will be loading windows 7 64 bit and then CS4 UPGRADE. My question is....do I have to deactivate CS3 before I remove this drive or do I leave it activated. I do not want to load CS3 on the new drive and upgrade. Can I just load CS4 on the new drive ? I don`t plan on using CS3 so I don`t really want to install it and then upgrade. Thank you for any info on this...........Peter

If your CS4 is an upgrade from CS3, you should be able to just use the CS3 installation DVD, when asked, and install CS4 from there. You should not have to first install CS3.
If the old HDD can be hooked back up later, you might leave CS3 alone for now, and when things are up and running properly on the new HDD, then Deactivate it from the old drive. There should not be an issue with an Activated copy of CS3 and a new installation of the upgraded CS4. Unless things have changed drastically, I had both CS and CS2 installed and Activated on my two machines, with no issues. When all was good, I just Deactivated both CS installations and removed them.
Good luck,
Hunt

Software RAID apps?

is there any alternative to SoftRAID and Disk Utility for creating software RAID arrays? Disk Utility falls short in a couple of areas. SoftRAID is perfect for my purpose, but I find the US$180 price outputting. Unfortunately, after searching with Google, I cannot find an alternative to it.

If it weren't for the bugs, I'd be delighted with AppleRAID.
To have something that almost works for nothing or works for $180 is not an easy choice. You can get at least 4TB of storage for $180!

Adding A New Hard Drive

I've been thinking about adding a second hard drive. The problem is that I'm not sure which configuration would best fit my needs.
Currently I have one 120GB Maxtor SATA drive which, after six months, is half full. This leads me to conclude that eventually I'm going to fill it up.
Since I have only this one drive and no DVD writer, I don't have any good way of backing up my drive in case something fails. I don't have any vital data, but I've spent a long time getting my settings perfect, and I don't want to lose them.
I also know that doing a RAID doesn't give me more space. I know that RAID 0 basically uses two drives in parallel to double the storage efficiency, but if one drive fails, all the data on both is lost. I also know that RAID 1 copies all changes to the second hard drive and thus also does not increase my overall storage space.
What are my other options? If I buy another SATA drive, what ways do I have to copy my entire disk onto the new one? How does XP handle installation on the new drive? How do I switch between drives? I was thinking that I could put all my large music and video files on the new drive and then optimize my old drive for my games. This will still make it possible for me to listen to my music in Winamp while playing a game, right?
How do I install the new drive? Do I have to go into my BIOS and configure something? Here's what it says about my IDE setup (I don't know what IDE means either.)
Primary IDE Master = DVD-ROM
Primary IDE Slave = CD - RW
Secondary IDE Master = n/a
Secondary IDE Slave = n/a
Third IDE Master = Maxtor HDD
Third IDE Master = n/a
etc.
What does Master/Slave mean as far as usage and performance goes? Which SATA plug should I use for the new drive?
Sorry for the silly questions, I've never used a machine with more than one hard drive before.
EDIT: What brand hard disk do you guys recommend? I have in mind either Western Digital or Seagate. I won't have any compatibility or performance issues from using two drives of different make and capacity, will I?
Here's my specs:
Intel Pentium 4 2.8e HTT @ 3.26GHz
Thermaltake Spark 7+ Xaser Edition A1715 CPU Cooler
MSI 865PE Neo2-PFISR motherboard (BIOS ver. 3.8)
2x512MB OCZ PC3700 Gold Edition Rev 3 Dual Channel Enhanced Latency DDR @ 466MHz (2-3-3-5)
Built-by-ATI Radeon 9800 Pro @ XT 128MB DDR 256-bit @ 415/744 (Catalyst 4.12)
Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer Revision 3
Creative SoundBlaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum
Cyber Acoustics CA-4100 4.1 Surround
Maxtor 6Y120M0 120GB HDD 7200RPM SATA150 8MB cache
Sony DDU1612 40x/16x DVD-ROM
Sony CRX230ED 52x/32x CD-RW
Enermax Noisetaker EG475P 470W PSU(+3.3V = 34A, +5V = 40A, +12V = 33A)
Ultra Dragon ATX Mid-Tower Case
Windows XP Pro SP2

Hi. I will try to help with some of your questions. Its easy but time consuming to move/copy files from one hard drive to another. Just drag the files/folders from one drive to the other one. That moves them. To copy them Select them and the select copy then go to the other drive and select paste. With two hard drives its best to set them up as one for system files and apps (your c drive) and one for storage (your D drive). Your optical drives then become e and f. If your case you would leave your current drive as C and the new drive would become your d storage drive. Moving your mp3s, vids, etc (i.e, non-system files or not apps), could take some hours, but that is usually no problem because you can do small numbers of files at a time or do it overnight. By the way you never want to fill up your hard drive, especially your c drive. Always leave 20+ percent free so you can get quick reading/writing to it. Mp3's, vids, pix etc play just fine from your stoage drive and your games play great from the c drive. And you can do both at the same time.
Masters and slaves have the same performance but that only applies to IDE drives. There is no master/slave designation for SATA drives.
Backing up your system files can then be done on your storage drive, but as harib said you can back up the important system files to a CD. Windows provides a backup utility for that. You can also back them up to your storage drive if you want.
If you truly want backups of ALL of your files, including storage, is simply a matter of adding another drive and then copying all of the files to the new drive. Hopefully you would never have both those two drives go bad at the same time.
Western Digital, Maxtor and Seagate are all good drives. You first must decide if your new drive will be SATA or IDE. You might just get another SATA drive for storage, but a lower cost IDE drive of similar capacity for your storage drive likely will be just as fast for for mp3s,etc. SATA really helps on your system drive which you already have.
Installation of drives is a bit more complicated with SATA drives in the sytem but can be relatively easy to do once you decide what drive to get. Don't base your purchase decision on installationo ease.
When you are about ready to install come back to the forum with specific details of what you want to install and someone will be happy to talk you through the process.
Good luck!

IX4-300D how do I import a new drive into RAID 5 Array?

I already had a 3 x 2TB RAID 5 array, added new forth drive (same 2TB drive model) and let it auto format, which completed OK, but when I look at Status in Admin I see "Unallocated 1.8TB". This tells me the drive was formated but not imported into the Array.
Looking at Drive Management Page it shows all four drives installed but offers no actions, you cannot even select a drive to display or take action on.
Going into Settings only shows the settings I used to create the RAID 5 initially, no other options. I would expect a workflow of right click new drive and select to import into RAID 5.
Looking in the help section no detail on RAID only a basic comment on what RAID is.
Something badly missing here. Is there some info I have missed?
Peter

Hello 2Old2Slow
I highly recommend that you do make plans to backup your data from the unit before attempting to expand the RAID just in case something goes wrong in the process.
When trying to expand an existing RAID 5 from 3 to 4 disks, you can use the "add disks to storage system" option that is located in Drive Management>Settings. This option will become available after a new drive is added to the empty drive and the unit is powered back on. It may need to overwrite the new disk, it will indicate which disk is being overwritten by marking the new drive with green stripes. If you are being asked to overwrite data but none of the disks show green stripes, please stop and backup first as proceeding will most likely result in all disks being overwritten.
LenovoEMC Contact Information is region specific. Please select the correct link then access the Contact Us at the top right:
US and Canada: https://lenovo-na-en.custhelp.com/
Latin America and Mexico: https://lenovo-la-es.custhelp.com/
EU: https://lenovo-eu-en.custhelp.com/
India/Asia Pacific: https://lenovo-ap-en.custhelp.com/
http://support.lenovoemc.com/

How to restore a software raid mirror after a drive failure

i set up a software raid mirror with two hard drives in a mac pro. then one failed as reported by disk utility. i replaced the drive. it does not seem possible to restore this raid short of copying the files to a third location and then erasing and establishing a new raid. is there a way to simply "restore"?

Question: Do I need special software to administer the Mac Pro RAID Card or the Xserve RAID Card?
Answer: Normal administration can be carried out using the RAID Utility (found in /Application/Utilities) or by using the raidutil command. For more information refer to the User’s Guide or man raidutil.
The command-line utility should be available in Single-User mode.
To run RAID Utility, you may need to boot to an alternate source of Mac OS to be able to manipulate the Boot drive.
This article suggests using the Make Spare command:
RAID Utility 1.0 Help > If a Disk Fails
Message was edited by: Grant Bennet-Alder

Adding more drives to my x-Raid

hello,
I'm running out of space on my x-raid, and need to upgrade it asap. right now, there are only 4 x 180GB drives in it. my question is do I have to use the same capacity drives to expand my raid? I'd rather go with a larger hard drives if possible of course, but need to make sure it will be able to handle it.

Ok, as I've been reading more and more, I'm realizing that I know nothing about RAIDs on Apple I've done some on PCs but it was easier Oh MACs
anyway, here's my situation:
I have an x-serve raid with 4x180GB drives in the right side. Not sure why it's built that way, but it is, the way it is. I have only 25 GB of free space left. So I'm trying to figure out my best options. Originally I was thinking of adding 3 more drives 250GB each to the right side, and then merge them together with the main portion of my RAID. However, I'm reading now, there's a change I need to reformat my main slice which is not going to work for me. The type of the file system that I have is MAC OS extended (journaled), which as far I understand means it's HFS+ so I can't add more space on a fly and need to reformat my main slice?
If the answer for that is I do need to reformat, I'd rather start building a new RAID on the left side (say 4x250GB). In this case as far as I understand I'd have 2 standalone raids, which is completely fine, I'm not looking to merge them together, as long as I can use them both for file sharing. So my question is "can I?"
If I can, I guess I'd rather move some stuff from my main RAID to the new one.
Advises, comments are very welcome!

Software raid 1 drive(s) failed

Curious on what to do with a RAID 1 Drive (s) failure? I've searched the community and cannot find similar issue/answers.
Configuration:
One 1TB OS & App Drive is fine
Two 3TB RAID 1 Drives for Video scratch are fine
Two 2TB RAID 1 Data Drives are my issue
I'm using the software raid in OSX and it shows "2TB Data Drive/Mirrored Offline"
Both drives have "Failed" next to them
I have backup this Data Drive in Time Machine and a recent full back up to a single drive that is off site. I believe I have a good back up strategy with Time Machine and offsite back ups via Voyager S3. I guess we'll find out!
My question is how do I find out if it's a HW issue or SW issue with this configuration ? And then how to go about recovering them?
Initially when I looked in Disk Utility it appeared that only one of the 2TB drives had "Failed" next to it but now after a reboot "Failed" is next to both drives.
My initial hope was that one of the drives had failed and I'd be able to just replace that drive and the RAID System would rebuild from the other drive.
Any assistance would be appreciated.
Thanks

TommyH wrote:
My initial hope was that one of the drives had failed and I'd be able to just replace that drive and the RAID System would rebuild from the other drive.
RAID 1 just copies the same data to two (or more) drives at the same time, it's only for mission critical data loss requirements where a drive failure during writing would be catastrophic. Like taking purchasing orders or getting a phone call from ET for example.
RAID 0 is dangerous as the data path is separated to how many drives in the RAID 0 set, one drive glitches and all data is lost. But provides insane speeds.
RAID 5 is a much more reliable, it combines many drives (4 or more for more speed) splitting the data path but also has redundancy factor that if a drive dies it can be replaced and the data is recovered from the other drives. Usually a RAID 5 is in a external enclosure with it's own cooling and hardware controllers, not software based RAID where your CPU is being overloaded.
There are other forms of RAID some combinations like RAID 1+0, RAID 6, 10 and so forth, you can find out more about the more eclectic RAID types online.
RAID 5 is more ideally suited to video requirements for data storage, with perhaps a RAID 0 as a scratch disk or a RAID 0 + 1 (the RAID 0 is mirrored to another RAID 0) if your going to take a while working on it that increases the potential of failure.
Once the work is completed, it's sent to the RAID 5 where it's safe with it's redundancy and speed.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/RAID/Desktop
The thing to remmeber with the failed RAID 1 Data drive is the data is still on the drive, even though it failed and perhaps things are messed up a little on it on the directory. All the drive needs is to be told it's not part of a RAID 1 anymore, that it's a normal drive, a simple fix, but I don't know how to go about it.
You have two drives and two chances to recover the data off off, simply disconnect one data drive and reboot, see if it will mount and or you can repair the drive in Disk Utility.
If not pull one drive out and stick another blank one in there and download Data Rescue and simply recover the files to the new blank drive. DR works by simply reading the files themselve, not the file struture or anything else.
Software RAID is unreliable, it depends upon the CPU. Opt to get a external RAID where it's based in hardware instead. Use eSATA if all possible.
Also consider using backup software, like Carbon Copy Cloner which can be scheduled to make a backup of your data during the middle of the night. This way if something happens to either your boot drive or a data drive, the clone won't immediately copy the issue to the other drive like a RAID 1 does.
Also Carbon Copy Cloner makes "hold option" bootable OS X boot drive clones, which TimeMachine doesn't.
Also TM kicks in what, like once a hour? It's likely what caused your issue, CCC will work when you schedule it. TM is for consumers, not video pro's like yourself.
If you need even heavier iron as a external RAID setup and more expertise, then see these guys
http://www.macgurus.com/

Adding second HD - software RAID?

I need to add a large drive (250 GB) to my MDD G4 running 10.4.6. The machine has one factory installed 76GB IBM drive. Will I need a new controller card? Will I need to set the new drive as a slave? If using the on board controller is limiting I might install a SATA or RAID controller.
Regarding RAID performance, does a RAID controller offer better RAID performance than the OS X software implementation?
Any insights appreciated.

Thanks. I have an ACARD ATA 133 raid card which I was thinking of using. Your comments on the performance of the on board controller seem to indicate that the card will increase performance. Are problems with data common with raid 0?
I need to add a large drive (250 GB) to my MDD G4
running 10.4.6. The machine has one factory
installed
76GB IBM drive. Will I need a new controller card?
Will I need to set the new drive as a slave? If
using
the on board controller is limiting I might install
a
SATA or RAID controller.
Regarding RAID performance, does a RAID controller
offer better RAID performance than the OS X
software
implementation?
Any insights appreciated.
Depends.
On my machine, a 200gb 7200rpm ATA 133 drive
connected to a Sonnet (non-raid) controller
outperforms an 80x2 raid drive on either the the
secondary bus on the Sonnet or the ata100 connector
on the motherboard.
This was also true on my older single 867.
At work, on a dual 1ghz MDD, the oem 80/ata100
outperforms a 30x2 raid on the ata66 bus.
I would recommend building your raid with 2 identical
drives. Using mixed size or speed drives will result
in both wasted space, and, if the block sizes are
different, potential data problems.
The 200gb drive is faster on the Sonnet card than on
the motherboard.
Keep in mind that if you need to boot directly to OS9
for whatever reason, it will not recognize the raid
or the 250gb drive.
For that reason, I have a 30gb drive dedicated for
OS9 and it's applications

Adding A New Drive To A Software RAID 5 Array

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