Adding ssd to mac pro with raid hdd

Hi,
In upgrading my 2008 mac pro (currently with hdds in raid) i'd like to add in an SSD with a clean install of yosemite and reformat the raid hdds for storage. What's the best method to accomplish this? I'll have to start over with the raid configuration i'm assuming because I need to give up a place for the SSD.
Thanks,
micaborn

Mac Pro 2006, 2007 and 2008 models have two SATA data connectors on the motherboard, hidden in plain sight. They can be accessed by using a cable kit such as this one:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/MPQXES2/
You can install the SSD in the second Optical bay. It has no moving parts, and does not run especially hot.
There are MUCH faster ways to run a High-end SSD, by installing it on a PCI slot adapter card, but you should try installing a 2.5" SSD drive as a first step. You may need to re-organize where you store things, like in this article:
User Tip: Creating a lean, fast Boot Drive

Similar Messages

Mac PRo with raid card shipped with drive not suitable for raid?

Hi all,
I ordered a Mac Pro with raid card and a 1TB hard drive. The drive which came in the computer was WDC WD1001FALS which is not a hard drive rated for raid usage. On Western Digital's site they suggest using WD1002FBYS.
Is the model WD1001FALS the correct drive which Apple ships although one ordered the raid card?

The WD 640GB Blue, and WD 1TB Black are the only drive options for the mac pro; that's what you choose.
The RE3 (or FBYS) is not an option sold through apple. Buying the raid card, is not going to change the drive.
On whether to use the RE3 over the Blacks, it depends on how you will be using it. From what I've heard, the Blacks are enterprise drives themselves; basically with just a less robust firmware (no TLER). If you will have the drives on 24/7 in a raid 5, then yes, RE3 will probably be better. If not, I think the black will suffice; note the blacks are GREAT drives by themselves anyway.
The apple raid card can connect to both SATA and SAS drives internally, however most times people buying the raid card want to use it for SAS drives. There are a lot more cheaper and possibly a lot more stable options then apple's raid card if you are looking to use SATA drives.
Check amug:
http://www.amug.org/
A common problem with the apple raid card is the battery:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MA849Z/B?mco=NDc1ODczNw
Lastly about enterprise drives, truthfully I don't see the difference really. I have enterprise drives in a 8-drive raid5 config running 24/7 as a server. 2 drives died on me after about 4 months. To top it off, they died within 10 min of each other, crushing the raid to pieces. Granted they were Seagate ES.2's, it's understandable
The boot drive of the server is a stock desktop WD drive and running 24/7. It's been running for almost 4 years straight.

HD and Mac Pro - Optimal RAID configuration?

I'm fairly new to RAID, but have done a fair amount of reading over the past few weeks. I currently only have 1 external drive setup as mirrored RAID (1.5TB).
I do a lot of HD video work (as well as a lot of PShop/Illustrator/AE) and just ordered a new Mac Pro (to arrive in a few weeks). I'm curious to know what you may suggest configuring my system like with the following components. I don't want to have to buy anything else right now, nor do I think that I'll have to.
I've got:
1. New Mac Pro with RAID card and 4 identical SAS 300GB internal drives (no, didn't order those all from Apple)
2. An external 1.5 TB WD drive
3. Two external 500GB WD drives
Of course, I want the best of both worlds of speed and redundancy. I had been considering RAID 5, but the more I thought about it, I thought maybe RAID 0 was the way on some of the drives, then create another array making use of the externals and/or Time Machine to take care of the redundancy. I have this super machine coming, and just want to be sure I'm making most efficient use of it all. Any opinions on how you'd set this up, very welcomed.
I typically work on short projects, I'm not a filmmaker. Client work is usually between 2-15 minutes per clip, and once its done, it can be archived. I've got a ton of old data and large photo library and all the space needs you may imagine with HD video and photography, but I'll certainly have room to spare and play with. How would you work with these 7 drives?

There is a significant difference between 'running incompatible' software and using a version that has some vestigial system checks. The software is quite capable of running as it should. The issue I experienced has nothing to do with the factors that make it not supported (which is significantly different than incompatible). While your statement is true, its not properly applied. Fact is, FCP HD is NOT incompatible with the Mac Pro.
The quick fix of ignoring the scratch location did the job. Taking that option vs spending money has nothing to do with wisdom, rather discernment. It runs just fine now, cost me nothing to get it running, and isn't something I have a huge need for anyway. So this somewhat pretentious attitude isn't needed.

2010 Mac Pro with Apple RAID card - "Drive carrier 00:03 removed"

I've got a 2010 Mac Pro with the Apple RAID card and 4 internal identical Seagate ST32000641AS 2TB drives inside.
I've never had a problem with the RAID card (either battery or in operation) except for one thing:
Almost every time I shut the machine down (which I try to do as rarely as possible), it keeps losing Drive 3, the spare.
(See RAID Utility event log snippet below.)
[I wish I could understand why this Apple RAID card keeps losing the spare across power-cycles/reboots, but I digress.]
So I just adopted it as the spare and it spawns the rebuild and many hours later, everything's fine again.
... until the last time I rebooted (Jan. 2nd).
After the usual "I lost the spare" message upon login, it began the rebuild.
But this time, about 11 1/2 hours later the rebuild stopped and RAID Utility reported "Drive carrier 00:03 removed".
Bay 3 is now missing in the Controller view.
I powered off the system last night, and left it off overnight. Today I took all the drives out, blew the dust off and reseated them.
Same thing. Drive 3 is still missing, and now the rebuild task aborted.
The drive bay location shouldn't matter, right? Can I swap the Bay 3 drive with the Bay 4 drive?
I figure one of two things would happen:
(1) It will report Bay 3 as being there but Bay 4 as being missing, same situation as is now. Meaning the problem is in the Bay 3 spare drive.
(2) It will report Bay 3 as being missing (despite a 'good' drive being present) and Bay 4 will be the (unattached) spare, and the RAID set will be unviable. Meaning the problem is with the drive bay itself, not whatever drive is plugged into it.
If "Drive carrier removed" is trying to tell me the disk is bad, why do I not see any log messages about it? I suppose a spare that never gets used could go bad from lack of use, but ... no messages at all?
Hesitant to plunk down $160 on a new spare disk if the present one isn't actually dead ...
% sudo raidutil list raidsetinfo
                                     Total     Avail
Raidsets      Type       Drives       Size      Size Comments
RS1           RAID 5     1,2,4      5.23TB    0.00MB Rebuild: 0% complete
% sudo raidutil list driveinfo
Drives Raidset       Size      Flags
Bay #1 RS1             2.00TB   IsMemberOfRAIDSet:RS1 IsReliable
Bay #2 RS1             2.00TB   IsMemberOfRAIDSet:RS1 IsReliable
Bay #4 RS1             2.00TB   IsMemberOfRAIDSet:RS1 IsReliable
Event log snippet:
Saturday, January 11, 2014 8:15:19 AM PT
Background task aborted: Task=Rebuild,Scope=DRVGRP,Group=RS1
informational
Friday, January 3, 2014 3:50:28 AM PT
Drive carrier 00:03 removed
informational
Thursday, January 2, 2014 4:29:37 PM PT
Marked drive in bay 3 as a global spare
informational
Thursday, January 2, 2014 4:29:28 PM PT
Adopted drive in bay 3
informational
Thursday, January 2, 2014 4:28:34 PM PT
Degraded RAID set RS1 - No spare available for rebuild
critical
Saturday, December 7, 2013 5:35:17 PM PT
Marked drive in bay 3 as a global spare
informational
Saturday, December 7, 2013 5:35:08 PM PT
Adopted drive in bay 3
informational
Saturday, December 7, 2013 5:34:11 PM PT
The "RedundancyScrub" command could not be executed. (Invalid request or invalid parameter in the request.)
warning
Saturday, December 7, 2013 5:34:03 PM PT
Degraded RAID set RS1 - No spare available for rebuild
critical
Friday, December 6, 2013 4:56:47 AM PT
Battery finished conditioning
informational
Thursday, December 5, 2013 9:53:44 PM PT
Battery started scheduled conditioning cycle (write cache disabled)
informational
Friday, September 6, 2013 10:53:11 PM PT
Battery finished conditioning
informational
Friday, September 6, 2013 3:41:33 PM PT
Battery started scheduled conditioning cycle (write cache disabled)
informational
Saturday, June 8, 2013 3:41:35 PM PT
Battery finished conditioning
informational
Saturday, June 8, 2013 8:37:49 AM PT
Battery started scheduled conditioning cycle (write cache disabled)
informational
Thursday, May 30, 2013 4:09:51 PM PT
Marked drive in bay 3 as a global spare
informational
Thursday, May 30, 2013 4:09:42 PM PT
Adopted drive in bay 3
informational
Thursday, May 30, 2013 4:08:59 PM PT
Degraded RAID set RS1 - No spare available for rebuild
critical
Thursday, May 30, 2013 3:32:29 PM PT
Degraded RAID set RS1
warning

Power Pig wrote:
"Hesitant to plunk down $160 on a new spare disk if the present one isn't actually dead ...
% sudo raidutil list raidsetinfo
                                     Total     Avail
Raidsets      Type       Drives       Size      Size Comments
RS1           RAID 5     1,2,4      5.23TB    0.00MB Rebuild: 0% complete
I was talking about this.
This looks like a RAID 5 setup without the parity to me. I would said it basically a RAID 0.
Also you metioned "I guess that previous spare must really have gone 'bad', despite having never been used! "
I wiped everything out, I selected the 3 disks and clicked on "Create RAID Set" with RAID5 selected and the "Use unassigned drives as spares" option checked. The 3rd disk has always been marked as the spare ever since then. You do not have a choice to create a "RAID5 setup without the parity". If I wanted a RAID0 I would have chosen a RAID0! raidutil now says
% sudo raidutil list raidsetinfo
                                     Total     Avail
Raidsets      Type       Drives       Size      Size Comments
RS1           RAID 5     1,2,3,4    5.23TB    0.00MB No tasks running
Every time the system would 'lose' Drive 3 on boot, I would just keep rebooting until it was 'found', and then manually re-assign the now-'floating' drive as the spare - and the RAID would rebuild.
There was never a problem until the day that prompted this post - when it would not find Drive 3 no matter what I did. I turned the Mac Pro off for several hours until the drives had all cooled down and it still did not find the drive. I left the machine on but unmounted the degraded volume until I got the new replacement drive.
I really don't understand what you are getting at. It's like you are trying to tell me I set it up as a 4-drive RAID5 with no parity(!) and that I was in grave danger because one of the disks was gone. The actual RAID contents (spread across Drives 1, 2 and 4) were never in danger, unless a 2nd disk had failed while the spare was not seen by the Apple RAID card. I wasn't too worried about that happening.

Mac Pro with Apple Raid Card - 1 drive OSX (JBOD) + 1 drive Vista?

Can anyone walk me through what I'd need to do to set up an early 2008 model Mac Pro with the Apple Raid Card pre-installed and 2 500 gig drives, so that I can have OSX on the first drive and Vista on the second?
I know it defeats the purpose of the raid card, but...
What I've done so far is:
1. Removed drive #2
2. Install and using Raid Utility, add the first drive as a JBOD set/volume
3. After install, shut down the machine
4. Re-add drive #2
5. Restart
6. Use disk utility to add drive #2
I tried to use bootcamp, but it only wants to put windows on the first drive - which won't work because it is RAID.

Run Vista off an ATA interface in the 2nd optical drive. There is an SATA 2 ATA adapter.
I think you can boot Vista off some RAID controllers, check out Highpoint RocketRAIDs. Should be able to configure the RR.
Boot Vista off USB is a stretch.

Mac Pro with software raid and upgrading to Snow Leopard

Not sure if anyone else has experienced this but here goes. I have a mac pro with 4 500G drives using the onboard software raid. When I insert the Snow Leopard disk and try to install, it fails to find the raid. Is there a trick to get this to work?

Thank you SSSOOO much Greg818. I was pulling my hair out over this problem. I even went so far as to do a full Leopard install with Snow Leopard update on a USB drive and them cloned it over to my RAID 0 array using SuperDuper hoping that this would solve the problem. It seemed to in the sense that the clone went fine but then when I would try and boot from the array I would get the Apple Logo and spinning wheel but it just kept spinning and spinning until finally the Apple logo was replaced by the Do Not Enter symbol(you know the circle with the slash through it).
So came here and found this thread. Your solution worked like charm!!! Once again thank you so much... you saved me from being bald.

MAC PRO WITH SSD?

can i get MAC PRO with SSD from APPLE STORE?
ARE THEY KEEP THEM IN STOCK?
OR WE MUST ORDER ONLINE OR WE COULD PRE-ORDER FROM APPLE STORE?

We are all end-users here, just like you. Your best action is to call the Apple Store at 1-800-MY-APPLE. Someone there can answer your question.

Mac Pro with Western Digital VelociRaptor 600G ?

Hello people,
Has anyone tried upgrading the HDDs in the Mac Pros with the new drive from WD
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=821
From what i see, as the last model, this will probably not fit natively due to a lower pin arrangement that will not match the Mac Pro SATA slots with the factory HDD sleds. Am i wrong?
If you have this drive how does it compare?
Thanks

Hi-
That drive of this following model is plug and play in the MP:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/WD6000HLHX/
A pair of them in a striped RAID are as fast as the fastest SSD.
October 5th, 2010 -- For less that the price of one 256G SSD, you can buy two 10K 600G Velociraptor HDDs. If you stripe them (RAID 0), you get the same sustained transfer speed as the SSD. But, alas, the SSD can process 14 times as many small random transfer requests per second. Then again, considering you are getting 5 times the storage of the SSD and 3 times the transactions per second of the fastest 7K HDD, it's is an interesting option for a boot volume.
http://www.barefeats.com/quick.html

Is it possible to upgrade the Mac Pro with SCSI/SAS drives?

Hi guys I am considering to move on to a Mac Pro from my old PC.
The Mac Pro enclosure is quite unique in its hard drive holders as no cables are used and all drives are connected with a plugin mechanism.
So I am curious if that will allow me to upgrade to a SCSI/SAS storage system which requires cable connections between drives and the SCSI/SAS card on the PCI-E slot. I dont know if this will be possible with the Mac Pro enclosure.
Has anyone tried to do this？
Btw is there any Ultra320 or SAS(preferably) interface card available for Mac OS X?

The connectors for SATA drives can be used with SAS drives. However, the controller needs to be SAS compatible. I have never installed a SAS drive in the Mac Pro bay to see what happens. If some one has a SAS drive and wants to try this I would be interested in the results.
My guess is that the Mac Pro would not see the drive.
Areca sells the Mac Pro PCIe bootable ARC-1680 SAS controller in several configurations. This controller allows the user to utilize SAS or SATA hard drives connected to the card. The ARC-1680x comes with two external mini SAS connectors that can support eight direct connect hard drives or up to 128 devices (in theory) when used with SAS expanders.
The ARC-1680LP has one internal mini SAS port and one external mini SAS port. I looked at the Mac Pro internal SATA connectors and they can unscrew from the frame but there is only about 1/2" of clearance in that area of the case. In addition, I would want the hot swap bays to still operate and I did not see an easy way to patch into the existing SATA connectors. It would be nice if the Mac Pro factory connectors used snap on SATA connector on the back of the backplane so that users could interface the 4 SATA bays with an internal PCie controller. However, its hard wired in the existing configuration. With the new Mac Pro PCIe RAID 5 card on the market there must be alternative connectors that allow this type of installation to work properly.
Based on the ease at which the Areca SAS controller can be added as an external using the ARC-1680x I went with that option. I am using it with eight direct connect SATA hard drives now. I plan to expand the storage by adding a SAS expander in the form of a hub or an enclosure with SAS capabilities. I have been looking at a 16 bay SAS enclosure but I am not sure how loud it will be
Details on the ARC-1680 can be found here:
http://www.areca.com.tw/products/pcietosas1680series.htm
Its very cool to have SAS or SATA capability along with a bootable card that can support tons of hard drives and RAID levels 0, 1,1E, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60 or JBOD . I booted the Mac Pro with a 2TB Mac OS X 10.4.10 RAID 6 volume and ran Xbench. It shows a 400MB/sec. hard drive setup and raises the overall Xbench score substantially.
While I doubt I will boot the Mac Pro from the RAID 6 volume much, it is very cool that that function is available. This is the only PCIe host adapter I have found with boot capabilities besides Apples new $999 4 port SATA internal card. SAS has lots of expansion capabilities. Users that want pretty much unlimited hard drive connectivity will enjoy the new ARC-1680x.
Have fun!

Advice on upgrading to SSD for Mac Pro (optimized for AfterEffects & Photoshop)

Hello,
I'm an animator (I use AfterEffects CS5, but will be upgrading to CC soon) and I'm going to start work on a new AE project in a few months for an animated film that will be very demanding (lots of different shots -- meaning multiple projects, all of which will also incorporate large HD stock footage elements as well as multiple layers of art created in Photoshop).
So I'm looking to upgrade my current desktop Mac Pro (a 2010 2x2.66GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon) with SSD drives (and possibly a new graphics card) in order to speed up my system and optimize it for both AfterEffects and Photoshop. (In the past I've created projects using external 7200 RPM hard drives connected via eSATA). I've also decided, for now, not to purchase the new Mac Pro, but rather try and make a smaller investment to speed up my current system.
I'd love any advice that pro users would have that have made similiar upgrades, both in terms of the best equipment (SSD drives and graphics card) and the best way to set up AfterEffects/Photoshop projects using these SSDs.
For example:
1. Should I be purchasing 1 or 2 SSDs, and how should I be using these drives to optimize my system for AfterEffects and Photoshop?
2. Should I install my operating system (I'm on OS 10.8.5 but plan to upgrade to Mavericks when I upgrade to CC) on one separate SSD, and then install my Adobe applications on a 2nd SSD, or can I put both the operating system and applications on a single SSD? And should I be saving my projects on a SSD (if so, which one, if I'm supposed to purchase 2?
3. Should I assign a 2nd SSD as a scratch disk for AfterEffects or Photoshop?
4. I plan on using my current external hard drives (a 12 TB RAID array connected via eSATA) to store the footage and Photoshop elements being used in my AE projects (these files will be multiple GBs, and I can't afford to purchase SSD drives to hold these elements on) and also to store the renders from AfterEffects (which will also be very large files). Is this OK, or will this slow me down and negate whatever speed I've gained from moving to SSDs?
5. In researching how to switch over to SSD, I've considered purchasing 1 or 2 SSD drives. The one I'm currently looking at is called the Murcury Accelsior_E2, a PCI Express SSD sold via OWC. It comes in a few different sizes (120 GBs, 240 GBs, 480 GBs, 960 GBs). Just wondering if this is a good purchase -- the reviews seem to be very positive:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDPHWE2R960/
6. I'm also considering upgrading my current graphics card (ATI Radeon HD 5870) to the NVIDIA Quatro 4000 or NVIDIA Quatro 5000, but I'm wondering how much of a speed boost this would give me.
Here's an overview of my current system:
Computer: 2010 Mac Pro with 2x 2.66 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon
Memory: 64 GB DDR3 ECC
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 5870
Hard Drives (Internal): 2x 2TB Hitachi HD
Hard Drives (External): 12TB OWC Mercury Elite Pro RAID drive array (connected via eSATA)
Apologies in advance for the long message, but I've always recieved great advice from these message boards and I'd appreciate any help!
Thanks,
Dan

Thanks so much for jumping back into the discussion, The hatter! I had some earlier questions from before that I was hoping you could answer:
Currently I own a 12 TB OWC Mercury Elite Pro RAID drive array (connected via eSATA) which I use to save projects, project files, and renders. So (unless I am mistaken) you're recommending that I continue to use this RAID array to save projects, project files, and renders.
(I was looking into purchasing a Mercury Accelsior_E2 for my SSD via PCI -- it has eSATA, so I can continue to connect my RAID array)
Then I would use my new SSD via SATA II for my system, apps, and OS (minus home folder media files, data, documents) and my SSD via PCI for scratch disks for Photoshop/AfterEffects.
Currently I have 2 x 2 TB internal hard drives, which have all my OS + home folder media files.
Can I get more details in terms of the step-by-step instructions when it's time to install/clone? Here's how it looks to me (apologies if I have this out-of-order, and feel free to correct me if I've missed a step or have it wrong -- thank you in advance!):
1. Purchase SSDs (via PCI and internal SATA II) and install them inside my Mac Pro.
(Is there any formatting I need to do at this point to the SSDs once they are all plugged in...?)
2. Install TRIM Enabler
(Once it's installed, what do I do with TRIM Enabler? Is it an app that runs 24/7 in the background, or is it an app that I need to launch on a regular basis and perform commands on the SSDs...? Very confused on what TRIM Enabler does.)
3. Use CCC to clone system from old internal hard drive to new internal SSD drive. When using CCC, deselect media folders in home account before cloning (so I am NOT cloning media folders from old hard drive to new SSD drive).
(What specific media folders should I be deselecting? I'd like to keep my music, movies, iPhoto/Lightroom files, and email archive where they are now -- on the 2 x 2TB internal drives that shipped with my Mac Pro. Is there a link that provides more info on this process? Never used CCC before but I assume it's not too hard to use...?)
4. CCC clones system gets 'cloned' (minus the media folders) to the SSD that is installed via SATA II in empty internal drive bay inside Mac Pro.
5. Repair the SSD with DU after cloning and before using and booting from SSD.
(What is DU? How does it work? Not familiar with DU...?)
6. Reboot computer from system running on SSD.
7. Open Photoshop/AfterEffects (now running from SSD) and assign new scratch disk (the SSDs on PCIe SSD controller).
8. After 100% sure that system + apps that have been cloned is working via SSD, delete ONLY system and apps from old hard drive (but do not delete media files).
(Now that my system is on a separate SSD drive, when I do things like purchase new music from iTunes, will it get downloaded to the old location (my old hard drive with all my media)? In other words, are there steps I have to perform in order to relink my media folders now that they're on a separate drive?
Thanks,
Dan

Replacing a Mac Pro with a 2012 Mac mini?

Has anyone replaced their Mac Pro with a 2012 Mac mini? If so, are you happy with your decision?

I had the mini fitted with a SSD by Apple. Apple use the Samsung 830 and that is very capable and the price difference was not worth the effort of installing the SSD. Where installing memory is as easy as it could ever be replacing the hard disk is mind bendingly frustrating. You might think from videos such as this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13wcKCYo_Xw
that it is a simple procedure. What they dont tell you is that this man has freakishly tiny hands. In the real world the job reminds me of disassembling mechanical wrist watches. You need a variety of specialized tools or its just not happening. And there is no soothing music.
Also the video above misses a critical step. The antenna grate will not fit back into position unless a hook like tool is used to go through a specific hole in the grate and pull up from under whilst applying a pressure in the necessary horizontal direction.
So my advice is not to install your own HDD/SSD. The memory I used was from Crucial because Crucial is the retail side of Micron who provides Apple their memory for the mac minis.
http://www.crucial.com/upgrade/Apple-memory/Mac+mini/Mac+mini+%28Late+2012%29-up grades.html
Having heard of memory failures in AHD from different manufacturers and read about the need for 3.35v DDR3L I ran what I got from Crucial through 6 cycles of the advanced AHD, taking about 10 hours. No failures.
I am running Parallels and under various virtual machines running simultaneously I have intensive CADs, IDEs, and all the latest games on steam maxed out on a 30 inch display, without lag or any noticeable loading time at all. It is by far the fastest machine I have used. Very impressed.

Itunes library sharing on single Mac Pro with 2 users.

Recently I have setup a Mac Pro with 2 users. Primarily the thought was to have this as the media server for a couple of AppleTV (2nd generation) and other users. The primary user on the Mac Pro (me), has the iTunes Library located in the Public Directory. Home sharing is enabled, on all systems. There is no problem when the Primary user is logged in and iTunes is running. When the second user, logs into the Mac Pro, nobody has access to the iTunes Library of the primary user.
I was thinking of setting up the secondary user with the same itunes directory, but when new content is added by the primary user, the secondary user would not see it automatically, would they?
Basically I am trying to set up a common iTunes library for all users and all devices. Is it possible

michaelfromsherwood park wrote:
The primary user on the Mac Pro (me), has the iTunes Library located in the Public Directory.
while logged in to the other user account, launch iTunes while holding the option (⌥) key, click on choose library when prompted, and select the iTunes folder in the shared folder.
if you're using fast user switching, user A must quit iTunes before user B can access the library.
Home sharing is enabled, on all systems.
home sharing is designed to work between two (or more) computers on the the same LAN.

Mac Pro 2009 Raid Set Lost after Hard Reboot

We have a newer Nehalem based Mac Pro with a 2009 Black Apple Hardware Raid card. The Hard Drive Configuration is: 4 x 2TB Western Digital drives setup as a Raid 1+0 array providing 4TB of space with what we believed to be optimal performance and redundancy. We had two volumes / partitions configured on the array, one 120GB for the OS and the remaining 3.8TB for data.
Everything was working fine when the server froze up. ON the Screen an error message said there is a problem with your Raid controller, Please open Apple Raid Utility.. Unfortunatly when we tried to do that we just got a spining beachball. We tried to open finder and it beachballed. We tried to force quit and nothing working. Finally we were left with no choice but to do a hard restart of the server and turn the machine off and then back on.
When the server came back on it would not boot up. We were greeting with the Folder with a Queston Mark. We booted from the Mac 10.6 Snow leopard Server Disk and opened up Apples Raid utility software. Much to our shock the Raid Set and the two Volumes were not shown in the Utility. However all 4 of the drives were listed and all being shown as Green light good status, but listed as "Roaming". We weren't sure what to do, the volumes weren't accesible since they didn't exist, the Raid set wasn't there, there was no way to run something like Data Rescue Recovery software. We tried calling Apple and have to wait until they open this morning. After looking online at various forums we came accross this problem with no solutions. Most of the people with the problems had the older 2006 Blue Raid card, and this appeared to be a common issue amoung others with the older card. I decided to try and re-create the Raid 1+0 set. However as soon as I did that I was prompted by Raid Utility that the drives I was selecting to use for the Raid set were already a part of another raid set and using them would delete the data on the set. I obviously canceled the process. Crazy enough the system knows the drives belong to a Raid set but doesn't realize it should know what the raid set information is.
We were using Mac OS 10.6.7 Snow Leopard Server, and I even tried installing and updating an external drive with 10.6.7 Server and booted from the drive from the machine and try to run Raid Utility. That did not work either. Any advice from anyone would be awesome. I'm worried what Apple is going to say when I do get a hold of them, the system is under Apple Care warranty. Thanks in advance for anyone's time.

I haven't lost data, but in my 2010 Mac Pro with 2009-vintage Apple RAID card, it has this Really Annoying Habit of constantly losing Disk 3 (the spare) in my 4x2 TB internal RAID5 array whenever I have to do a hard reboot.
I keep having to re-mark the now-"Roaming" drive as a Spare and then wait 8+ hours for it to rebuild the array ... grrr.
I saw an Apple KB article that suggests removing the Roaming disk and re-inserting it. Duh. Fat lot of good that did. Really wish there was some answer to this issue ... hard reboots should NOT cause array disks to go from "Assigned"/good to "Roaming"!

I have a 2009 Macbook Pro with 1T hdd 8GB Ram and ran Maverick without problem...Yosemite installation has me completely frozen, nothing works but the spinning ball...I had to force shutdown last night, and haven't turned it on again...what do you ad

I have a 2009 Macbook Pro with 1T hdd 8GB Ram and ran Maverick without problem...Yosemite installation has me completely frozen, nothing works but the spinning ball...I had to force shutdown last night, and haven't turned it on again...what do you advise? During installation emptied cache, etc. Backed up using time machine, fortunately.

Try these in order testing your system after each to see if it's back to normal:
1. a. Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
    b. Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
2. Restart the computer in Safe Mode, then restart again, normally. If this doesn't help, then:
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the Utilities menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
3. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
4. Reinstall Yosemite: Reboot from the Recovery HD. Select Reinstall OS X from the Utilities menu, and click on the Continue button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.
5. Reinstall Yosemite from Scratch:
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
How to Clean Install OS X Yosemite
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.

I had a second hard drive added to my Mac Pro. How do I format it and not effect my orginal hard drive?

I had a second hard drive added to my Mac Pro. How do I format it and not effect my orginal hard drive?

Just format it with Disk Utility as mentioned above. Select the new disk on the list at the left. Click the erase tab. Specify Mac OS Extended (Journaled) if not already specified and give the disk a name of your choice. Then click the erase button.
That's the simplest way to format a disk with a single partition (volum). If you want to create multiple volume (partitions) then click the Partition tab instead of Erase. You can then use then specify a number of volumes and size each volume by specifying its size or just dragging the slider in the bootm right of each partition. Give each a name as before and again Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Click Apply button to create the partitions.
Since you appear to be new at this just "play" with the erase and partition settings so you can become comfortable with them. So long as you have the new disk selected on the left you can't really hurt anything since it's a new disk and no data to loose. You can always go back and erase it back to a single partition.

Adding ssd to mac pro with raid hdd

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