Apple RAID Card and 3TB Drives only show 2.2 TB

I tried a 3TB Seagate Barracuda XT drive in the July 2010 Mac Pro (and a Jan 2008 Mac Pro) on the RAID Card that came with the machines (so one is the RAID Card now shipping) and both show a maximum of 2.2 TB with a 3TB drive.
I'm curious if anyone else has tried this with different results. Any luck in getting the RAID Card to see the full 3TB in the drives?
By the way, without the RAID Card, the Mac (OS 10.6.4) sees the full 3TB, but not with it.
Anyone else seeing this?

Okay. Seems Apple didn't plan for or certify 3TB.
However, Apple doesn't support using 3rd party drives. Some do, and in some situations, drives you would think work don't, or they work but only briefly.
When I said read FAQ I was thinking of all the points like this:
Question: *Which drives does Apple support for the Mac Pro RAID Card and the Xserve RAID Card?*
Answer: Only Apple SATA drives and Promise 450GB SAS Drive modules sold through the Apple Store are supported for use with the Mac Pro RAID Card (Early 2009) and the Xserve RAID Card (Early 2009).
Apple 300GB SAS Drive modules are supported with the Mac Pro RAID Card (Late 2007) and Xserve RAID Card (Early 2007).
Drives must be either all Serial ATA (SATA) or all Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drives. SSD drive modules are not recommended for the Apple RAID Card because these drives use their own on-disk cache and cannot take advantage of the protection provided by the battery-backed cache on the RAID card.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1346#faq8
http://www.apple.com/support/macpro/
Apple Knowledge Base: recent changes:
http://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=articles

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Apple RAID Card, 4 SAS drives, 1 bootable large striped volume?

I have an Apple RAID card and 4 SAS 250GB drives. I did the migration when I set up the RAID to give me 1 drive for my bootable OSX volume and the other 3 combined into unused unpartitioned space.
But I want all 4 drives combined and striped for one large bootable OSX volume. I'd prefer not to have to reinstall OSX to do this.
Do I need to buy a utility? Can I use Disk Utility or the Apple RAID Utility? I've done searches and read all the help and can't find an answer.

Is it possible to install a third disk (300GB SAS) and to use it as a separate Volume ?
Yes. Of course.
How do I have to set this up using Apple Raid Utility ?
No. A third drive should just appear on the desktop. You only need RAID utility if you want to add that drive to an array, which doesn't sound like the case here.

Non-Apple RAID card with internal drives possible on 2009 model ?

Hello there,
I have decided against the Apple Raid card, since it does not support any other drives than the ones sold through the Apple Store and it also only supports up to 1 TB drives.
My goal is to have 3x 1.5 TB drives in a RAID 5 array.
Does anybody know any hardware Raid 5 capable adapters, that can be used with internal 1.5 TB drives & the early 2009 Mac Pro model ?
Cheers,
Martin

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, ATTO and LSI, and Adaptec mainly owned the storage market for Mac controllers, and even then in those happy times we heard there was Voodoo in the land, and a curse on what were the Rules of SCSI Voodoo, and one had to be careful that a drive really was certified and tested, and one had to insure which firmware version one was talking about, not just any which firmware - and controllers also had to be updated as well.
Signal processing over SCSI with good active termination, cable length, and 160 pins (and cable strands) (and no noise or crosstalk, good insulation).
If one did all of the above, and was careful, you were rewarded with a working storage controller and array and the best possible performance at the time.
And sometimes you could venture off the reservation... a little, and some drivers could patch and work around bugs in firmware or other problems - just as bugs in cpu, boot firmware, and microcode can be patched by the OS kernel. And people would pay for retail drivers, or they would have to rely on the vendor's bundled driver (that may only work on their own drives and no others).
Hard Disk Toolkit, Silverlining and others made name for themselves, amoung others that now have faded into oblivion for most.
But it still exists when you venture beyond consumer and pro-consumer devices and venture to use FC-SCSI, SCSI, and SAS. And taking a chance when you try to use off the shelf SATA storage products and solutions. There are times when OEM drives really are OEM-only and a good thing; and times to avoid.
And there is no list of any kind of successfully used non-Apple drives, though there is word-of-mouth of a few that definitely need to be avoided.

3TB Drive Only Shows Up on My Mac as 750GB

I have a new Western Digital 3TB drive that I am using as an external drive in a NexStar Hard Drive Dock to connect to my computer. I formatted it in Disk Utility but it only shows up as 746.5 GB and not the full 3TB. I formatted it through Guid Partition but the info says there is 0 partition. I don't actually need a partition, I am trying to use it as backup and copy about 2.5TB of files onto it.I have a Macbook Pro and am running Mac OS 10.5.8
Any help?

It could be what Kappy said, though these specifications say up to 3 TB: http://www.vantecusa.com/en/product/view_detail/295
If you do not have that exact same model (NST-D100SU) its capacity may be less.

3TB drive only shows as 746.52GB in Windows XP.

I just purchased a 3TB Descktop Drive (DT01ACA300) because on the box it says it works with Window XP. However, when I installed the drive as a Data Drive (not the boot drive), booted the system & looked in the drive manager, it shows that the 3TB drive is only 746.52GB.
When I go into my BIOS the drive shows up as 3000GB (3TB), so the BIOS sees it correclty. Other Hard Drive manufactureres supply software with their drives so that they work correctly with Windows XP. I assumed that would be the case when I bought this drive.
Does anyone know what I need to do to get this drive to work correctly in Windows XP or how I get support from Toshiba???

Windows XP does not support either large drives or those with advanced-format technology. See KB2581408 and KB2510009. Your drive is both.
This Paragon utility should overcome the problem when it's a data drive.
HGST GPT Disk Manager
-Jerry

OT (ish): ATTO raid card and Sonnet drive array won't mount

Hi,
It's slightly off topic I think, but the title says it all. My ATTO configuration tool says all is ok and all 8 drives are fine, but Finder doesn't show the drive array (8xdrives as RAID 5). ATTO support have told me how to manually mount the drives via a command line interface, but I'd really like to just turn the computer on and have them there on the desktop(!). While support is thinking about it, I was wondering if anyone had had anything similar and if they felt it was the OS as opposed to the PCI card? I'm running 10.4.11. Other drives (SATA and FW) mount fine.....
Cheers!
Todd.

Complete re-install worked

3TB drive only showing up as 746.5 gb on mac osx 10.5.8

Trying to add Segate Barracuda 7200 3TB 64MB SATA drive. Drive is used in a USB dock.
Mac Pro Dual 1.8GHz PowerPC G5
Any suggestions?

A drive that does not show BOTH its Make & Model and an appropriate non-zero size/capacity cannot be initialized or repaired in its current state. (Off by up to ten percent is still acceptable, because ways of measuring drive sizes vary.)
If it is in an external enclosure, this may be the fault of the enclosure.
If it is direct-connected inside your Mac, the drive has died.

Apple RAID Card help needed

OK, new Mac Pro with Apple RAID card and three drives. Discovered RAID 5 is not setup as shipped.
Thought I would need to run Disk Utility, told no it's RAID Admin, but found out it's a app called RAID Utility, so I set this up. Also found out I could "migrate" existing OS X Server volume on Drive 1 to the RAID 5 without reinstalling... but after migration, found one partition with the OS and another empty partition. Are there any tools to expand the existing Partition 1 to include space on Partition 2 with the OS, without destroying/reinstalling it? Thanks - Lewis

You could open Disk Utility and click the RAID volume. Under partitions, see if you can make it 1 partition and retain data.

Apple Raid Card, multiple drives and volumes

Hallo,
my xserve (early-2008) has an Apple Raid Card and two 300GB SAS-drives installed (mirroring).
Is it possible to install a third disk (300GB SAS) and to use it as a separate Volume ?
Disk 1 (300GB SAS) - Apple Raid Card mirroring: Volume 1 (300GB)
Disk 2 (300GB SAS) - Apple Raid Card mirroring: Volume 1 (300GB)
Disk 3 (300GB SAS) - Volume 2 (300GB)
How do I have to set this up using Apple Raid Utility ?
Thanks for your help !

Is it possible to install a third disk (300GB SAS) and to use it as a separate Volume ?
Yes. Of course.
How do I have to set this up using Apple Raid Utility ?
No. A third drive should just appear on the desktop. You only need RAID utility if you want to add that drive to an array, which doesn't sound like the case here.

New drives help for APPLE RAID Card RAID Redo

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?
Has anyone done this or anything like it using Seagate Drives that are not Apple OEM. Will that work OK or will the Apple RAID Card want to see Apple OEM drives? Apple sells 2TB Seagates, but they cost a lot compared to non-OEM drives, but will cheaper generic Seagate Barracuddas work OK in every way?
Also, after accomplishing this upgrade, I'd like to upgrade this machine to the latest Lion and possibly even Moutain Lion System Software. Any issues perceived?
To reiterate, I'd like to increase my storage to the max in my Early 2008 MacPro3,1 which has the Apple RAID Card utilizing a RAID5. This is spec'd at "4 - 3.0 Gbps Serial ATA (SATA) controllers" but no mention is made of what the MAX Size drives that will be addressed by the RAID Card.
Thanks, and so long for now, TOM

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.
No you do not need to use Apple's.
I cannot vouche for or seen someone doing so but I would hope that WD RED series would be suitable.

Apple RAID Card, All Drives RAID?

For those of you who have the Apple RAID card, I was wondering if all the drives are configured into one RAID set? Or can you have say a single boot drive, a third data drive and then have the remaining two drives set up as a RAID 0?

I was interested in using the RAID card for 2 drives only, for storing captured video.
I don't want to use the RAID for my boot/data drive.

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.

Apple RAID card w/SSD in Optical Bay

If I've got this right, you cannot use the Apple RAID card in the new Mac Pro if you have even one SSD drive in any of the four HD bays. What I'm trying to determine is if you can use the Apple RAID card if the four HD bays all have 'normal' drives installed, but still want to use an SSD as a 5th drive, and locate it in the lower optical bay.
Hope the question makes sense, and I hope someone knows the answer!
Thanks.

Hi rlhinc,
If you have not already purchased an Apple RAID card, and you only want to set up a RAID 0, as your post on another thread suggests, why not set up a software RAID 0 using Disk Utility:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Storage-HowToSetupRAID.html
With any RAID configuration the drives should all be identical, whether you are using 2, 3 or 4 drives.
I have 4 WD VelociRaptor 300GB drives in a striped (Scratch + Data) RAID 0 configuration in the 4 hard drive bays of my 2009 Nehalem Mac Pro, and set this up with Disk Utility.
The OS and my applications are on an SSD which is installed in the lower optical drive bay, and this set up works fine:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-InstallingSSD.html
Regards,
Bill

Different RAID card and HDDs

Hello -
I did some searches for older posts, but didn't find anything with a definite answer.
I know the Apple RAID FAQ mentions that only Apple drives are supported with the RAID card both some posts have said this is not the case anymore. And there are several posts with people buying new WDs and Seagates for their Pros. So does the Apple RAID card support other drives?
My next question is does the Pro support any other RAID card beside the Apple one? If so, are there any recommendations on a good one? Will it work fine with the Pro form factor and with OS X?
Thank you

Search through http://www.amug.com which reviews most every controller and hard drive, as does http://www.barefeats.com
RAID is a frequent topic, search for userid "mbean" and "RAID" and you'll come across some very in-depth replies.
What do you need your setup for though is the first question. And whether $799 is the best bet, first.

Raid Card and Multiple Hardrives.

does anyone have any idea if I can use the raid card to use a seperate hard drive to run windows and then use another drive for mac OSX? That way I don't have to worry about partitioning my hardrive. If there is any way to do so I would really like to know. Also any cheaper suggestions for a raid card?

Fact is you cannot use the APPLE RAID CARD and also run Windows on any of the internal SATA ports. Unless you want to play around with iPass or reroute the cables.
http://www.apple.com/support/macpro/
I consider the RAID card more hinderance, and not just in terms of Boot Camp.
http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/
Windows 7 is fine, more users probably than use Leopard, and runs well, no issues, and better than Vista even with SP2.

Apple RAID Card and 3TB Drives only show 2.2 TB

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