Disaster RAID on MS 6702

Help:
This week end I updated my Bios, with "live update" as I have done many times previously.
However this time after the update the PC would not boot to Windows...giving me the Error message
" system32\hal.dll file missing"
re install this file.
Well I could not mange to do this no matter what I tried !.As I had no access to "Windows' I had to work in DOS mode which I am noy very familiar with but following instructions I found by searching the net I used the Recovery console and typed in the respective commands to re install the hal.dll file.
I typed :
F:\i386\hal.dll_c:\windows\system32\hal.dll
And similar variations to try to get it to work but it was never going to work as I found that I could not access my "Windows" files as they were all in my RAID array and the recovey console did not "see" them ..it would not detect the Raid drives at all when I tried !.
I have anothe HD installed on the "normal ATA IDE sockets and was able to see this drive and contents OK also my CD & DVD drives,!.
Does anyone know what I could have done in case it happens again.
I had a thought that I would install a second copy of Windows on my other ATA IDE drive and if I had problems with my RAID windows setup I would boot to the copy and copy the "lost" files over to the respective Raid drive.
However this didn't wotk either as the second copy of windows booted Ok but in Explorer it does not recognose the raid setup ..it does "see" the drive but no contents and if i try to access it it just says it wants to Format it.
is there a way of fixing these type of problems with my setup
Thanks
Pete
SYSTEM SPECIFICATION as at 28 February 2004
MSI K8T Neo Motherboard (MS6702 (v1)
ON BOARD AC-97 Realtek SOUND
MOTHERBOARD BIOS VERSION AWARD AWD 1.2
AMD XP 64 BIT 3200 PROCESSOR
ADAPTEC 2940U2W SCSI CONTROLLER CARD
BIOS VERSION ADAPTEC 2.57.2
WESTERN DIGITAL WD1000JB 7200rpm ATA133 100GB HARD DRIVE
RAID SETUP: 0 STRIPPING (for Performance)
WESTERN DIGITAL WD12000 7200rpm SERIAL ATA 120GB HARD DRIVE
WESTERN DIGITAL WD12000 7200rpm SERIAL ATA 120GB HARD DRIVE
1G (2x 512 MB) PC3200 DDR CORSAIR MEMORY
ASUS V8170 NVIDIA G-FORCE 4 64MB GRAPHICS CARD
LG 4040B DVD WRITER DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW DVD-RAM
LITON XJ-HD 116S 48Wx24xRW48R CD WRITER-SMART BURN/SMART X
LITEON 48246S DVD ROM
STANDARD 1.4MB FLOPPY DRIVE
MITSUBISHI DIAMOND VIEW DV-172 17 INCH LCD FLAT SCREEN MONITOR
EPSON PERFECTION 1200 SCSI SCANNER
CANON S820 COLOUR PRINTER
CANON S520 COLOUR PRINTER
AOPEN HX-08 FULL TOWER CASE
DYNALINK V1456VQE-R1 EXTERNAL MODEM
ASPI LAYER 4.17.2

when you update bios, it kills all old settings.like boot order,custom mem settings, everthing goes back to defualt.
so if it couldn't see your raid, and os was on raid, there in lies the problem.
....if not, remember that floppy disk you made with old biossettings put it in, boot with ctrl+h.

Similar Messages

RAID firmware upgrade = disaster

I have an XRAID connected to an XServer. My raid is RAID-5. I had a drive to go out, called apple to get a replacement (under warranty), got the replacement, installed it, back up and running. Well when I was on the phone getting the RMA, the tech told me I should upgrade my firmware. After installing the drive, I upgraded the firmware. After the firmware upgrade, I could not see my raid. Called Apple and they told me to rollback to previous firmware. Did that and still no raid. My raid is connected via Fibre Channel. I feel sure that my data is still on the RAID (1.8TB) but I can not get to it. I took the first disk in the raid and installed in on another mac and looked at it with pdisk. It said it was 1.8TB which is true. I have most if not all the data backed up but it is taking days to restore onto another RAID that I have. I am in hopes that I can get this unit back online without having to restore all the tapes as there are two directories that I can not find on the backups.
Nothing shows up with Disk Utility. When I use Apple's RAID admin, it shows all the drives as being spares that are in my raid.
Does anyone have any idea how I can access this data? The server is running 10.3.9. The raid is connected via fibre channel.
G5 Mac OS X (10.3.9) none

What does RAID admin say about the RAID set? Does it say it's a RAID 5?
Did you upgrade the firmware while the RAID set was rebuilding? I wouldn't think that would be a good idea -- probably something that would work, but I'd consider it unnecessarily risky.
I have upgraded the firmware on about 50 RAIDs over the past few years, without incident.

K8T Neo - FIS2R (model 6702) SATA and RAID Problems = Hair Loss

Hi All,
new to the forum, have searched but nothing like my problem exist.
I have a K8T Neo FIS2R M/B and trying to get a single SATA HDD working for my secondary drive. primary is a IDE which works well and I want to leave it.
I have plugged in the SATA HDD into the SER 1 port ( Promise 237 ?) anyhow the bois at startup or post recognises the drive, but then says soemthing like you have set up raid before F1 for setup F2 to continue to boot.
I have pressed both f1 and F2 at various time, but it appears that it want to turn the single drive into a RAID system, which is not possible with one drive !!....
Anyhow windows XP then boots up and loads a RAID driver and also the promise RAID drivers. the real problem is that XP sits and waits for the raid which never comes and during startup on XP. it is extremely slow.
Does anyone have any ideas. I am not that computer techy as you can see by the description, but it appears that I cannot get into the RAID bios to turn it off.. I have zapped the bios to try and reset it. basically i am loosing my hair ove this.
if anyone had some step by step instructions how to prevent raid from switching on at the bios and then in XP it would be greatly appreciated
Jeff

Hi All,
Sorry for the slow reply, retrieving the box from the bottom of the swimming pool !!!
I set it to SATA as you have indicated Hans, I did check that setting. Thankyou for checking.
Spray, I have tried the P20378 setting as well. You indicate that you need to press F6 when installing the OS. I have WinXP running already on an IDE master and am trying to set the SATA up as a secondary disk drive.
As I indicated above, the machine runs slowly to the point of it being a 486 when I use either promise or Via controllers.
I have since removed the drive and are now having problems with XP on boot up/startup. The thing seems to hang or go slowly when the horizontal bar runs across under the Windows XP logo. I have turned everything off in the bios both Promise and Via. I am at a loss as to why:
1 it runs slowly with the SATA drive in ( also does not show all the auto loading icons near the clock)
2. why it hangs when I remove it and turn both SATA controllers off in the bios.
I have a feeling that I may have corrupted part of the registry playing around. Any thoughts... going bald :-)
I really appreciate the feedback so far

Help needed! Raid degraded again!

Hi!
Help needed! I hava made bootable RAID with two S-ATAII 250Gb HDD and its not working! Every now and then at bootup I get a message RAID -> DEGRADED... Must be seventh time! Rebuild takes its own time!
What am I doing wrong!
T: Ekku
K8N Neo4 Ultra
AMD 64 4200+
2 Gb RAM
2 x 250 Gb HDD (Maxtor)
nVidia RAID (in mb)
P.S. I wery SORRY with my poor language!

I'm going to blame the nVRAID because I've seen issues with it in the past. If your motherboard has another non-nVidia RAID solution, use that instead. Using the nVidia SATA ports as BASE or JBOD is fine and dandy but RAIDing always had issues. It's not even a driver issue I think it's just instability. Latest drivers and even boxed drivers never helped. Granted, some will report success with their rig. But on a professional level I've seen nForce issues on different motherboards and different hard drives that had RAID disaster stories.
Good luck and if you don't have another RAID solution, my suggestion would be to buy a dedicated RAID controller card.
LPB

Creating a mirrored raid set with a hard drive that already has data on it.

I have a hard drive that I keep my photos on, and want to create a mirrored raid set that includes this drive, with its data, and another drive. How can I do this without erasing the drive with my photos on them? I am running 10.7.5 if that matters.
Thanks for any help.

Creating a Mirrored RAID reformats the drive and loads a substantial RAID driver and some tables onto it. When completed, the drive is inherently a member of a RAID set, and will continue to be so even if moved to another Mac.
because of this, you cannot create a RAID directly on a standard drive that contains data already in any reasonable, risk-free way.
To amplify what The Hatter has said above, Mirrored RAID is not Backup. Mirrored RAID only increases mean time to repair to keep a drive failure from becoming a Data Disaster. You still need a Backup. Mirrored RAID does not protect you from deletions from user error, crazy software, or "just because".
I run a mirrored RAID in my Home Server, which contains all the Users files for everyone in the Household. And I also recognize (after being burned by it) that Mirrored RAID is helpful, but not a sufficient Backup by itself. I back up the Users Drive automatically to an External drive using Time Machine. [So what I am advising is not just theoretical, I am living what I am advising.]
With WD Black 1TB and other very good drives in the under US$100 range, there is really no reason NOT to invest in several drives for such an undertaking.

Inserted my Mac Pro hard drives into a RAID enclosure accidentally... help!

Hi guys,
I am regular member of the Logic Pro forum, but am hoping for some help regarding a fairly large data loss disaster.
I have recently sold my Mac Pro tower, in favour of a new iMac, and prior to selling I removed my two additional audio hard drives from the Mac Pro. Unfortunately these were only backed up a year ago (and now my slackness has come back to bite me!), and since then a fair bit of audio work has been completed in Logic Pro.
My plan was to access the hard drives' content on my iMac using a dual-HD USB3 hard drive enclosure. I purchased the ORICO 3529 NAS series, which, while having RAID functionality, I also understood could be used simply as a dual drive unit for normal access of two drives.
So when I got the ORICO unit, I put my two audio drives into it, and plugged into the iMac. I expected to see my drives, but instead I got the message "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer". I had switched the ORICO to JBOD mode, but possibly not prior to initially powering up the unit - which it appears defaults to RAID mode.
I have since tried the HDs in another single enclosure, as well as putting them in a friend's Mac Pro, and in both cases each disk brings up the same error.
It appears I have somehow formatted these drives to be part of a RAID setup, just by putting them in the RAID unit. I am not sure whether this means that all my data is lost, or whether instead it means that the directory or some other part of the file structure or format have been damaged and need to be re-built. While I am a competent computer user in a music context (using Pro Tools and Logic Pro), I am by no means a programmer, and am not really sure where to go from here.
Two of the very helpful regulars on the Logic Pro forum have advised me that potentially a tool like DiskWarrior might help recover the data, although as we went through some additional troubleshooting, they have since suggested that DiskWarrior may not be the solution, and instead I should talk to a RAID specialist about how to recover some of the data on these disks.
So on that note I thought I would put it out here for any Mac users who might be experienced with RAID and willing to make any recommendations. In the meantime I am not going to try to use any tools (like DiskWarrior) in case they cause more harm when in fact I should be seeking out a RAID expert to work on the solution with me.
If you have any thoughts or have had an experience similar (if you are as silly as me!), I would be grateful for any suggestions you might be able to offer.
Cheers and thanks!
Mike

Also, first thing is don't touch change or modify. Disconnect and get them off line.
The first program that can probably help, http://www.SoftRAID.com - their demo (the support they give is probably worth the cost too). Alsoft Disk Warrior support - even remote login - also can be excellent if or when needed.
SoftRAID 'takes over" the Apple RAID and can do wonders.
What you have is an external device with its own built-in bridge and probably a switch (mirror, stripe, JBOD, None).
You need to get them in a case that has no built in bridge or RAID of its own. A Mac Pro would be excellent.
See what OWC has in external cases. http://www.macsales.com/firewire ( a good place to start looking at any type of external interface for storage)

Hard Drive Disaster - Need opinions on how to get up ASAP

Hi,
I have a crisis on my hands. I brought a Virtual machine up about a month ago with Windows Server 2012 R2 and then proceeded to install Exchange 2013 on it. Approximately a week ago I migrated all the mailboxes from Exchange 2007
to the new machine. After the migration I set Exchange 2013 up with Exchange Online Protection and Azure Rights management and started syncing our Active Directory.
Now for the bad part: the raid 1 configuration on the server was not syncing the drives and I hadn’t started making backups of the server. The hard drive containing the virtual machine configuration and the virtual hard drive crashed
without warning 2 days ago. Please don’t beat me up about the backups, I already know how stupid it was to not backup a business critical machine. The hard drive is currently with a data recovery company and they estimate there is a 90% chance of 100% recovery
of the data. However, I want to be prepare for the worst and would like opinions on what my options are.
Possible outcomes:
Everything is recovered and the Virtual Machine fires right up. (I am not very optimistic about this)
I am able to recover the exchange databases from the failed hard drive.
Nothing is recovered.
Preferably option one is what occurs. However, please give me your thoughts on what the best way to get up and running ASAP if I can’t start the machine. I am not an expert but I had the following ideas:
If I am able to recover the database can I bring a new server up and move the database to it?
Bring a new server up, create a new database and import the user’s .PST files.
Since active directory was synced with Microsoft, maybe I can purchase Exchange Hosted and then import the user’s .pst files?
Any guidance on the above thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
There a multiple domain controllers in the environment and the old Exchange 2007 server is still up. I believe I still have backups of the Exchange 2007 server with all the mailboxes on it.

Alright, I am going to post a walk through in case it can help someone else in the future.
I brought a new Windows 2012 R2 server up and then proceeded to install Exchange 2013 with the recovery switch as BoS pointed out in his posted.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd876880(v=exchg.150).aspx
The installation failed with:
Disaster recovery setup needs access to the log drive C:\Program files\Microsoft Exchange\v15\mailbox\mailbox database
xxxxxxxx to continue."
and
"Disaster recovery setup needs access to the mailbox database drive C:\Program files\Microsoft Exchange\v15\mailbox\mailbox
database xxxxxxxx\mailbox database xxxxxxxx.edb to continue."
To get around the errors, I created the path on the hard drive C:\Program files\Microsoft Exchange\v15\mailbox\mailbox
database xxxxxxxx and then created a text file with an .edb extension and put it in the folder. On the second attempt to the install it failed with:
Configuring Microsoft Exchange Server
Preparing Setup
COMPLETED
Stopping Services                                        COMPLETED
Copying Exchange Files                              COMPLETED
Language Files                                            COMPLETED
Restoring Services                                      COMPLETED
Languages
COMPLETED
Hub Transport Server Role
FAILED
The following error was generated when "$error.Clear();
Install-ExchangeCertificate -DomainController $RoleDomainController -Services SMTP " was run: "The internal
transport certificate for the local server was damaged or missing in Active Directory. The problem has been fixed. However, if you have existing Edge Subscriptions, you must subscribe all Edge Transport servers again by using the New-EdgeSubscription cmdlet
in the Shell.".
The solution in this post pointed me in the right direction:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/exchange/en-US/d3c443da-6977-43ac-9d20-dc2b0a619e89/exchange-2010-failed-recovery-help?forum=exchangesvravailabilityandisasterrecoverylegacy
However, instead of
"MsExchSyncCredential"
it is “MsExchEdgeSyncCredential”.
On the third attempt to install the installation failed with:
A Setup failure previously occurred while installing the HubTransport role.
Either run Setup again for just this role, or remove the role using Control Panel.
By following the steps to delete the water mark as shown in example 5 on
This site I was able to complete the installation of Exchange.
After Exchange was installed I created a new mailbox database and mounted it. Even though I did not have the old database
I was able to associate all the email address from it with the new database by running the following in powershell:
Get-Mailbox –Database “OldDatabaseName” | Set-Mailbox –Database “NewDatabaseName”
At this point users were able to start logging into the new Exchange server.
Using the pst files I made from Outlook I was able to import the data back into the new server by following the steps shown
here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee332351(v=exchg.150).aspx
As Troy pointed out, the Outlook cache needs to be exported to .pst files before Outlook connects to the new server.
On a side note, previous to bringing the new server up, I made .pst files from the user’s offline folders in case everything was deleted when the user connected Outlook to the new server; it was not necessary. When
Outlook (2010 and 2013) connected to the new server a warning window popped up informing the user that their mailbox had been temporarily moved to a new server and gave them the option to use the temporary mailbox or their old data. At any time you should
be able to select the old data option and then export it to pst.
I am currently waiting to receive the logs and the Mailbox database back from the data retrieval company.
As soon as I have copies I am going to import any data that might be missing into the new database.

Do I need a fast system drive if i also have a RAID 0 array for media?

If my video and media files are all on a Fast RAID array then do i need a fast system drive?
Im building a system. The only thing on my system drive will be programs. And I will have a RAID array for my video and PSD files - but my System drive is an older UltraDMA EIDE133 250g Maxtor. This system drive is testing at 51mb/s Read, and 26mb/s write. (According to Blackmagic disk speed check program)
A New SATA drive tests at 53 write and 43 read. So should i bother upgrading my system drive to a RAPTOR 150 or stick with the older EIDE drive? Main Programs i use are Adobe After effects, premiere pro, Photoshop for uncompressed editing with blackmagic intensity.
Specs:
MB: Tyan K8WE
AMD Opteron 270 (dual)
4GB RAM.
Nvidia Quadro FX 560
Apple cinema Display 30'
4x500gb RAID array (2TB total) on Nvidia SATA motherboard controler.

Jeron,
Yes, you are probably.
- Its i either spend $900 dollars or $200.
The best possible Rig is this; I spend $500 dollars on a dedicated PCI-X RAID controller card. I buy a Raptor 150g system drive $200. And then buying another 3 drives to add to the RAID array of 2 disks i already have = $300.
Or option 2: My motherboard (K8WE) has 4 SATA-II ports. So I could set up a 4 disk raid with what i have right now and be achieving 210+ mb/s read and write. My system drive would be off the IDE/133 channel. Then i would only have to spend $200 on 2 disks.
I have been trying to decipher if it is logical to spend that much more money - when it is possible i will only achieve maybe 50 more Megabytes a second. - and have windows and programs start faster.
A part of me says - "any time i try to save money on something it comes with calamity and disaster". vs. a part of me that says - "you could get more bang for your buck".

Raid Performance and Rebuild Issues

Rebuilding a Raid array
What happens when you have a Raid array and one (or more) disk(s) fail?
First let's consider the work-flow impact of using a Raid array or not. You may want to refresh your memory about Raids, by reading Adobe Forums: To RAID or not to RAID, that is the... again.
Sustained transfer rates are a major factor in determining how 'snappy' your editing experience will be when editing multiple tracks. For single track editing most modern disks are fast enough, but when editing complex codecs like AVCHD, DSLR, RED or EPIC, when using uncompressed or AVC-Intra 100 Mbps codecs, or using multi-cam or multiple tracks the sustained transfer speed can quickly become a bottleneck and limit the 'snappy' feeling during editing.
For that reason many use raid arrays to remove that bottleneck from their systems, but this also raises the question:
What happens when one of more of my disks fail?
Actually, it is simple. Single disks or single level striped arrays will lose all data. And that means that you have to replace the failed disk and then restore the lost data from a backup before you can continue your editing. This situation can become extremely bothersome if you consider the following scenario:
At 09:00 you start editing and you finish editing by 17:00 and have a planned backup scheduled at 21:00, like you do every day. At 18:30 one of your disks fails, before your backup has been made. All your work from that day is lost, including your auto-save files, so a complete day of editing is irretrievably lost. You only have the backup from the previous day to restore your data, but that can not be done before you have installed a new disk.
This kind of scenario is not unheard of and even worse, this usually happens at the most inconvenient time, like on Saturday afternoon before a long weekend and you can only buy a new disk on Tuesday...(sigh).
That is the reason many opt for a mirrored or parity array, despite the much higher cost (dedicated raid controller, extra disks and lower performance than a striped array). They buy safety, peace-of-mind and a more efficient work-flow.
Consider the same scenario as above and again one disk fails. No worry, be happy!! No data lost at all and you could continue editing, making the last changes of the day. Your planned backup will proceed as scheduled and the next morning you can continue editing, after having the failed disk replaced. All your auto-save files are intact as well.
The chances of two disks failing simultaneously are extremely slim, but if cost is no object and safety is everything, some consider using a raid6 array to cover that eventuality. See the article quoted at the top.
Rebuilding data after a disk failure
In the case of a single disk or striped arrays, you have to use your backup to rebuild your data. If the backup is not current, you lose everything you did after your last backup.
In the case of a mirrored array, the raid controller will write all data on the mirror to the newly installed disk. Consider it a disk copy from the mirror to the new disk. This is a fast way to get back to full speed. No need to get out your (possibly older) backup and restore the data. Since the controller does this in the background, you can continue working on your time-line.
In the case of parity raids (3/5/6) one has to make a distinction between distributed parity raids (5/6) and dedicated parity raid (3).
Dedicated parity, raid3
If a disk fails, the data can be rebuild by reading all remaining disks (all but the failed one) and writing the rebuilt data only to the newly replaced disk. So writing to a single disk is enough to rebuild the array. There are actually two possibilities that can impact the rebuild of a degraded array. If the dedicated parity drive failed, the rebuilding process is a matter of recalculating the parity info (relatively easy) by reading all remaining data and writing the parity to the new dedicated disk. If a data disk failed, then the data need to be rebuild, based on the remaining data and the parity and this is the most time-consuming part of rebuilding a degraded array.
Distributed parity, raid5 or raid6
If a disk fails, the data can be rebuild by reading all remaining disks (all but the failed one), rebuilding the data and recalculating the parity information and writing the data and parity information to the failed disk. This is always time-consuming.
The impact of 'hot-spares' and other considerations
When an array is protected by a hot spare, if a disk drive in that array fails the hot spare is automatically incorporated into the array and takes over for the failed drive. When an array is not protected by a hot spare, if a disk drive in that array fails, remove and replace the failed disk drive. The controller detects the new disk drive and begins to rebuild the array.
If you have hot-swappable drive bays, you do not need to shut down the PC, you can simply slide out the failed drive and replace it with a new disk. Remember, when a drive has failed and the raid is running in 'degraded' mode, there is no further protection against data loss, so it is imperative that you replace the failed disk at the earliest moment and rebuild the array to a 'healthy' state.
Rebuilding a 'degraded' array can be done automatically or manually, depending on the controller in use and often you can set the priority of the rebuilding process higher or lower, depending on the need to continue regular work versus the speed required to repair the array to its 'healthy' status.
What are the performance gains to be expected from a raid and how long will a rebuild take?
The most important column in the table below is the sustained transfer rate. It is indicative and no guarantee that your raid will achieve exactly the same results. That depends on the controller, the on-board cache and the disks in use. The more tracks you use in your editing, the higher the resolution you use, the more complex your codec, the more you will need a high sustained transfer rate and that means more disks in the array.
Sidebar: While testing a new time-line for the PPBM6 benchmark, using a large variety of source material, including RED and EPIC 4K, 4:2:2 MXF, XDCAM HD and the like, the required sustained transfer rate for simple playback of a pre-rendered time-line was already over 300 MB/s, even with 1/4 resolution playback, because of the 4 4 4 4 full quality deBayering of the 4K material.
Final thoughts
With the increasing popularity of file based formats, the importance of backups of your media can not be stressed enough. In the past one always had the original tape if disaster stroke, but no longer. You need regular backups of your media and projects. With single disks and (R)aid0 you take risks of complete data loss, because of the lack of redundancy. Backups cost extra disks and extra time to create and restore in case of disk failure.
The need for backups in case of mirrored raids is far less, since there is complete redundancy. Sure, mirrored raids require double the number of disks but you save on the number of backup disks and you save time to create and restore backups.
In the case of parity raids, the need for backups is more than with mirrored arrays, but less than with single disks or striped arrays and in the case of 'hot-spares' the need for backups is further reduced. Initially, a parity array may look like a costly endeavor. The raid controller and the number of disks make it expensive, but if you consider what you get, more speed, more storage space, easier administration, less backups required, less time for those backups, continued working in case of a drive failure, even though somewhat sluggish, the cost is often worth more with the peace-of-mind it brings, than continuing with single disks or striped arrays.

Raid3 is better suited for video editing work, because it is more efficient when using large files, as clips usually are. Raid5 is better suited in high I/O environments, where lots of small files need to be accessed all the time, like news sites, webshops and the like. Raid3 will usually have a better rebuild time than raid5.
But, and there is always a but, raid3 requires an Areca controller. LSI and other controller brands do not support raid3. And Areca is not exactly cheap...
Keep in mind that a single disk shows declining performance when the fill rate increases. See the example below:
A Raid3 or Raid30 will not show that behavior. The performance remains nearly constant even if fill rates go up:
Note that both charts were created with Samsung Spinpoint F1 disks, an older and slower generation of disks and with an older generation Areca ARC-1680iX-12.

Mirro Raid can you use a single 4TB disk with 2 partitions for mirrored raid ?

Hello,
I have a new 4TB hardrive.
After lots of reading, i was thinking that i could partician the drive to 2 (2TB) Then create mirror raid.
Essentially thinking that i would have photos on one of the (2TB particions) and they would mirror on the other ?? as a double copy storage.
I can partician okay and the try to drag the two particians onto the "mirror raid set" and ithe following message displays :
"Can't add Seagate expansion disk" to the raid set because another volume from this disk is already part of the RAID set"
I'm now thinking i need to purchase another 4tb hardrive for this to work ?
Or if you "mirror raid set" is it actually particioning the drive and creating a copy ?
Forgive me... i'm not really very up skilled with disk utility, and basically just don't understand.
Looking forward to some help and advise
warm regards Tracy Gr

It doesn't make any sense to mirror on the same drive. The idea behind mirroring is that should one disk in the raid set fail your data is safe on the other disk. Mirroring to partitions, if it's even possible, would only bring you disaster when the drive fails because you would lose the complete raid set and all of your data. If you insist on mirroring buy another drive.

RAID: What is it and what are the benefits and How to Setup?

I was wondering what RAID is? How do you set it up? And what are the benefits of having dual hard drives setup in RAID?
I have a powermac G5 (quad 2.5ghz/16gb RAM/80gb SSD & 1tb HD) and I want to setup my SSD and HD in RAID...would that be wise? Thanks guys!

Hi-
One of the best ways to reduce a RAIDs performance is to mix drives.
Mixing dissimilar drive types should be a shortcut to disaster.
I would rethink the drives to use for a RAID.
The most reliable RAID will be from RAID certified hard drives of the same make and capacity.
After that, you get into software RAID vs Hardware RAID, which both have drawbacks, the latter being price due to the required controller cards and external housing needed for all the drives.
Hardware RAID will allow for better performance, and allow for use of a RAID 5 or RAID 6 to build in redundancy to protect in case of a drive failure within the set, without losing the entire set.
A SSD RAID can really offer some blistering speeds.
I think possibly a bit much for a G5.
With software RAID, a two drive RAID 0 as scratch for video or graphics work can greatly increase render performance of those respective softwares.
A two drive boot RAID 0 with 2 WD Velociraptors can increase OS X responsiveness.
All two drive RAIDs suffer from the need for a robust backup, making a third and fourth drive needed to create a RAID 0+1.

Extending RAID file system with larger disk

Hi,
I have a Mac pro running 10.7.5.
I used to have two 1TB disks in the internal bays configured as a raid 1 set with a single 1TB file system. One of the disks failed and I replaced it with a 2TB disk which seems to be working ok. However, I'm running out of space in the file system and thought to switch to 2TB.
I just got another 2TB disk and thought to replace the 1TB disk with this one. Then I would have two 2TB disks but I guess after the rebuild the file system is still 1TB. Is there any way to extend the file system and underlying raid set on the go or do I need to disband the raid set to two independent disks first, then repartition one of them, copy data from the remaining half to this now 2TB file system and add the source disk to the raid set afterwards?
Hannu

I too have a 1,1 and continue to "do things" and upgrade it.
Sonnet Tempo Pro SSD PCIe is perfect for Aperture having it on another bus controller with SATA III 6G and 550MB/sec.
$400 was never too much to spend for SCSI or for my first couple 160MB disk drive for perspective.
Mavericks (cannot run normally on ours) was suppose to offer more advantages in RAID features but even that seems to be MIA.
PS: A Sonnet Allegro USB3 PCIe $54 is a nice way to interface instead of using USB2.
I have used mirror but AFTER having a couple good backups and strategy.
So just buy a new set of 2TB or larger drives.
We have had people with iTunes library alone that needed their own 2TB volume when the largest drives were 1TB.
Done right a stripe RAID is fine, and one way I always used to have larger volumes.
"Extended volume support" is more a Windows thing, not a Mac feature.
As you found, Apple mirror RAIDs cannot 'grow' and you can't add a 2TB and suddenly have larger mirror w/o delete and create a new set.
You may be lucky that you never had a disaster. A 3-way mirror is really preferable, take one of the drives out while rebuild and you still have two in a mirror set. AND clone your volume or use something besides or in addition to TimeMachine.
A backup is only as good as your ability to restore and have a recovery plan - hopefully one that you have practiced doing but never need to.

Mixing JBOD and Raid 5

Has anyone set up Raid 5 & JBOD volumes on XServe RAID? We have a Raid 5 volume on one controller and would like to set up JBOD on the second controller so that we can fill these disks with backups to the Raid 5 data and take them offsite for disaster recovery. So I have several questions:
1. Can you have Raid 5 & JBOD on the same XServe RAID?
2. If they can be on separate controllers can then also be on the same controller?
3. Is there any problem or special procedure for ejecting these JBOD drives so we can take them offsite?
4. If we have 3 drives to use as JBOD for backup, should we have each one formatted as its own JBOD unit and put them in one at a time for effective offsite backup? Could we put them all in at once and fill them each at a time and remove as they fill? Should they be one volume or three?
Thanks for any thoughts on this. The plan is to use these drives for backup now and down the line convert them to additional Raid space.

Hi David,
1) Yes.
2) Yes.
3) I don't believe so -- but I haven't tested it yet. I'd imagine "ejecting" them from the host and them removing them would be fine -- of course be careful not to remove the wrong disk
4) If you have 3 drives in JBOD, it has to be 3 volumes. Unless you're suggesting mirroring on the RAID (which would not be JBOD, it would be RAID 1), or mirroring on the host (which is a software RAID 1 mirror). JBOD is "just a bunch of disks" -- there is no RAID involved at all.

Seeking best practice for disaster recovery for osx server

I am seeking a solid disaster recovery solution. I would be happy if it complements Time Machine, but I don't require that.
I use DAR2 for the linux systems, but with the aid of nice UI provided by the distro vendor. It provides all the files necessary to follow up a clean base OS install with a file restore to provide a full recovery from a disaster.
I just placed a new Mac Mini Server with the Promise Tech DS4600 in service, so I am eager to put a plan in place.
What do other Mac OS Server users do?
I would be most grateful for links to articles, products and suggestions.

For anyone who comes across this post, here is what I settled on:
The server is a mac mini server and is configured with RAID 1 over the two hard disks. I use DAR to backup the linux boxes to the OSX Server. Carbon Copy Cloner is used to backup the OSX Server to a 2 terabyte storage array.
Hopefully this will suffice for the time being. I continue to look for better approaches.

Merging existing start-up disk to a new raid. How do I do it?

I have a G5 Server with three 68 gig, 15000 rpm hard disks internally and four attached RAIDS, 300 gigs, 1.5TB, 2TB and 2TB. On the three internal hard drives, one is the system disk, one is the mail database and the third was going to be a mirror of the system but I keep running out of space on the system disk even though nothing is stored on it. 20 gigs has been eaten up in the last couple of months.
Anyway, I have plenty of backups so the mirror is less import to me than getting a larger startup drive. So is there a way to migrate the existing server software drive with the extra drive without losing data? Is is better to make a bootable backup and just erase the disks and restore?
I would want to make a simple bootable backup prior to doing this. What do you suggest as the most reliable approach? I am using time machine which is great but I have never restored a system disk before and don't know if it will be glitchy. I am assuming that if I use time machine to restore the server system, I would boot from an install disk. Is that right?

Hi Mark
In my opinion the short answer would be No.
One way to do this is to clone existing boot drive onto an external firewire drive. Back up anything else you might need on the other drive(s) you are going to use in the RAID set to wherever you feel best. Boot from the cloned drive and begin to define your RAID. Presumably its a software RAID Mirror using Disk Utility?
Once you've done that clone back and test. I have used DU and CCC successfully to do exactly what you're proposing. Both worked as expected. As your share points are probably on the externally attached hardware RAIDs I would not bother unsharing any share points you have.
Can't comment on Time Machine as I have never used it for OSX Server. You may well have problems using it to restore from if your Server is also the Mail Server. Possibly Open Directory might also pose a problem? One way to find out is to try it. I would make sure you have at least two fully working bootable backups of the server as it stands prior to the restore before doing this.
One thing you should bear in mind about backups. You can backup all you want but the true test is a restore when disaster strikes. All the backing up in the world is not worth anything if you can't effectively restore. This is something a lot of people forget.
If there are share points defined on the XServe's internal drives it might be best to unshare those first before cloning. You can always re-define them later on. Don't forget to enable ACLs on those volumes if you're using Tiger Server. ACLs on Leopard Server are enabled by default - or should be.
man fsaclctl
For more information.
It works best if both drives are exactly the same make and size. I have seen some (admittedly not often) problems when mixing drive manufacturers. Not all drive makes are exactly the same size as each other. For example an 80GB Samsung might return 76.7GB when formatted whereas a similar sized Hitachi might return 75.4GB.
Hope this helps, Tony

Disaster RAID on MS 6702

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