Disk Utility RAID of 2 volumes, one drive mistakenly erased. Recoverable?

Thanks for any help.
I have a Mac Pro.
It has 2x 750GB drive formatted in Disk Utility as a RAID volume (striped).
I erased one of the volumes by mistake.
I know I can recover the data from the erased drive, but it will be useless without the other drive. So how would I go about restoring the data in such a way that it is recognized as the other half of the RAID volume again?
Thanks for any help.

The commercial "SoftRAID" ($149) http://www.softraid.com
... is able to convert Apple RAID to its own format, AND has had excellent success for others in recovering in some situations.
They have excellent support so email them; a demo; and good PDF guides for download are worth a read.

Similar Messages

  • Disk Utility:  Backup to partition on external drive?

    Hi people. Would be glad of an answer and any comments on this.
    I have 3 Macs at home, a new G5 dual core and 2 G4 imacs, networked wirelessly. At this point I only backup my G5 to a second internal HD, by using Disk Utility's 'Restore' function.
    My preferred plan is to get an external Firewire 400 drive, make 3 partitions on it, and do the Disk Utility 'Restore' for the 3 respective Macs. That way it's not only a backup, but a bootable solution if one of the machines dies.
    My second choice is to add one of those generic network hard drives to the router and try to back up to that(essentially as an FTP/Samba disk), but it would be slow and not bootable at all.
    Question: Will disk utility allow a partition, either on a firewire drive or network drive, to be the destination for a 'restore'? Or will it only recognise whole volumes?

    Hi, Daniel.
    You wrote: "Question: Will disk utility allow a partition, either on a firewire drive or network drive, to be the destination for a 'restore'? Or will it only recognise whole volumes? "Disk Utility will recognize a volume (partition) on a FireWire drive as the destination for a Restore.
    Using the Restore function for backup is quite time-consuming as it has to backup everything every time you perform a backup. You will get much faster results by using a proper Backup and Recovery solution that supports incremental backups, i.e. backing up just the changes from the source to the destination (backup) so that the two are synchronized. For advice on the backup and recovery solution I employ, see my "Backup and Recovery" FAQ.
    People have had mixed results using NAS (Network-attached Storage) for backups. I frankly think that it's still a bit early to try that route. Using an external FireWire drive has always given be good results.
    Good luck!
    Dr. Smoke
    Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
    Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
    I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

  • Disk Utility Raid 1

    I have an iMac running OS X version 10.8.5 , Processor 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5, Memory 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 .
    I use Time Machine to back up on a WD MyBookStudio. I recently had a disk error:
    I ran disk utility:
    2013-10-21 19:34:34 -0500: Checking volume information.
    2013-10-21 19:34:34 -0500: The volume Time Machine was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.
    2013-10-21 19:34:35 -0500: Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.2013-10-21 19:34:35 -0500:
    2013-10-21 19:34:35 -0500: Disk Utility stopped verifying “Time Machine”: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.
    2013-10-21 19:34:35 -0500:
    I ran the repair tool and repaired the volume:
    2013-10-23 09:55:34 -0500: The volume Time Machine was repaired successfully.
    2013-10-23 09:55:34 -0500: Volume repair complete.2013-10-23 09:55:34 -0500: Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.2013-10-23 09:55:35 -0500: Repair tool completed:
    2013-10-23 09:55:35 -0500:
    2013-10-23 09:55:35 -0500:
    Should I be concerned about this error and get another backup disk?
    Should I get and additional WD MyBookStudio and run Disk Utility Raid 1 to have 2 duplicate drives?
    How well does Disk Utility Raid 1 work?
    Where can I find more information about running Disk Utility Raid 1?
    Thanks for your help !!!

    bump

  • HELP! Cannot reinstall OS X - error on volume one drive

    I'm having a problem:
    My laptop froze in the middle of using Illustrator 8 and the error msg I received stated that "program cannot restart because it cannot find the AGM file". (I think this is a side issue though).
    I restarted my system.
    I opened Illustrator 8 again and the computer froze up again and I received the same msg as above.
    I restarted my laptop and I got the flashing question mark.
    I did a Hardware Test and it showed that my drives were fine.
    I did a Utility Disk check. I tried to verify permissions and repair my disk and I got a msg saying "volume 1 cannot be verified. Volume 1 cannot be repaired. (-9997)" (My hard drive is not partitioned and I only have 1 drive and it's the original drive that came with the computer)
    So, I erased my disk and tried to reinstall my Operating System. The installation quits when it gets to the Itunes portion of the install. The error msg says "there were errors installing the software" and it tells me to quit and try again. Each time I try, it's the same scenario.
    Can ANYONE, please help me! Is this a bad hard drive or a permissions issue or software or what?
    I've used Illustrator 8 on my laptop for 2 years with no problems. But there is one thing, I was using Kai's Power Tools at the time of this problem and I've never used that on this laptop before. Could that be it?
    slduser
    After reinstalling all my personal files, I used Illustrator 8 again and the computer froze up again and I received the same msg as above.
    install software process stops in the middle of installing. My installation stopped at the iTunes part---- it just said "there were errors installing the software" and instructed me to quit.
    We need to know what to do if this occurs and what could be the potential "error that it speaks of.
    Could anyone respond to this at my email?
    Thanx,
    [email protected]

    Siduster, welcome, try booting from the install CD again, but after you get to the install window the go up to the main menu and start Disk Utility. Select your HD and then choose Erase/Options/Erase all Data (this will take a while). Now do the Verify and Repair Disk, then Permissions. Now continue with the installation. I hope this helps, post back.
    Joe

  • Disk Utility won't initialize second Maxtor drive

    My first hardware upgrade has not gone too well. I just got a Maxtor 6L250S0 drive to fill empty second bay of my dual 1.8 PowerMac G5. (Drive specs: 250 GB SATA Ultra 16, DiamondMax, 16 MB cache, 7200 RPM) Installation was a breeze, but I can't get my Mac to erase, format, partition or otherwise initialize the drive for use. When I rebooted, I got the message about needing to initialize the new hardware. I clicked "Initialize", and Disk Utility came up. Disk Utility lists "Maxtor SABRE" as a drive on the left and lists the following details at the bottom:
    Disk Description : Maxtor SABRE
    Total Capacity : 0 Bytes
    Connection Bus : Serial ATA
    Write Status : Read/Write
    Connection Type : Internal
    S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
    Connection ID : Device 0, "B (lower)"
    The Capacity and SMART status lines are a bit troubling. Is that normal when a drive is first installed?
    I go to the ERASE tab and can only select "Mac OS Standard" or "UNIX File System" for the volume format. I select the Mac OS Standard and press the Erase button, but I get a message "Disk erase failed with the following error: The chosen size is not valid for the chosen file system."
    I go to the PARTITION tab and can't do anything there either. When it lets me edit the form and press the Partition button, it gives an error saying "Device not configured." Usually as soon as I do anything on this form (e.g., select the Format dropdown), all the choices are grayed out with the notice "the disk is too small to contain partitions".
    Based upon research here and elsewhere, I know this is a compatible drive. Am I missing a step? Could the drive be bad?
    PowerMac G5 dual 1.8   Mac OS X (10.4.5)   2.5 GB RAM

    My first hardware upgrade has not gone too well. I
    just got a Maxtor 6L250S0 drive to fill empty second
    bay of my dual 1.8 PowerMac G5. (Drive specs: 250
    GB SATA Ultra 16, DiamondMax, 16 MB cache, 7200 RPM)
    Installation was a breeze, but I can't get my Mac
    to erase, format, partition or otherwise initialize
    the drive for use. When I rebooted, I got the
    message about needing to initialize the new
    hardware. I clicked "Initialize", and Disk Utility
    came up. Disk Utility lists "Maxtor SABRE"
    Hi,
    I have never seen a Maxtor come up as "Maxtor SABRE" in disk utility. Your post says the Maxtor 250GB hard drive is mounted internally. If so, I would guess that the drive is damaged. I would take it back for a working drive.
    Or you could call Maxtor at (800) 262-9867. I have had two Maxtor drives fail in the last 5 months and the techs at Maxtor sent me replacements and then I returned the damage drives in their shipping boxes.
    The Maxtor tech guys are very helpful and give Mac users the benefit of the doubt when it comes to warranty returns. At least that was my experience.
    The drive should display Maxtor 6L250S0 in the disk utility window and Smart Drive status should be active.
    I hope this helps,
    Michael

  • Can I just close disk utility without risking data loss or drive problems?

    I am using disk utility's restore to clone a hard drive to an external drive but it is taking forever (telling me 3 days)  and the cancel button won't work. Can I just close disk utility without risking data loss or drive problems? Force quit? Anyone have experience with this?
    - George

    I spoke with a tech advisor through applecare. Theoretically the source drive should not be damaged if you quit the disk utility application while cloning your drive. More obviously, the destination volume will be unreadable and require a re-format, but in general no major damage will occur. I have quit the disk utility and restrarted, the source drive works as expected, while the desitination shows, "unreadable"
    Hope this helps anyone else with a similar question.
    - George

  • Disk Utility not finding new internal hard drive

    Hi All
    My internal hard drive died recently and I replaced with a western digital drive from newegg..
    All the cables are hooked up correctly, including the orange cable attached to the hard drive. Problem is that when I go to install OS X, Disk Utility doesn't even list the drive. Is there something I need to do beforehand? Anyone have any ideas as to why Disk Utility isn't even seeing the drive? Jumpers maybe?
    Thanks in advance.
    -Aaron

    I doubt that any jumpers are needed, since this is the only (master) drive in the system. WD's site has pretty good info on this. Verify for yourself however.
    Also, from their site:
    How to partition and format an internal slave drive or an external drive in a Mac OS X (all versions).
    Answer
    In Mac OS X, you can use the built in Disk Utility to partition and initialize the drive so it will appear on the desktop.
    1. Open the main drive (the drive that contains the operating system).
    2. Open the Applications folder.
    3. Open the Utilities folder.
    4. Select Disk Utility.
    5. The drives are displayed on the left side of the window. Click on the drive that you wish to partition (the top drive listing for the hard drive that you want to work with).
    6. Once the drive is selected click on Partition.
    7. Click on the Options button to select the partitioning scheme.
    8. Click on Apple Partitioning Scheme or Apple Partitioning Map and then click on the OK button.
    9. You will see several options for setting up the drive. Once you have selected the number of partitions, the format type you want, and a volume label, click the Partition button.
    10. Following the completion of this process, the drive will appear on the desktop.
    Joe

  • Disk Utility "frozen" trying to format external drive

    some help please...
    I've got a 120gb external USB/NDAS drive that was previously formatted in NFTS on a Windows XP machine. Using Disk Utility on my new MacBook, I attempted to erase it and reformat it using the "MS-DOS" option in Disk Utility (so I can use it on both OSes). I got the spinning beach ball for several hours, at which point I forced-quit Disk Utility. The drive is now unseen by Windows, and when I plug it into the MacBook, it tells me it can't be mounted, so I choose initialize. When I attempt to either erase or partition the drive for MS-DOS, I get the beachball. I left it overnight to see if it was just taking a while, and no difference.
    What next? Should I try formatting it for Mac and then reformatting MS-DOS/FAT32 and see if that works?
    Thanks in advance...

    I had a similar problem with an older drive, eventually I did get it formatted using my iBook, but it wasn't worth it as the drive failed completely several months later (at the most inconvenient time, of course). If the drive is older than 3 years it might be on its last legs and you would be better off to buy a new drive anyway.
    Francine
    Francine
    Schwieder

  • Disk utility can't find iMac hard drive

    I had to power off my iMac by Pressing the power key and holding it several times over the last few weeks. The last time it wouldn't reboot - I'd just get an apple icon. When I tried a safe boot I'd get the icon and it would change to a no entry sign.
    Next I started up from the snow leopard installation disk with the intent of repairing the iMac disk. The installation disk worked but when I opened disk utility it only found the installation disk. It didn't find the iMac disk.
    Do I need to make a trip to the Apple store or is there something else to try?

    Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000105 EndHTML:0000004136 StartFragment:0000001438 EndFragment:0000004100                    
    Oh Gosh, I am having this same problem too. I normally do not shut down ever, I reboot often because I have to due to bad wireless reception.  Last month, I did a full shut down and unplug due to a terrible storm coming in. When I went to boot up, it took very long and I had booted from my external bootable drive. My saving grace is that since crashing my emac in 2006, I am a rabid "backerupper" (made up my own word).  I have been using lacie’s Silverkeeper to make bootable back ups just in case. So When I tried disk utility, it did not see my drive. I used my third party software "Disk Warrior" by Alsoft, it saw my drive, and then I unplugged my external and then booted again from the Snow Leopard DVD and was able to repair.  All was well until this weekend.  We had a storm come trough quickly and we lost power, now I have the same problem you do but this time Disk Warrior does not see the disk either.  I am going to dig around for a while before I hit the Genius bar.  I fear the drive is fried. And for me I am not certain   this will be worth the dollar amount to replace since this is a 2006 and not upgradeable, but I will check with an outside vendor for price for the drive so I know what I want to do if in fact the Genius bar cannot see the drive either.  I do hope you have a back up version, and would suggest having third party software to take a chance to see if you can find your disk.  My imac is an Intel duo core 2 GHZ and from what I can tell model number A1174.  To get help from the smart people here it would be useful for you to post the rest of your specs.   If you don't know the exact model, you can check everymac.com and plug in your serial number.   Under the computer stand you will find the serial number and the emc number and you can find out from everymac.com what exact model you have.   If I find anything I will come back to this thread and report in.  Good luck to you.

  • HT4848 how to erase the disk utility from my usb portbalbe flash drive

    how do I  erase the disk utility from my usb portbalbe flash drive. I need the flash drive for other stuff and it isn't allowing me to do so.

    Here is information on the recovery partition, includin how to remove it from a drive: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20083166-263/managing-the-os-x-10.7-lion-re store-drive/

  • Boot Camp and Disk Utility giving Error for my Hard Drive Volume

    When trying to partition my Hard Drive with Boot Camp, I get an error message after a while saying that it can't be partitioned because there is an error in the volume and that I should check it in Disk Utility. After running Verify Disk, it had told me that the file count was wrong and that I should repair my Disk. I have leopard installed, but only had access to a Tiger Install Disc, so after booting to that and apparently repairing successfully, I booted back onto my Hard Drive and ran Disk Utility's Verify Disk again. Now it said that my Volume Header needs minor repair. I still get the same message in Boot Camp. Running Verify and Repair Disk from the Tiger Install Disc tells me that everything is alright and the Hard Drive doesn' need repairing. I read on an Apple article that verifying a disk that's booted can produce inaccurate results, and that it shouldn't be worried about, but I can't install Windows because of this! What should I do?

    Hi,
    you have to boot from the Leopard OSX DVD in order to repair the Leopard OSX volume on your harddisk.
    Using Disk Utility from an OSX version that is prior to the one you want to repair can indeed cause more errors than before.
    So, search for the Leopard DVD.
    Regards
    Stefan

  • Disk Utility RAID Issue

    I'm trying to determine if the problems that I'm encountering are a software issue or a hardware issue.
    I'm setting up a Mac Pro with Leopard and have four Maxtor 6G160E0 160GB hard drives that I'm trying to set up as two Mirrored drive sets. Everything seemed to go fine, created the two mirror sets, installed Leopard, configured and tested two user accounts and Office 2004, then updated everything to the latest version. When done I shut it down planning on moving it to it's final home tonight.
    But, when I turned it on both mirror sets were degraded - all four drives were still recognized as RAID slices but came up as failed in the RAID tab. I saw no errors reported in the log so I assumed that those two drives were faulty. I shut down, moved the good drives to bays 1 & 2 and rebooted.
    First reboot gave me a prohibition symbol instead of the usual Apple. Powered down and on and it booted fine but the second drive came up as a failed RAID slice. Rebooted again and both were fine.
    I reinstalled the two "failed" drives and reformatted them - both reformatted fine and mounted without problems. I unmounted the new partition just in case, but, when I tried to rebuild the RAIDs I get the following in the error log:
    11/1/07 7:26:00 PM Disk Utility[141] Preparing to erase : “Untitled”
    11/1/07 7:26:00 PM Disk Utility[141] Partition Scheme: GUID Partition Table
    11/1/07 7:26:00 PM Disk Utility[141] 1 volume will be created
    11/1/07 7:26:00 PM Disk Utility[141] Name : “Untitled”
    11/1/07 7:26:00 PM Disk Utility[141] Size : 149.1 GB
    11/1/07 7:26:00 PM Disk Utility[141] Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
    11/1/07 7:26:00 PM Disk Utility[141] Creating partition map.
    11/1/07 7:26:03 PM Disk Utility[141] Formatting disk1s2 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name Untitled.
    11/1/07 7:26:06 PM Disk Utility[141] Erase complete.
    11/1/07 7:26:12 PM Disk Utility[141] Unmount of “Untitled” succeeded
    11/1/07 7:26:31 PM Disk Utility[141] Rebuilding RAID
    11/1/07 7:26:31 PM Disk Utility[141] Filesystem: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
    11/1/07 7:26:31 PM Disk Utility[141] RAID type: Mirrored RAID Set
    11/1/07 7:26:31 PM Disk Utility[141] RAID set name: “Yorktown”
    11/1/07 7:26:31 PM Disk Utility[141] RAID set status before rebuild: “”
    11/1/07 7:26:31 PM Disk Utility[141] RAID chunk size: 32K (default)
    11/1/07 7:26:31 PM Disk Utility[141] Mirror Auto Rebuild: Disabled (default)
    11/1/07 7:26:31 PM Disk Utility[141] 2 members
    11/1/07 7:26:31 PM Disk Utility[141] RAID Slice (disk0s2) - Online
    11/1/07 7:26:31 PM Disk Utility[141] Maxtor 6G160E0 Media (disk1) - New
    11/1/07 7:26:32 PM Disk Utility[141] Error rebuilding RAID: Unrecognized Filesystem.
    11/1/07 7:26:33 PM Disk Utility[141] RAID failed: Unrecognized Filesystem.
    I'm at a loss at the moment. I am leaning towards bad drives, but FOUR bad drives all at once is suspicious.
    I've searched for similar issues and found none so I thought I'd check here and see if anyone had any ideas.

    G'day Zeekm,
    Thank you for that. I did this and it seems to work. The Disk Utility GUI does not seem to work.
    Hope this helps some one,
    #Checked the RAID status
    root# diskutil checkRAID
    RAID SETS
    ===============================================================================
    Name: Server_HD
    Unique ID: 7E31E20E-F53D-4D76-AD37-139C4E1440AB
    Type: Mirror
    Status: Degraded
    Size: 1000070610944 B
    Device Node: disk2
    Apple RAID Version: 2
    # Device Node UUID Status
    0 disk1s3 BAC72F86-B05F-4B0F-97D3-58A6207E7DFA Failed
    1 disk0s3 2BFB55BB-EFF9-438C-A1F9-A8ED7A93D385 Online
    ===============================================================================
    #Told it to resync
    root# diskutil repairMirror disk2 disk1s3
    Note: Syncing data between mirror partitions can take a very long time.
    Note: The mirror should now be repairing itself. You can check its status using 'diskutil listRAID'.
    temp:~ root# diskutil listRAID
    RAID SETS
    ===============================================================================
    Name: Server_HD
    Unique ID: 7E31E20E-F53D-4D76-AD37-139C4E1440AB
    Type: Mirror
    Status: Degraded
    Size: 1000070610944 B
    Device Node: disk2
    Apple RAID Version: 2
    # Device Node UUID Status
    0 disk1s3 9D955C85-7EC0-4E92-848A-62D9F7C12EED 0% (Rebuilding)
    1 disk0s3 2BFB55BB-EFF9-438C-A1F9-A8ED7A93D385 Online
    ===============================================================================
    Hope this helps,
    Cheers,
    Arthur

  • See a Disk Utility RAID on another Start Up?

    Hey
    we made a mirrored RAID with two FireWire externals. How can we see the RAID set while booted from another Start Up Volume - without the Holy Hard Drive Trinity "Initialize, Ignore, Eject" coming up?
    Is there a pref file that need so to be copied over? BTW the set was created while running Server 10.4 - the other start up is 10.3+ - in case that makes a difference... (it's one partition tho.) Or do we say "ignore" that repair with Disk Utility?
    Tim
    MacBook (BootCamp), various Macs and servers   Mac OS X (10.4.7)  

    RAID of any time created with Tiger are not backward compatible with Panther.
    For that you would need SoftRAID or to create the RAID under Panther. Quite a few changes and improvements went into Tiger (and again w/ 10.4.4 I believe).
    And, to really do FW800 RAID you want each drive on independent bus/channels as well (I had to invest in two PCI controllers).

  • RAID card or Disk Utility RAID - Need simple comparison please.

    Folks, I am trying to make sense of the necessity or lack thereof for Apple's RAID card. Can someone provide a simple breakdown or comparison of the RAID card and/or loading the Mac Pro with drives and striping them using Disk Utility. I was under the impression that I could buy a Mac Pro, fill up the drive slots and just have Disk Utility set up the RAID. I'll be working with HD.
    Enlighten me please

    Can someone provide a simple breakdown or comparison of the RAID card and/or loading the Mac Pro with drives and striping them using Disk Utility.
    Users that are working with uncompressed HD 1920x1080 10bit RGB video usually aim for storage speeds of 240MB/sec or more. Obtaining this level of performance across the RAID is the trick.
    The Apple RAID 5 card can provide 306MB/sec. when configured as a striped RAID set, using four Seagate 250GB model 7200.10 internal hard drives with 16MB cache, when the volume is empty. By the time the striped RAID set reaches 80% full performance drops to 214MB/sec. A setup that can provide 240MB/sec. when the volume is 100% full will provide a more reliable configuration for 1080 uncompressed HD video processing.
    Disk Utility can provide this same level of performance without the RAID 5 card.
    So what is the advantage of the Apple RAID 5 card?
    The redundancy of RAID 5 can add a layer of protection against the failure of a single hard drive. RAID 5 can be rebuilt whereas RAID 0 provides zero data protection. The problem with RAID 5 in a four drive setup is that one disk is required for storing parity data. This leaves the RAID 5 slower as only 3 disks can be used for performance. In a RAID 5 four drive setup the top speed available will usually be approximately 210MB/sec. and when full closer to 180MB/sec. As you can see RAID 5 adds some data protection but the price is lower performance. That is the feature that the Apple RAID 5 card offers combined with a bootable internal solution.
    Do I need 240MB/sec. performance?
    Users that are not working with uncompressed HD 1920x1080 10bit video may find slower RAID performance will work for them. HDV requires approx. 25MB/sec and DVCPRO HD needs 100MB/sec.
    On the other hand, when I am working with large video files the faster the RAID, the easier it is to work with large files. So while I may not have dropped frames with slower DV formats I still
    prefer to work with as fast of a RAID configuration as I can justify.
    Other Options?
    The Mac Pro has many superior performance options available for creating fast RAID volumes. My current favorite setup is the eight channel Areca ARC-1221x RAID 6 controller paired with an external Enhance E8-ML enclosure. You can see an AMUG review of it here:
    http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/areca/1221x/
    This setup provides a RAID 6 array with twice the redundancy of RAID 5. It also supports up to eight hard drives which significantly enhances performance. Using eight Seagate 320GB model 7200.10 hard drives in a RAID 6 configuration with the ARC-1221x provides over 430MB/sec. when empty and over 220MB/sec when 100% full. Up to two drives can fail and the RAID can still be rebuilt. The ARC-1221x is available to AMUG members for $680 until the end of the month here:
    http://www.tekramonline.com/amugpromos.html
    The Enhance E8-ML 8 bay enclosure is $595. Details are here:
    http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/enhance/e8/
    You will also need two external Mini-SAS to Infiniband cable model Ext-MS-1MSB. I got mine here:
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000FUOMO0/arizomacinusergr
    So for $1340 you get an 8 bay RAID 6 setup that provides awesome performance, supports RAID levels 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10 or JBOD and can even be setup to boot the Mac Pro with any of these RAID configurations. I think this is a great setup.
    More Options
    If the user already has SATA PM enclosures and wants to add external RAID 5 capability for minimal cost, HighPoint has introduced the new RocketRAID 2314.
    http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/highpoint/2314/
    The HighPoint RocketRAID 2314 only costs $200 but it adds nice RAID 5 performance with SATA PM enclosures when using the new Mac version 2.11 driver. Using two SATA PM enclosures with 5 hard drives mounted in each enclosure for a total of 10 drives can provide RAID 5 performance of over 370MB/sec when empty and over 318MB/sec when 100% full. It doesn't offer RAID 6 or boot capability but this is very nice RAID 5 setup.
    The card costs $180 on sale here:
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000NAXGIU/arizomacinusergr
    Two quiet Sonnet 500P five bay enclosures will run $1000
    http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/sonnet/500p/
    So for $1180 users have a high performance RAID 5 setup that supports up to ten SATA hard drives. The RAID 5 performance is twice as powerful as an internal four bay solution. Plus, this setup allows users to still utilize the Mac Pro internal bays for importing more data or for backup.
    The Apple RAID 5 solution is a nice one. It just seems a little pricey compared to other faster solutions that are available. However, if Apple ever came out with a new RAID 6 card that used the internal 4 ports plus offered two external mini-SAS ports for a total of 12 drives, that would be a product totally worthy of a $1000 premium.
    Happy hunting!

  • Disk Utility is completely worthless with external drives

    I've tried two different drives now on both Leopard and Tiger. Any time I try to do anything at all with the drive it beach balls and I have to force quit Dick Util. I just want to format/partition one of my hard drives -- something I've done hundreds of times successfully in my life. This is ridiculously frustrating. I've read that the "input/output" error is a bug in Leopard. Extremely disappointing. How can something as fundamental as formatting/partitioning be left unfixed? My wife has an iBook with Tiger and I get the same beach ball.
    This is really ******* me off. How can I partition my drive(s)? All I have access to is OS X (Tiger and Leopard). Normally this is a good thing, but not today.

    Thanks for the help. I'm not sure what the name of the volume is, though. I put in the "Media name" from Disk Utility.
    Here's what the terminal spit out:
    $ diskutil repairDisk /Volumes/"WDC WD12 00JB-00EVA0 Media"
    Disk Utility Tool
    Usage: diskutil verifyVolume MountPoint|DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode
    diskutil verifyDisk MountPoint|DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode
    diskutil repairVolume MountPoint|DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode
    diskutil repairDisk MountPoint|DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode
    Verify or repair the file system data structure of a volume.
    Ownership of the affected disk is required.
    VerifyDisk and repairDisk are allowed but deprecated synonyms for
    verifyVolume and repairVolume, respectively.
    Example: diskutil verifyVolume /Volumes/SomeDisk

Maybe you are looking for