External 12 TB RAID drive.
Hello, all.
I'm about to purchase an external 4-Bay RAID system and would like to get some advice from those more experienced with it.
I've checked several systems from different manufacturers. Some appear to be well built and come from reputable companies but the cost is just too high and difficult to justify. Examples include G-Technology's G-Speed Q 12 TB drive and La Cie's 12 TB 4big Quadra (both nearing the $2,000 mark after taxes and shipping are added). Two drives have stood out with a cost that seems more reasonable compared to others. Since I am not familiar with the manufacuters' reputations I thought I would ask for opinions from others who may be more experienced with their products.
The drives I have found that seem more reasonably priced are:
OWC's (Other World Computing) Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 12 TB RAID drive
- This drive has a price of $ 1,099.99 + tax/shipping
DataTale Smart 4-Bay 12 TB RAID drive
- This drive has a price of $999.95 + tax (shipping not included since it is available on Amazon)
Has anyone had any experience with either or both of these systems ? What about the companies ? How reputable are they ?
The DataTale appears to use the same enclosure used by Rocstor's Arctiroc RAID drive sold by Apple on its Apple Store. The DataTale 12 TB is selling on Amazon for $ 999.95 while Rocstor's 8 TB drive sells for $ 1,169.95 on Apple's online store.
Any suggestions or stories you would care to share ?
Thanks in advance.
Hi Allan, I still had the Mavericks boot partition on one of my disks, I also keep an external Firewire disk with previous OS boot volumes on it, to hlp recover when I stuff things up. Have you tried booting from the Mavericks install DVD / USB installer to see if the eSATA disk shows up ? Later yesterday after I finished Migrating my files from Mavericks, the eSATA disk did show up on Yosemite, but still not the web interface to the eSATA controller card. I can on only get to the controller card through the localhost:7402 by booting back into Mavericks.
It might also be worth trying to install the eSATA driver again and see if it 'takes' the second time, as mentioned mine did show up eventually, after the Migration process.
I hope this is of some help.
Glenn
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Have a LaCie external 2big RAID drive; two 1T drives in RAID 0 configuration (striped). Drive works perfectly as one big 2T external disk but Mac Installer (Lion - App Store download & Snow Leopard DVD) refuse to install OS X Lion or OS X Snow Leopard on RAID drive.
Previous RAID - two 500g's in RAID 0 had SnowLeopard/Lion installed and worked just fine as bootable drive.
Help!Keep in mind a RAID 1 only protects you from hardware failure of one of the drives. It does not protect you if the hardware raid/chip set decides to take a vacation. Also, if FCP corrupts a file, it is written as corrupt to both drives.
I'm a big fan of separate but equal. Two drives. One goes to the site, the other remains at the hotel. At night, you back up the site disk to the the hotel disk. If something happens to the computer and the disk at the site the next day, you at least have the material back at the hotel.
eggs. baskets. that sort of thing.
good luck.
x -
External Backup RAID drive Configuration
Hi Guys. I'm currently running my MacBook Pro with Final Cut Studio, Logic Studio and Aperture. I'm using a LaCie 4 TB 4Big Quadra RAID drive (via Express eSATA card) as a scratch disk and to store my projects on. I've just purchased a LaCie 4TB 2Big Quadra RAID drive to use as a backup drive for my projects. Does anyone have any suggestions regarding the best way to incorporate the backup drive into my setup? There are various options and i'm not sure which is the best solution. Any advice is much appreciated
Hi. Thanks for your input. This was the way i'd originally thought of doing it. However, in order to get maximum data transfer speeds (for HD video editing) from the 4Big quadra (via express eSATA), i'm now erring towards setting both drives to RAID 0 mode, and simply backing up projects (via firewire) between the drives using the Intego Backup Manager Pro software supplied with the drives.
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External SCSI RAID drives not mounting
I have an ATTO UL3D RAID that was working fine and I updated to the recommended 10.3.9 Apple update and now my drives are not mounting on the desktop. They show up in Disk Utility and I can initialize them, but I have some important data that I want to rescue. I followed all of the suggestions from ATTO but nothing. Can anyone please help? Thanks.
G5 Dual 1.8 Mac OS X (10.3.9)Mine take a very very long time to mount then they will not sleep even when unmounted. The firewire driver in Mavericks needs some work. If at all possible, I would use USB until the driver get's resolved.
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Using the SATA internal connection for an external SATA RAID drive
DP2G G5
THis RAID case:
http://wiebetech.com/products/rt5.php
has an SATA interface on it. Can I snake the internal cable outside somehow & plug it into this case? I can't spare a PCI slot for an SATA card. If not I'll just use the FW800, but it'd be cool to have SATA speeds.
DP2G G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)THis RAID case:
http://wiebetech.com/products/rt5.php
has an SATA interface on it. Can I snake the
internal cable outside somehow & plug it into this
case? I can't spare a PCI slot for an SATA card.
If
not I'll just use the FW800, but it'd be cool to
have
SATA speeds.
DP2G G5
Mac OS X (10.4.5)
Why would you want to spend $1700 on a SATA enclosure
and then be "cheap" on the SATA host adapter to run
it? This expensive 5 bay uses FW800 or SATA. Why not
use FW800 if you don't have a SATA host adapter.
I'm not trying to be cheap here. As I said, I have no PCI slots available. I use Pro Tools HD3 & all my slots are full. I will use FW800 if needed, but speed of SATA would be great.
WiebeTech has a $59 SATA card with one port or
FirmTek has a two port for $99 or a 4 port for
$139.95. Get a external SATA host adapter with direct
connect capability for this enclosure. Or if that is
too much get a 5 bay Fusion 500P for $500 and a
separate card. If you have a new PowerMac G5 made
after Oct 2005 then no PCI slots are available and
you will need the Sonnet PCIe Tempo E4P:
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/article
s/sonnet/e4p/
Have fun!
DP2G G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5) -
Repair disk permissions for an external RAID drive?
Hello,
We are able to repair disk permissions on the hard drive, but can it be done on an external SCCI RAID drive? Is there software that is recommended that will repair and fix issues such as if the RAID drive was improperly removed without ejecting the drive? Or is that not needed?
Thanks,
JordanDiskWarrior repairs your directory, throws in some limited optimization (iPhoto's open in half the time is about all really), so if your "directory is out of order" it's not that big a deal really.
It's good to have on the shelf if you have a lot of Mac's, but ever since Tiger rolled around it seemed a lot of directory problems have disappeared on single user machines. It's pretty expensive for it's limited options.
With a RAID O (stripe) setup you should Disk Utility Erase w/Zero before setting up the RAID and laying data down. (in fact this is wise for all new drives at least once)
RAID O's should always be cloned (in the case of a boot RAID O) or backed up quite often because if one drive goes the whole set with data is lost.
Mirroring (RAID 1) is only necessary for extremely valuable one time data captures where a hard drive failure would be awlful. It doesn't make a good backup because any corruption, mistakes etc get immediatly written to the second drive.
Using automated cloning and backup software is better like (search Apple) DeJaVu. Auto clone the whole boot drive once a week and auto backup certain folders of files nightly.
Since cloning I haven't really too much need for drive maintainance software, if my RAID goes down for a data reason, (hasn't yet in 2 years of 24/7 operation) I simply option boot off the clone and repair/recover/reverse clone. I'm done in a hour, I even go out to eat or something while it's reverse cloning.
A good piece of software to have is (search Apple) OnyX, it's automation section will do a lot of cleanup and fixing certain things. Good to run it about once a month.
To find out more about cloning, visit Carbon Copy Cloner forums, they have donationware software too. -
Unable to capture to external RAID drive FCP 7
Here are my specs:
Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP11.005C.B08
Running:
OS X 10.5.8
Final Cut Studio 3 (recently upgraded from Studio 1)
At the end of last year I had a problem with capturing and upon research it seemed to be that the most recent update of QuickTime was not compatible with Final Cut Pro 5, which was causing my machine to not be able to capture at all. So we upgraded to Final Cut Studio 3 (FCP7) and part of the problem was solved but an issue still remains.
For over 3 years we have been using an external Raid drive as a capture scratch and we still have over 5 TBs free. The Raid is connected by SCSI. Earlier last year I was able to capture to the Raid drive without any problems but now the capture will freeze whenever that is set as the capture scratch. If I set the internal drive as the capture scratch it captures without any issues.
The problem is that using the internal as the capture scratch can only be a short term solution. The drive is only so large and I have a problem with finder if I try to move files from the internal drive to the external. Finder freezes up and I can't even force quit properly. So being able to once again use the external as the main capture scratch is the only real solution. The external is fully functionally and communicating with the Mac.
Any help with resolving this would be appreciated!Off the top of my head, because I haven't worked with SCSI in years--
"The problem is that using the internal as the capture scratch can only be a short term solution. The drive is only so large and I have a problem with finder if I try to move files from the internal drive to the external. Finder freezes up and I can't even force quit properly. So being able to once again use the external as the main capture scratch is the only real solution. The external is fully functionally and communicating with the Mac."
Are you trying to move files while you have FCP open? The fact that simply moving files is giving you finder issues and freezing you up, says that all is not well with the scsi raid. You should not see that at all.
You might try powering down the mac and the raid, unplugging and letting the machine sit for a while to discharge the capacitors. Then try reseating the scsi card. (pull it out carefully and plug it back in.)
On another note, when you upgraded fcp, did you do a clean install? -
Can I pull out a RAID drive and use in an external enclosure?
Hi everyone,
I have a Quicksilver with two identical drives formatted as a RAID setup (mirrored) and the G4 has reached its EOL (won't boot). Can I pull one of the RAID drives out and use in an external enclosure? Does the RAID formatting render it unusable in any other configuration? If that is the case, can I put the two drives into an external RAID enclosure?
Thanks in advance for any advice the community can supply!
Cheers,
JamesHi-
Can I pull one of the RAID drives out and use in an external enclosure?
Yes. Not as the original RAID setup, but as a drive, or part of a new RAID.
Does the RAID formatting render it unusable in any other configuration?
No. Just reformat the drive, and it's a regular drive, ready to go.
If that is the case, can I put the two drives into an external RAID enclosure?
A RAID set does not have to be internal. External RAID sets can be created, and successfully used.
Use firewire, or, if SATA, an eSATA connection to PCI controller.....
If the drive is, as you say, EOL, I would write zeros to the entire drive before reformatting.
Give Disk Utility a chance to map any bad sectors...... -
Best external hard drive/RAID drive for weddings and events
Hello,
With all the drive possibilities out there, what would be the best, most reliable, and cost effective external hard drive/RAID drive to purchase for weddings/events and other videos on a single computer system?
Thanks,
JordanBrian
Did read your other posts and agree with them.
As we all know, it will depend on the amount of footage and resolution as to how much needs to be transported around. Given that its DV or HDV and I'm guessing only a few hours of fottage then there are a few 2 drive esata boxes about which are as portable as some lacie/gtech drives.
www.caldigit.com/S2VRDuo.asp
or one of the new GTech drives that have a sata port as well as fw could be good.
Re the 2 bus issue, I would be delighted to be wrong about it. It is through the Avid tech support that I got this info. Todate, I have not been able to get my avid mojo to work on a Lacie PCMCIA FW card at the same time as I have FW drives attached. This seems to sugest that they are not 2 busses, to an avid at least.
Thats why, for portable editing, I am moving towards a macbook pro with esata card for storage and fw free for other uses. -
Is it possible to boot or Time Machine restore from an external Thunderbolt disk drive?
(There are several questions - search for "?".)
I purchased a Seagate Backup Plus for Mac Desktop Drive 3 TByte with default USB 3.0 interface, and also acquired the Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter for Backup Plus Desktop Drives and Thunderbolt cable.
I do a redundant backup to the Seagate Drive using both Carbon Copy Cloner (nightly) and Time Machine (hourly) using its Thunderbolt adapter. BTW: One never knows when Time Machine will choke - see discussion titled, "UPDATED: Serious Time Machine bug on Mountain Lion", which I had; Rest In Peace Pondini (James Lewis Pond).
Booting from the external Seagate Backup Plus via Thunderbolt inteface from System Preferences -> Startup Disk:
I select the Time Machine OS X, 10.8.5 Startup Disk (Thunderbolt attached drive), click Restart, confirm my choice, the computer reboots, however, it reboots from the internal Macintosh HD OS X, 10.8.5, NOT the selected external Thunderbolt drive. The SSD drive was used as the Startup Drive, not the selected external Time Machine volume as indicated by the display free disk space command (df(1)) and seeing that the Macintosh HD OS X, 10.8.5 volume is mounted as root. That is very deceptive in that both the internal and external drives will appear in the same manner from a GUI point of view! OS X doesn't even inform me that it did not boot off the selected volume. This is the first half of the problem, that is, Is it possible to boot from an external Thunderbolt disk drive? In my case, the answer is deceptively No. Can anybody else boot off a Thuderbolt attached disk drive? Note that if I remove the Thunderbolt adapter, and attach the drive via its USB 3.0 cable, the MBP boots off the external Seagate Backup Plus just fine, as is expected.
Booting from the external Seagate Backup Plus via Thunderbolt inteface from boot-time "Option - Select startup disk" method:
When I restart the MBP using the startup Option key to select the startup volume, the externally connected Seagate drive ONLY SHOWS UP if it is attached with the USB 3.0 cable, not when it is attached with via the Thunderbolt interface. Can anyone else boot off a Thunderbolt drive with the startup Option key sequence? At least the MBP doesn't deceive me in this case - I know right away that the external Thunderbolt drive is not an option when connected as such.
Time Machine restore from the external Seagate Backup plus via Thunderbolt interface from the "command-R - Recovery Parition" method:
After booting from the recovery partition, I attempt to perform a Time Machine restore from the Thunderbolt connected Seagate Backup drive. When Time Machine attempts to present me with a viable backup Time Machine volume, the external Thunderbolt drive is never offered as an option. So I switch the Time Machine volume to use its USB 3.0 interface, and then Time Machine displays that drive as an option, and the MBP proceeds with the restoration as expected. The interesting thing to note is that while booted in the recovery partition via the Thuderbolt cable, the MBP Disk Utility may be selected, and the Thunderbolt attached drive may be operated on just fine. Can anybody else restore their MBP using Time Machine and the Recovery Partition via the Thunderbolt interface?
This is also a big problem for me in that I am forced to restore my MBP via Carbon Copy Cloner using the USB 3.0 interface, because I cannot even boot off that volume's Thunderbolt interface. Of course, the option may be that I could use yet another eternal USB 3.0 drive, boot from it, and then use Carbon Copy Cloner to restore the Macintosh HD via the aforementioned drive connected by a Thunderbolt cable, but that is less than ideal and not elegant, so I'm not going there.
Another side issue is that the commercially available program, TechTool Pro 7's eDrive, which I installed on the Time Machine volume, will not boot off that eDrive as advertised, but I won't got through those steps here, because that would be beyond the scope of this issue, however, I must say, It does not work either when the Time Machine volume is connected via the Thunderbolt interface, but works just fine when connected via the USB 3.0 interface.If this helps anybody else make a decision about whether to consider Apple because of Apple's superior customer service:
Apple sells this entire line of drives right in their store, from 1TB to 4TB. I spent 1 and 1/2 hours, yesterday, confirming that the 3TB model IS NOT 100% Thunderbolt compliant. A MBP cannot boot, nor can it Time Machine restore from this drive, though EVERYTHING about the drive is normal.
Apple's South Coast Plaza store management had at least two responses to me personally about how to proceed:
1. Buy a different drive from another drive manufacturer, and to attempt to return the drive to COSTCO. A lead genius suggested going with GTech drives, for instance.
2. Wait for Seagate to fix their problem.
I told Apple management in the store that the drive is advertised as Mac Compatible (see picture) and that it is advertised as being a Thunderbolt drive (see picture). I pressed management that my purchasing decsion to get the best possible MBP Retina was based on the availablity of Inexpensive Devises (raID), and that not having this complete compatibility is a show-stopper for my needs, and that I wanted a refund. Their response? They needed to talk with "Merchendising" to see if they are on or off the hook for these kind of 3rd party assertions, and would get back to me.
I am not holding my breath.
Note: I do not hold this against the Geniuses that helped me, nor against the management I've dealt with, nor the upper level engineers that I've corresponded with through Apple Care - their problem solving skills were helpful - although I could have arrived at similar conclusions given enough $$$. (For instance, try a Lacie TB drive and see if that works - we did, and it did not work. Or, we have a different TB cable and a different TB adapter, let's try those - we did, and it did not work.) I blame myself for not doing enough homework before going with Apple's solutions. -
Hi there! Yesterday, I installed Mavericks on my Macbook. Since then, it doesn't recognize my external hard disk drive anymore (at least not on the desktop. In Germany they call it "it doens't mount it". I don't know if it's the same expression in english?)
I just used it a week ago, before I did the update and it worked perfectly fine.
Is there anyone out there who knows a solution for this problem? I've been googleing for hours now and can't find any answer.
Thank you!!!Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of the test is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party software that loads automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, by a font conflict, or by corruption of the file system or of certain system caches.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards, if applicable. Start up in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. You must hold down the shift key twice: once when you turn on the computer, and again when you log in.
Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a Fusion Drive or a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to start up and run than normal, with limited graphics performance, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and Wi-Fi on certain models. The next normal startup may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually login automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem?
After testing, restart as usual (not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test. -
Internal RAID Drives Disappeared from Desktop & Finder
A few days ago, one of my two internal mirrored RAID sets no longer showed on the desktop or in the Finder Sidebar. A day later, the other internal RAID set disappeared from desktop and sidebar. The two remaining internal non-RAID drives show up as do two external drives. All internal and external hard drives still show under Disk Utility and Photoshop Bridge CS3.
I checked Finder Preferences and boxes are checked to show internal and external drives on the desktop and sidebar. I looked at the drive detail under Disk Utility and nothing looks wrong with the two RAID sets ON-LINE. I unmounted one RAID set and re-mounted without any change. I tried unchecking the two preference boxes to not show the drives and rebooted, rechecking the boxes and rebooting and nothing changed on the desktop or sidebar.
Does anyone have any suggestions to resolve this?Well our invisible drives problem is resolved but it's not the solution that I'd hoped for.
We visited the Genius Bar at a local Apple store and they denied any knowledge of problems with invisible drives in Macs and discounted my reports from Mac forums.
I went home and ordered a new 1tb Seagate drive. When it arrived, I installed it in bay 2, copied each invisible drive to the new drive one-at-a-time, broke my two sets of internal mirrored drives, erased all the affected drives and reloaded them. Now all drives are visible on the Desktop and Finder again.
I'm hoping that the disappearing drive problem doesn't surface again but view this as an unresolved Apple issue. Now I can look at other mass storage options for future growth. -
How should I Set Up My New External G-Raid?
Just received my new GR42000 2TB G-Raid Drive, but before even turning on the unit I began to read the manual PDF that came with the drive.
I want to use this unit with my new iMac and also with my HP PC which has video files that I'd like to access from time to time. I was instructed to reformat the drive for "Cross Platform Support"
Questions:
1) is this needful for extracting my video files.
2) Will using the Fat32 MSDOS format restrict my editing abilities within Final Cut Express 4HD.
3) Does the file extensions from the PC have to be converted, or is this what is done when they are transfered from internal to external.
I will be using this G-Raid for storing Video and Music Files exclusively and working 95% of the time on the iMac.
I also read in the manual that a software exists "MacDrive" for install and a cost, which I could not find, to help converge the two systems to work between each other.
I want to start off correctly and avoid transfering files and then later have to reformat and loose all the time spent doing so.
I'd appreciate advice from others who have already worked through the process.
I hope I've provided enough information, if not I'll await instructions.
Thanks, DanHi Dan
I think that the problem is that users in this section of the forum (including myself), do not use Final Cut Express. Or again including myself, dabble all that much with windoz.
While MS-DOS FAT-32 is the ideal Format for sharing files Cross Platform, it has a 4GB single file size limit and may not be the best for storing and working on Final Cut Express files.
Examples:
For cross platform sharing of music, photo's. movie's and files under 4GB, I use an External HD the is set up Master Boot Record/MS-DOS FAT-32.
For backups, Time Machine and Bootable Cloning I use a different External HD that is set up GUID Partition Table/Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
So sorry, but I can not say exactly which would be the best solution for your multi facetted case. I suspect that GUID/Mac OS Extended is better for rendering and editing, but then you will need something on the windows side for reading and writing to that.
Finally I think that you should pop over to the Final Cut Pro section of this forum and ask the Final Cut Pro guru's the tougher questions. > http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=939
Dennis -
Advice on external MIRROR RAID
Looking to get an external MIRROR RAID for my Mac.
What would you guy recomend?
The 1TB MyBook Pro by Western Digitial looks good,
What are people using? anyone using Lacie?
Rjust a thought, there may or may not be issues with this idea.
how about using a vault for one of the backups, or just backing up the Aperture library file, containing all of your managed images. onto one of the external HDD's.
next, simply make a copy of the currect Aperture library with a new name, open that new copy library in Aperture, then move the entire library to being referenced on the other external drive.
or better yet, if you can take the space hit of having this on both external drives, having the full aperture library file on each, as well as the referenced library. and have double backups on each RAID setup.
with these two type of backups, you will be able to restore the entire library, if that is a good solution at the time, or if you are in a hurry for a specific project, you can simply find that project in the referenced files.
I don't think that would be a super difficult process to have a really efficient backup system, it will take awhile, double the time of a single backup, but will give you all the options you may want.
honestly, if it were me, I would just backup the Aperture library file periodically to each Raid volume, as Library files can still be opened up right in finder, using the Show Contents comand, and maybe even Vaults can as well? I wouldn't be suprised if they could. need to do a little more research on that, if a vault file can be opened just like a library file, then you really shouldn't have to worry about restoring the whole vault if you were in a hurry and just find the photos you need at the time. and eventually do a full restore. -
Since updating to Lion, cannot connect to external RAID drive . Am I missing a setting somewhere?
I should be more specific. What I have: Audio = 24.21GB
Movies = 86.6MB
Photos = 841.2MB
Apps = 7.79GB
Backups = 0
Other = 23.32GB
What I am wondering is what is in the other (23.32GB) How can I determine what file these are, and if they are required.
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