Is RAID-0 worht it? - not a chance!

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.html?i=2101
And, this test used two of the fastest drives out there: the "raptors"
Here's the conclusion:
"If you haven't gotten the hint by now, we'll spell it out for you: there is no place, and no need for a RAID-0 array on a desktop computer. The real world performance increases are negligible at best and the reduction in reliability, thanks to a halving of the mean time between failure, makes RAID-0 far from worth it on the desktop.
There are some exceptions, especially if you are running a particular application that itself benefits considerably from a striped array, and obviously, our comments do not apply to server-class IO of any sort. But for the vast majority of desktop users and gamers alike, save your money and stay away from RAID-0.
Bottom line: RAID-0 arrays will win you just about any benchmark, but they'll deliver virtually nothing more than that for real world desktop performance. That's just the cold hard truth."
Now, how you like them apples?!

This past November, I bought two Hitachi Deskstar ([7K250] SATAI 7200RPM 160GB 8MB) for $20 each (<3 Black Friday). I read this article before deciding to RAID-0 my system. I disagree with it.
In terms of cost per performance, you are better off buying one Raptor and one other HDD. Put all of your programs on the Raptor and all of your data on the other HDD. Now, if you are put in the situation I was, things are different. I just bought a Western Digital Caviar SE16 ([WD2500KS] SATAII 7200RPM 250GB 16MB) a couple weeks ago. I walked into CompUSA at 12AM and they had the 7K250 for $20, $20! The only downside to the 7K250 is being the older version, supporting only SATAI and not SATAII.
So now, I have 250+160+160=570 GB of storage for my system. What do I do with all of this? For one, I can RAID-1 the Hitachi HDDs, doubling my MTBF, but cutting my capacity in half, while making the cost $0.25/GB. On the other hand, I can RAID-0 the Hitachi HDDs, half my MTBF, keep my capacity, manage the drive as one (in my case this is a plus), while keeping the cost at $0.111/GB.
I do not care about doubling/halving MTBF, but I do care about data loss. Then I realized I have never had a HDD die on me, I have always replaced it before hand, and I have never lost data due to failed components. Then there was capacity; no way was I cutting it in half and doubling the cost/GB. Therefore, I went with RAID-0.
Really, the only thing I am undecided on is stripe size (that and partitioning, but that is beyond the scope of this post). My OS files are small, but my gaming and whatever files are much larger. Right now, I am using 64k stripes, but I am not sure if this is the best for me (maybe 32k, maybe 16k), because I have not really tested the differences. All I know is in HDTach the RAID-0 is 75% “better” than my single SATA HDD.
Bottom line, if you are building a new machine and you want good but cost manageable HDD performance, buy one 74GB Raptor and one 250GB SATA HDD. If you come across a sweet deal with multiple drives, RAID it up either 0 or 1.

Similar Messages

RAID 5 raidctl -- operation not support with volume of this level

How can I make a RAID-5 with 6 disks?
raidctl -c -r 5 c1t2d0 c1t3d0 c1t4d0 c1t5d0 c1t6d0
Creating RAID volume will destroy all data on spare space of member disks, proceed (yes/no)? yes
Operation not support with volume of this level.
I'm not sure what the message "Operation not support with volume of this level" means or how to fix it.

Hi,
I presume you are trying to create a RAID volume on the internal disks of a Sun Server?
If so the LSI RAID controller chip may not support RAID5 in this server.
What is the model of the Sun Server Hardware you are trying this on?
You may also wish to post the output of "raidctl -S" to show us the particular LSI
RAID chip in use.
ta

Both of my computers crashed nearly simultanesously due to mal-ware, had to erase hard drives to start over, did not have chance to de-activate either Acrobat or Creative Cloud before they crashed. I need you to retroactively deactivate these two previou

Both of my computers crashed nearly simultanesously due to mal-ware, had to erase hard drives to start over, did not have chance to de-activate either Acrobat or Creative Cloud before they crashed. I need you to retroactively deactivate these two previous computers (one Dell desktop, another a Dell laptop from my university, the University Of Missouri_KC), so that I can re-install on my laptop (which has been repaired by UMKC), and the other on my new private desktop (which replaces my previous desktop, which cannot be salvaged). I have the serial numbers of my two products, if Adobe could request them
Please respond as soon as possible. - Marc Garcelon, [email protected], UMKC email address: [email protected]@

Hi Marc,
Please refer to the help document below for deactivation:
Activation & Deactivation Help
Also, the creative cloud membership can only work on 2 machines. You will receive an error automatically on the third machine.
Regards,
Sheena

Why a MacBook Pro buyer has not the chance to by the Mac with a NVIDIA card

Dear mac lovers,
I wonder why we have not the chance to buy a MacBook Pro with a NVIDIA Graphic card?

I guess it's down to deals, money and handshakes. The same reason PC manufactures use a specific graphics brand. There are very few that give the option (notebooks anyway).
Just to add i understood your question perfectly and I'm sure your level of written/spoken English is far better than other posters level of German
s
Message was edited by: simonf66
because my grammer is sh1te sometimes

Areca Raid Controller - ArcHTTP - does not work

Areca Raid Controller - ArcHTTP - does not work - in need your help !!!
I am running Win 7pro, 64 bit, 24 MB RAM
Areca 1680 controlls Raid 3 7TB and Raid0 1TB. McRaid works fine.
1. Areca ArchHTTP V 1.85 is installd fine
2. When opening ArchHTTP-GUI it is showing:
     a. Controller #01(PCI): Port 81 running
     b. Cfg Assistent:          Port 82 running
   Application started, 1 contoller found, launch...........:81
3. when i activate Cfg Assistant and launch Browser, ARCHTTP - Configurations opens
4. when i activate Controller #01(PCI) and launch Browser, the website for unsername and password opens
5. after filling in user pandpassword ....nothing happens, the website doesnot open. It seems that i could not be found.
Any idea, thanks for help
klfi

This is likely do to new Phishing or Popup rules in IE9. Most web based controller management utility's do not show up as a valid website since they use local host or internal IP addresses. I know Areca has in the past used Java for their utility which also trips many of those rules. Try adding the web utility as a trusted website.
Eric
ADK

RAID 1 - DiskUtility will not allow me to use Macintosh HD as a slice.

Hi All,
I have a fully functional Mac Mini with the 80gig HD, I have been using it for about a year and just love it (Windows convert). I have just purchased a 160gig Lacie Brick and have decided to partition it into two 80gig partitions and use one of those partitions as a slice for a RAID 1 configuration. So basically I want to mirror my internal 80 and my external 80. When I go to DiskUtility, and attempt to create my RAID, it does not allow me drag the "Macintosh HD" to be a slice in the array. Is this because it is the boot partition? This drive is one single partition, at least from the untrained eye, I am sure there is a boot partition somewhere on it. Is this something I can even setup? DiskUtility allows me to drag the external 80 to the RAID but not the internal 80.
Any help or guidance would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Dave
Mac Mini 1.42 Mac OS X (10.4.2)
Mac Mini 1.42 Mac OS X (10.4.2)

I have a fully functional Mac Mini with the 80gig HD,
I have been using it for about a year and just love
it (Windows convert). I have just purchased a 160gig
Lacie Brick and have decided to partition it into two
80gig partitions and use one of those partitions as a
slice for a RAID 1 configuration. So basically I
want to mirror my internal 80 and my external 80.
When I go to DiskUtility, and attempt to create my
RAID, it does not allow me drag the "Macintosh HD"
to be a slice in the array. Is this because it is
the boot partition? This drive is one single
partition, at least from the untrained eye, I am
sure there is a boot partition somewhere on it. Is
this something I can even setup? DiskUtility allows
me to drag the external 80 to the RAID but not the
internal 80.
Any help or guidance would be appreciated.
Don't think this is possible in a RAID configuration, since your external drive is not connected to the mini in the same manner as your internal. Normally RAID systems use the same type of controllers. If you want to backup your internal drive, try setting up a cron job that copies your data some time in the early morning...

Added a 2nd Array on my Xserve RAID, Though it's not appearing in disk utilityt

I have an Xserve RAID unit. Up until now I have just been running 1 side of it with 7 drives on RAID 5 = about 4TB. I recently picked up another identical RAID unit with 7 drives to fill out the right hand bay of the unit doubling our capacity. I have installed these and initialised the array which took about 48 hours, it's now showing as online and green lights all the way.
Now I've gone to make use of the extra space but it is not showing as available in the mounted RAID icon on the desktop, nor will the new array appear in disk utility. When I access server admin however, on the overview screen it shows I have 8TB on offer. Contrary to this in the system profiler the 'Fibre Channel Domain 2' is not reporting any SCSI devices unlike 'Fibre Channel Domain 0' - Not sure this is related.
If anyone can help me gain access to the new found 4TB I would be greatly appreciative.

it is not showing as available in the mounted RAID icon on the desktop
It won't.
The XServe RAID is really built as two independent RAID controllers and drive sets in one enclosure.
The 7 left-most drives are connected to the top controller, and the 7 right-most drives are connected to the bottom controller. They are independent. There's no way to build a single 14-drive array - the best you can do is build two 7-drive arrays.
What you should find is that if you connect the bottom controller to your server, the second array should appear on the desktop, separate and distinct from your existing volume.
If you really need to expand your volume to cover all 14 drives then you'll need to use software RAID 0 (striping) on the server to meld both of the 7-drive arrays into a single logical volume.

RAID 5 Set Suddenly NOT VIABLE!

I'm running an early 2008 Mac Pro with an Apple Raid Card with 4 internal, 1TB drives formatted into a single Raid 5 set. The raid card has had numerous issues in recent years, mainly drives that would unexpectedly drop out of the Raid and list as "roaming". In those past cases, Apple had me shut down the computer, remove the drive sled of the problem drive, wait a few minutes and replace the drive then restart. On one occasion, the Raid set was back to normal, on other occasions the drive was seen and I would have to assign it as a spare and rebuild the set. Everything would work fine until the next time.
In the last few days, I discovered the Mac Pro shut down, after I had left it idle for a while with the screen asleep. When I tried to restart, I was greeted with a blank grey screen, no Apple, no anything. I tried booting from CDs and external Boot Drives with no luck. This morning I was finally able to boot onto an external drive and discovered my Raid 5 set is now "NOT VIABLE!"
ALL drives are listed "Verified" and "Good." Bays 1 and 2 are "assigned" while Bays 3 and 4 are listed as "Roaming." The Volume is showing "Degraded" and the Raid Set is listed as "Not Viable." I have tried shutting down and removing all the drives then reinserting them (in their original slots) and restarting, but nothing changes.
Is there any way I can get these two drives to assign back to the Raid Set WITHOUT losing all my data? Is there any way to recover all may data? Am I hosed here and everything is a loss?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Brett B.
Here is a screen capture of what Raid Utility reported:

In my experience, Apple RAID in general (with RAID card or without) does not tolerate a very high error-retry rate from the Drives.
I had a mirrored RAID that repeatedly became Degraded, and decided to take strong action. I made sure I had two Backups, then pulled out the Drives and erased them with Write Zeroes, one pass. One of the drives had more than 10 blocks that needed to be "spared", so Initialization Failed. I ran the procedure multiple times and found that 30 blocks had needed to be spared. If any of these had been marginal in daily use, it could have caused the drive to get (what appears to be) stuck doing dozens to hundreds of retrys, but still not throw an I/O Error that would bring the system to a Halt.
Google did a very large study and concluded that there is a very high probability that drives with multiple errors will end up being replaced within about six months. They attributed this to a cascade of additional errors that often followed the first group detected, leading to the drive being declared unusable.
In my opinion, just reseating the drive (combined with rebuilding, which does re-write the data blocks) may not be strong enough medicine to fix a recurring problem. A drive may repeatedly be doing multiple retrys on some data blocks, or may have Bad Blocks.
I suggest you Zero the troublesome drives (which takes many hours each). If Disk Utility finds more than 10 blocks that need to be spared, or if the drive runs out of available spares, it will report "Initialization Failed!" Consider such a drive not good enough for use in a RAID and replace it with a new one. Or just rebuild your RAID with different (e.g., larger) new drives.

ACARD AEC-6860M PCI RAID ATA 66 card not showing connected hard drives

I just installed an ACARD AEC-6860M PCI card in my G4 (Quicksilver 2002) and am having some difficulty getting Disk Utility to recognize the drives. I know other people in these forums have used this particular card before (Related thread: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5688908), so I'm hoping you can help me.
The AEC-6860M is a PCI RAID card for 2 ATA drives. I've installed the drivers for the card and verified that it appears in System Profiler. However, no combination of drives or cables makes the 2 drives I have connected to it visible in System Profiler (under SCSI or ATA) or in Disk Utility, so I can't format them and actually use them.
Can anyone share any secrets? Thanks!
(See card details at http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&ProductCode=ACA-AEC-6860M&Category_Code=CLRNCINTCARDS&ProductCount=1)

Hello birdy.....,
Sorry to take so long responding. Major disaster! My whole wall bookcase just tumbled, and I'm still working at excavating the family (of Macs).
Your card should work. I've used the Acard cards by the dozens without problem, though I've never used that particular 6860 card or set up a RAID ARRAY. Just checked, using a 6880 (RAID) though as a controller card and not as a RAID ARRAY, and found that my 2002 QS Mac would not see a standard hard drive(#2) running OSX (10.2) that had been formatted by the OSX install disk using the stock bus on the motherboard. It would, however, see a hard drive(#3) that had been formatted while connected to an ACARD controller card (6280). I'm guessing that an OSX installer disk is prepared to see and to deal with a SCSI drive, and that Disk Utility is not.
Check that.
Just removed the controller card formatted drive(#3) and re-installed the OSX(10.2) drive(#2); this time my 2002 QS saw it right away, both on the desktop and in disk utility. I guess it needed personal messenger service.
As I recall, I've seen that happen before using controller cards; as a result, I've always taken care to format a new hard drive by connecting it to a controller card if that is the way I intend to use it. Hard drives can be capricious, sometimes. At any rate, try formatting your hard drive(s) with an OSX installer disk (hoping you have one) while connected to the ACARD controller card - just click on erase (twice) and the drive formats automatically.
I'm a little mystified by reference to drivers; never installed any drivers, and always assumed none were needed.
Hope that helps. Check back and let me know.
Jon

Sata Raid with spare drive not booting?

Hi Peeps,
Been reading throught this forum and founds loads of good tips already, however, I still can't find the answer to my problem.
Just setup 2 new Maxtor (250gb) drives as Raid 0, made them bootable and installed Windows XP SP2. All works fine and dandy. I have tried to install my 3rd Maxtor 250gb drive as a spare on port 3 or 4 but it won't boot saying something about the drive config.
I have disabled Sata 3 & 4 in the bios, changed the boot order (Raid first, Channel 3 last) but no joy.
What the hell am I doing wrong or is it not possible to do?
BTW: If I change the boot order so the single Sata drive is first, it will boot into my drive but not able to see the raid disks!!
Thanks for any help you can give
Tigger
Spec:
AMD Athlon 64 +4000GHz
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (Socket 939)
2 x 1gb Ebuyer RAM
3 x 250GB Maxtor Diamondmax 10 (Sata 150)
48x DVDRW
48x DVD
550wat PSU
256MB Radeon 850XT Pro,
Bios 0.3a (Latest)
Samsung 19" Syncmaster 930BF

Tigger I haven't seen anyone post this issue on a non-SLI Neo4. Is the spare disk setup as a spanning drive(JBOD)? See my posts here in might fix your problem:
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=98437.0
Loopy, I don't know much about the Neo Plat regular, you could try the above also, but I'm not sure you have the same problem as Tigger.

Fake-RAID - target type "mirror" not in kernel

Hello
I'm trying to install Arch using dmraid, mostly following the Fake-RAID guide in the wiki. I'm using the 2008.04-RC iso. What I do different is that I make my own dmraid package with this patch, to support Raid10 on my Intel board. I personally don't think this is related to my problem, but you never know.
Anyways, the installation was going great, I just followed the guide. I rebooted, grub was loading fine, even my old Windows installation was happy. Linux, however, was less happy. It spews out tons of "attempt to access beyond end of device"'s, doesn't find the root partition, and throws me to a rescue prompt.
ramfs$ dmraid -ay
RAID set "isw_iifadcbec_Volume0-1" already active
RAID set "isw_iifadcbec_Volume0-0" already active
device-mapper: table: 254:2: mirror: unknown target type
device-mapper: ioctl: error adding target to table
ERROR: device-mapper target type "mirror" not in kernel
ramfs$ echo /dev/mapper/*
/dev/mapper/control
/dev/mapper/isw_iifadcbec_Volume0-0
/dev/mapper/isw_iifadcbec_Volume0-1
When booting from the install cd, /dev/mapper also contains
/dev/mapper/isw_iifadcbec_Volume01
/dev/mapper/isw_iifadcbec_Volume02
I suspect that this problem appears because the init image does not contain the module "dm-mirror". Does anyone know how to include this module, or perhaps I have a completely different problem?

I'll continue my monologue with my latest problems. I added a custom dm-mirror hook in mkinitcpio.conf to include the module, to my surprise it worked! Unfortunately, behind that door was another door, and I'm now completely clueless:
:: Running Hook [filesystems]
:: Loading root filesystem module...ext3
Waiting for devices to settle...done.
:: Initramfs Completed - control passing to kinit
IP-Config: no devices to configure
Waiting 0s before mounting root device...
kinit: Cannot open root device dm-7(254,7)
kinit: init not found!
It appears that something can read from my raid volume, as an ext2 module is loaded if I tell the kernel that my boot partition is root. I've verified that there actually is a /sbin/init on the root partition. I've been running mkinitcpio more times than I can count, but the problem just won't go away... Is there anything else I can do?

RAID and SSD Caching Notes for the W530

Here are some interesting compatibility and limitations issues I've encountered with the W530 on Windows 7 and 8 and Linux. To the point, a trio of SSD units may prove superior to two physical disks plus an mSATA SSD for several reasons outlined here.
Original goals: quick restore of a previous OS state, data resillience on the road, and use of Intel's SSD caching feature in RST (which is fully compatible with the Lenovo W-series).
Since there are several issues involved, you may want to consider adding the RAID option only after understanding these tradeoffs, which presumably still exist on latest products.
APS (active protection) does not work when RAID is in use. Show stopper! I really don't want a head crash even with a RAID 1 mirror. APS is an outstanding feature of IBM/Lenovo products and may give better overall data stability than running with a mirror in which case both heads might crash from a drop or jar, without APS. (Disks these days sometimes have their own APS built-in so that's worth considering as well.)
Intel's Rapid Storage caching solution requires RAID to implement on an mSATA cache. See #1.
Reverting to a previous OS image by splitting and reverting to a mirror is not fast. It's easier to break the pair and swap the disks but far easier solutions are available.
Documentation is sparse for the Intel RST product and Lenovo could help fill in the gaps.
Without Rescue and Recovery, which I've used in the past to revert to earlier OS builds, other backup/restore options are still required. It is VERY HELPFUL to have a product purchased with a Windows 8 license in the EFI firmware, so that rebuilds aren't a problem. If you experience rebuild issues, quickly contact Lenovo support for workarounds and solutions. I recommend testing a rebuild several times before putting your system into production.
On a related note, the APS feature is currently unsupported on Linux because of lack of documentation for the output stream of the positioning sensor in recent Lenovo products.
Workarounds and Problems:
ExpressCache, which Lenovo provides, is simple to use as an alernative to Intel's RST-based caching.
Lenovo warns that ExpressCache is incompatible with TrueCrypt and BitLocker encryption.
FDE (full disk encryption) drives and FDE SSDs are presumably available as a workaround to #2.
I'm glad I have the RAID option under the hood, but I'm currently not using it. I would if I were on pure SSD storage, which does not require or benefit from APS. ExpressCache does seem to help boot up speed and overall performance, and doesn't appear to add any significant overhead.
References:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/rapid-storage-technology.html
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/diagnose-and-fix/detail.page?DocID=HT079225
https://www.condusiv.com/partners/oem/technologies/expresscache/
What's on your Thinkpad? T42 2379-R9U, T61 6460-DWU, W530 2436

I'd like to suggest an alternative caching product (not affiliated with them, but have used for a long while) by the name of eBoostr.
What I like about it:
- Mostly OS agnostic (runs on anything after 2000, including 2000 (!))
- Chipset agnostic (runs on any chipset)
- Device agnostic (accepts caching on RAM, SD, CF, USB, Intel's old Turbo Memory, anything that shows up as a drive)
- GUI interface for excluding files you don't want cached (ignore downloads, music, etc.)
In short, there's virtually no restrictions on how, where, and what to use it with.
I think it works fine with TrueCrypt and BitLocker, but I'm not 100% sure.
What eBoostr doesn't do is sector-level caching, or write-caching. I use CleverCache to bump Windows' file cache size to improve write caching.
W520: i7-2720QM, Q2000M at 1080/688/1376, 21GB RAM, 500GB + 750GB HDD, FHD screen
X61T: L7500, 3GB RAM, 500GB HDD, XGA screen, Ultrabase
Y3P: 5Y70, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, QHD+ screen

FCS, MacBook Pro C2D, G-Raid (FW800): Journaled or Not for HDV video.

I have this setup (due to limited space left available on my MBP) using an external FW800 G-raid. And I would like to capture HDV media to it. I was wondering if I need to format my drive to be journaled or not. Also I have been reading that some people were saying not to use FW? Is there something I don't know about that I shouldn't be using FW?

You do not need to have your external drive set to journaled.
Firewire works just fine for the mass of users. Those that have problems tend to also use Canon cameras which have their own firewire issues.
x

DS6100 RAID Drive replaced but not rebuilding

Our DS6100 lost a 3Tb drive which was replaced under warranty but still shows Storage Degraded. Tech support sent another. Same issue. No instructions on how to configure. Tech never asked if I configured it and didn't offer any help. Also had boot drive fail on same machine. Installed new boot drive and it immediately started to rebuild. Found info about WD RAID storage utility from this forum. (THANKS GUYS). But drive shows unconfigured. Where does it get configured?

boot drives are set to auto rebuild. Auto rebuild is disabled on the data drives. From the monitor tab of the dashboard go down to the drives and clcik configureThen I think, hard to figure out when my box does not have a missing drive but sorta kinda click on the "new" drive and click on operation, There should be something there that says rebuild. Or it may be you click on virtual disk 1 and find it in operation there Or call tech support.PS: The raid config is already on the DS, you do not need to install anything

Raid 10: stable or not?

According to the following technical article
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304377
I could combine my iTunes libraries using a Raid 10 configuation: i.e. I would configure my two 320 GB to a Raid 1 and the same with my two 200 GB drives, then creating a Raid 0 set (striping Raid) out of the two pairs. Sounds good as I would suddenly have a 520 GB hard drive including backup.
The question is: how reliable is it without a Raid card only using the Apple OS software?
Regards,
Jurgen

Not journaled is a wee faster.
Your media scratch disk doesn't need to be journaled anyway.
Turning on jurnal function only means that every single activity going from and through the drive will be recorded/archived. No point when rendering etc.
Just turn that off and call it a day.
G.

Is RAID-0 worht it? - not a chance!

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