RAID card or drive?

My Mac Pro with Apple RAID card will not boot to external FW800 or original install DVD if drives 2, 3, 4 are installed at the same time in any of the bays (i.e. gray screen, no apple, nothing). If I remove or replace any one, or more, or remove all of drives 2, 3, 4 Mac Pro will boot to anything with an OS on it via Opt. key. I'm thinking if any one of drives 2, 3, 4 were bad and drawing too much power the same problem would present when drive 1 (J+ w/ OS) is substituted for any one of 2, 3, 4. Replaced battery on RAID card no effect on problem. Passed Hardware Diagnostic on original Installer DVD. I'm thinking this has to be a RAID card issue. Do they go bad? Any opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Software RAID?
No, I have an the Apple RAID card that came with the Mac Pro, factory installed. RAID set was created with Apple RAID Utility. About testing, D-Genius only does a random/sustained read/write. I like the looks of intech's suite, but just spent $$ on new, replacement SAS drive, they're still not cheap, even with the advent of SSDs. Anyway, I had saved a profile of the DG benchtest on the previous RAID volume. When I ran the new disk the results very closely parallel the previous profile very closely. Odd thing is that I'm not sure it was a hardware problem (bad disk). Once I introduced the new disk into the mix, I was able to also re-introduce the old suspected bad disk and it worked. Maybe a RAID fluke??? Maybe the disk was intermittently failing causing the RAID set to fall over? Maybe I'm just cursed....
If you're really board you can check out all the associated posts from when this debacle began:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13165864#13165864
Anyhow, thanks for your help!
J.

Similar Messages

RAID Card or Drive Failure ? ?

My Mac Pro with Apple RAID card will not boot to external FW800 or original install DVD if drives 2, 3, 4 are installed at the same time in any of the bays (i.e. gray screen, no apple, nothing).
If I remove or replace any one, or more, or remove all of drives 2, 3, 4 Mac Pro will boot to anything with an OS on it via Opt. key. I'm thinking if any one of drives 2, 3, 4 were bad and drawing too much power the same problem would present when drive 1 (J+ w/ OS) is substituted for any one of 2, 3, 4.
Replaced battery on RAID card no effect on problem. Passed Hardware Diagnostic on original Installer DVD. I'm thinking this has to be a RAID card issue. Do they go bad? Any opinions / suggestions would be greatly appreciated - Thank you,
John
My other related posts that document history of problem:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13165862#13165862
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13165864#13165864

In hindsight... this was posted as part of 10.6.7 release fixes...
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3631

MacPro RAID card - best drives?

Hey, anybody have any experience they'd like to share on a good set of drives to go with the Apple RAID card? I want to get 4 and I'm looking for maximum speed, but I can't break the bank, so no Raptors.
cheers,
-r

Well, save your $$ and just DON'T! get the Apple RAID card, then you could afford some decent drives.
600GB 10K VRs $279 x 2
OWC SSD 100GB x 2
As for what drives, bare in mind -
If you read the Apple Support Mac Pro link to RAID card FAQ:
Question: *Which drives does Apple support for the Mac Pro RAID Card and the Xserve RAID Card?*
Answer: Only Apple SATA drives and Promise 450GB SAS Drive modules sold through the Apple Store are supported for use with the Mac Pro RAID Card (Early 2009) and the Xserve RAID Card (Early 2009). Apple 300GB SAS Drive modules are supported with the Mac Pro RAID Card (Late 2007) and Xserve RAID Card (Early 2007). Drives must be either all Serial ATA (SATA) or all Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drives. SSD drive modules are not recommended for the Apple RAID Card because these drives use their own on-disk cache and cannot take advantage of the protection provided by the battery-backed cache on the RAID card.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1346#faq8
People do try and use retail SATA drives, with mixed results. I have never seen anyone mix SAS and SATA.

MacPro Raid Card single drive size limit

OK this is a follow up to a previous question about the upper size limit of a single HD that the Macpro Raid card can address.
It was pointed out to me that "The Apple RAID card cannot address more than 2.2TB of a drive" by Mr. Grant Bennet-Alder. So I am assuming that a 2TB SAS will work.
I plan to RMA the 4TB drive (that was not recognised), so my question is will this drive work instead?
Seagate Constellation ES 2TB 6GB/S SAS 7200RPM 3.5in (ST2000NM0001) Hard Drive - setup as JBOD.
It's not that I don't believe what Grant has said, it's just that I don't want to RMA this drive as well, using the old wood working philosophy of 'measure twice, cut once.'
And I spent 2 hr looking for this info on Apple's support site without any luck.
SYS INFO
MacPro 5,1
2 X 6 Core 2.93 GHz Xeon
Mac Pro RAID Card
Bay 1: 450GB Seagate Cheetah SAS -JBOD
Bay 2: 450GB Seagate Cheetah SAS - Raid set 1
Bay 3: 450GB Seagate Cheetah SAS - Raid set 1
Bay 4: 2TB Seagate Constellation (potential drive) to be JBOD
Raid set 1: Raid 0 - 900GB
OWC Mercury Accelsior 240GB
ATI Radeon HD 5870
Mac OS X 10.6.8
All software updates current and applied
Thanks
-Robert
Previous thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/21675625#21675625

If a Disk Fails If a RAID set or volume becomes degraded because a disk has failed, you can use RAID Utility to identify the disk that needs to be replaced.
Note: If your RAID setup includes a spare drive, it is automatically incorporated into the RAID set, and the set switches from degraded to good as soon as the recovery process finishes. If there is no spare, the set will remain degraded until you replace the failed drive, and if a second drive fails before you replace the first, you could lose data.
To replace a failed disk:
1 Open RAID Utility, select the RAID set or volume that is displaying a problem status indicator, and look for a drive bay with a red status indicator. The bay numbers in RAID Utility correspond to the numbered drive bays in your Mac Pro or Xserve.
2 Replace the bad drive module.
3 Use the Make Spare command to set up the new drive as a global spare. If no spare was available when the original drive failed, the RAID card uses the new spare immediately to rebuild the affected RAID set and volumes. If a spare was available at the time of the failure, it is already incorporated into the affected RAID set, and the new spare remains available until it is needed.
https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/0/MA318/en_US/RAID_Utility_User_Guide.pdf

Apple Raid Card, multiple drives and volumes

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

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

Apple RAID Card, All Drives RAID?

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

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

XServe Early 2008 (MA882LL/A) + RAID card SAS drive capacity question

I've tried searching the web and support forums, but haven't been able to find a clear answer to the following question:
I have an XServe Early 2008 (MA882LL/A) with the Apple RAID card and three 73GB SAS ADMs. It's been working great for the last two years. I'm about to upgrade it to 10.6 Server, and if possible would like to swap in larger drives at the same time (since it'll be down for an afternoon anyway). However, only 73GB and 300GB SAS ADMs were ever offered for this model, and Apple says that the Promise 450GB ADM is not compatible with it. What I can't determine is whether I can put a larger drive (notably, a Seagate ST32000444SS) into the Apple ADM sled. The RAID controller seems to have no problem with large SATA drives in the SATA sleds, which seems like a good sign, but I'd rather not order $1K worth of new drives and discover in the data center that they don't work.
Does anyone know definitively whether or not larger drives will work in SAS ADMs with this model of XServe? The RAID controller firmware is current (hardware rev 1.0.0, firmware rev M-2.0.3.3), if that makes a difference. I've read all the docs I can fine--I'd be happiest with an "I tried it and it did/didn't work" kind of answer .
Thanks much,
Amanda Walker
Reston, VA

Good morning
I am watching this thread as well. I have two of the same servers (without the RAID card) and have wondered the same thing as I migrate to Snow Leopard and as my data drives continue to fill up. Apple techs and local service techs have not been willing to endorse Amanda's solution for me and have stuck to the Apple Drive Compatibility chart which certifies 73 and 300 GB SAS drives only for this model XServe.
Thanks for any info you might provide.
Greg
PS Amanda, I would be interested in one of your 73GB SAS drives in an ADM as a boot drive should you decide to surplus one or two of your drives.

Mac Pro with Apple Raid Card - 1 drive OSX (JBOD) + 1 drive Vista?

Can anyone walk me through what I'd need to do to set up an early 2008 model Mac Pro with the Apple Raid Card pre-installed and 2 500 gig drives, so that I can have OSX on the first drive and Vista on the second?
I know it defeats the purpose of the raid card, but...
What I've done so far is:
1. Removed drive #2
2. Install and using Raid Utility, add the first drive as a JBOD set/volume
3. After install, shut down the machine
4. Re-add drive #2
5. Restart
6. Use disk utility to add drive #2
I tried to use bootcamp, but it only wants to put windows on the first drive - which won't work because it is RAID.

Run Vista off an ATA interface in the 2nd optical drive. There is an SATA 2 ATA adapter.
I think you can boot Vista off some RAID controllers, check out Highpoint RocketRAIDs. Should be able to configure the RR.
Boot Vista off USB is a stretch.

XServe 2006 RAID Card Issues

Basically, I was gifted (some gift!) a Late 2006 XServe 2.0GHz Dual QX, with 4 GB RAM, and basically was told 'It does not boot. We give up.'
So heres what I have found so far..
It has an Apple Raid Card (don't ask me much more than that, or ill have to tear it apart again). But the 10.4.10 Install disk doesnt show the Raid card or drives (SATA Apple Drive Module 80.0). So is my card toast? Not supported by 10.4? Need a direction to run at because this thing is starting really get under my skin.
If I use a SATA Drive bay via USB (WD 80GB Drive), the disk appears, but the Server won't last long before it Kernel Panics, but it works during Installation Media Verification..
In the meantime, Ill tear apart the server again (Only a few minutes) and get the Raid Card ID.

An easy way to see if it's a raid card is on the part of the RAID/Backplane you can see when you slide the top cover off, if it has 2 chips with silver heatsinks on it's a RAID card if it's 1 chip it's a backplane. The RAID Card also has a small connection for a RAID battery..
as for why it doesn't work.. Have a look at the following
1) Do the drives light up when you start the machine.. You should see a green light (always on) and a blue activity light which should flash.
2) If it doesn't then there is an orange ribbon cable that goes from the RAID/Backplane to the logic board. Make sure this is properly connected and doesn't have any breaks in it.
The RAID card will work in a non raid configuration so you don't need to get rid of it if you don't want to. An easy option to check the server would be to install 10.6 or Lion on a USB stick and start the server up for it by plugging it in and holding down the ALT key when you power on the server. From the system profiler you should be able to see if it recognises the RAID card (Hardware RAID) and also if it passes it's diagnostics test.
There are of course a lot of things that could be wrong with it.. You can remove the RAID/Backplane board and start the server up from USB/Firewire to narrow down your testing.. One thing the 2006/2008 servers are pretty cheap on eBay in working form so you might find it better to get one from there. The 2009's hold their value a lot more as you can still install the current OS on them..
Hope that helps
Beatle

Intel Xserve With Raid card Remote install Question

I am currently trying to remotely install OSX server on an Intel 2008 Xserve with a newly fitted raid card (Apple) I get as far as choosing which HD to install but none of the drives show? (there are all Apple brand 300GB SAS)
Can I only install it locally on the machine if a Raid card/SAS drives are in there??
Thanks

Hi,
I just started to do the same. Did you find a solution?
Thanks,
Hans

MAC PRO (Early 2008) RAID CARD ISSUE - SYSTEM FREEZEHello (hopefully someone can shed some light on my issue) I own as above a MAC PRO (Early 2008) this has a RAID card installed along with two 15k.7 cheetah hdd (320gb) and a spare drive, (which i m

Hello (hopefully someone can shed some light on my issue)
I own as above a MAC PRO (Early 2008) this has a RAID card installed along with two 15k.7 cheetah hdd (320gb) and a spare drive, (which i made a regular drive)
a while ago i had to replace the RAID card battery, so i did this, over a year later the same thing happened again, but as previous just left it and the system seemed fine for ages, until last night i was working in PHOTOSHOP and everything just froze and the screen kind of appeared GREEN, could not do a single thing. So restarted the mac, this time grey screen for ages and a message appeared, (macs version of blue screen) (see attached).
I restarted the machine and this time a flashing question mark folder!
could not do a thing.
so i found my copy of snow leopard and got the computer to run this and at least launch the DISK UTILITY and (Interestingly in the drop down menu RAID UTILITY was also in the menu) but it did not matter which utility i used the (RAID or DISK) neither could see any of drives, just the dvd drive.
so looked around on you tube and various forums and discovered if i take out the RAID CARD and re-plug the main lead from the RAID card back in to the LOGIC BOARD I would be reverting the MAC to a normal regular non-RAID computer.
After performing this HARDWARE task and inserting all three HDD, and running the DISK utility from the drop down menu via the SNOW LEOPARD disc.
(interestingly since the RAID card had been removed the RAID UTILITY from the drop down menu no longer appeared). running disk utility I can now only see the regular (spare) hdd and DVD Drive, but the two RAID HDD , again, still do not show up DISK UTILITY?
O.K. so i could chuck out the RAID card (AND RAID HDD) and just go with a regular set-up, and run a back restore from Time Machine on a NEW hdd purchased.
but what is wrong with the RAID, is the card at fault or are both HDD used for the RAID knackered? can i perform any tests, to see whats what?
thanks for your help in advanced.

hello people, the issue was in fact the GRAPHICS card nothing to do with the HDD or RAID system ( although this did cause issues with the RAID system it basically lost its way) below is my replay to another similar problem some one else had!
working in photoshop and then everything stopped working and the lot froze! only option was to force shutdown (via button).
and try to restart, hoping all was fine, this was not the case :-(
I had the added issue of the RAID card system, that i have, this was confused to say the lease and would not behave or work, causing the start up to hang.
so i thought the HDD must be bust and the root cause. ( but soon learnt it was not the cause )
...bought a new HDD removed the RAID card and replugged the cable from RAID card into LOGIC board, ( making the computer act like any normal non-RAID system). I managed to install the OSX, using the snow leopard disk way. once the mac was running, i started to notice the screen would flicker and started to see 'artefacts'. so i started to reveal my symptoms to the web and forums and soon discovered that my graphics card could be the issue all along?.
(nvidia geforce 8800gt 2x dvi).
I read up on that a fix, could be either A. reply the thermal paste, as the card could be over heating or B. stick the card in the oven trick.
Tried option A. first and nothing still issues, so last night took the plunge carried out option B. and ta da it worked! i even managed to run
from my new HDD my lasted install OS X, absolutely fine. I then thought, maybe i could repair my RAID so replugged all the HARDWARD back in and
carried out a disk repair and disk permissions on drives( took a small amount of time), via the SNOW LEOPARD disc - (Disk utilities) and this worked and now have my system working as it was just over 6 days ago.
what was the cost to get this? bought a new hdd so 40.00gbp and thermal paste and cleaner kit ( your still need to do this ) search video card trick on you tube.
and renew thermal paste, approx 15.00gbp, technically i don't need the new HDD, but it was all part of the trial and error way i went. ( i do have extra storage as a result!)"

MacPro Raid Card w/ SAS Drives is battery required?

We have a MacPro (early 2008) dual 2.8 Quad with Mac Raid Card and 4 300g SAS drives. The battery became an issue early on it was always showing low on start-ups. Now it shows failed. I am now running system with 3 drives striped raid 0. Is the battery required to be replaced? I like this system for the speed it gives us on short HD, using my original media as the back-up. I am a little out of my league with the SAS drives so any opperation tips would be a plus! Thanx in advance....

The RAID card allows for the use of SAS drives or for the use of RAID 5 (which requires checksum calculation on writes and for data re-creation after a failure).
The battery assures that the data will be held in the RAID card's RAM until it can be written to the drives, even if a power failure occurs just after the data are written to the card (but before they are re-written to the drives).
Not using that feature? You don't need the battery.
Not using RAID 5 or SAS drives? You don't need the Apple RAID card. Disk Utility can set up Striped or Mirrored RAID sets.

I replaced the battery on my RAID card, when I booted my mac pro up, I get the folder with the question mark. I used a boot USB drive to boot and when I looked in the RAID utility, my RAID 5 volumes were no longer showing, advise.

I replaced the battery on my RAID card, when I booted my mac pro up, I get the folder with the question mark. I used a boot USB drive to boot and when I looked in the RAID utility, my RAID 5 volumes were no longer showing, advise.
Ernest

Not sure if I'm following you. I have 4 hard drives installed on my Mac Pro. I had a RAID 5 configured and functional for about 5 months. My battery died on the RAID card. I replaced the battery, seated the RAID card back in the slot I removed it from. When I booted to the USB drive to look in the RAID utility, I could see the battery is charged but my volumes are not showing.
The drives don't show in disk Utility. I built the RAID with the RAID Utility and they did show there. I have a early 2008 Mac Pro, Mavricks OS running Mac Server

3rd Party SATA raid cards for internal drives?

All --
Apart from the discussion as to if RAID actually benefits a home desktop system, I am wondering if anyone has the lowdown on using 3rd party SATA raid cards to support the INTERNAL hard drives on the Mac Pro series?
My Mac Pro is still slated to be built at Apple and for now I have the minimum memory and HD spec being requested at Apple, with the plan to upgrade the memory and drives from OWC or another vendor.
I've toyed with the idea of utilizing Disk Utility's software RAID features (e.g. RAID 0 for scratch disks, RAID 1 for boot, RAID 0+1 for all else.) I've also toyed with the notion of searching for a hardware raid solution which would allow me to transfer the internal SATA cable runs from the motherboard to a host adapter card for an internal multi-channel experience (with options to create and break mirrors to external devices for backup purposes.)
So....
Has anyone experience or utilized 3rd party hardware raid controllers which can connect to the internal HD bays? Are there limitations to this (ie, does the boot drive HAVE to reside off the internal motherboard controllers, or can an internal hardware controller successfully boot the system) of which ought be noted?
Finally, in the event that a host adapter card cannot drive the interna bays, can anyone give feedback to hardware SATA cards to power external drive bays with support for Disk Utility (to allow RAID1 pairings of internal drives to external snapshot-backup drives)?
Thanks for your time,
Ian Poulin
Richmond, Va

I am wondering if anyone has the lowdown on using 3rd party SATA raid cards to support the INTERNAL hard drives on the Mac Pro series?
There are many 3rd party controllers that support the internal HDs if an internal iPass connector is used. The problem is that some are bootable but most are not.
The Areca ARC-1680ix-12 and the HighPoint RocketRAID 4320 are bootable. However, the system cannot be installed via the Apple DVD. Instead the user needs to clone a boot drive with the proper drivers to the boot volume on the controller and then boot from the 3rd party controller.
The other issue I found is that these controllers do not support Boot Camp. If Boot Camp is desired, my recommendation would be to leave the internal HDs on the Mac Pro internal bus intact and use the 3rd party controller for external storage. This method provides four internal bays that are bootable, support Boot Camp and can be used for system backups. I use the 3rd party controller for external storage for large RAID sets and hot swapping hard disks.
With the internal bays intact and external hot swap RAID storage available the user can support Boot Camp, multiple system volumes and large external RAID sets. From my experience using a 3rd party controller with the internal HD bays always has some limitations. The user usually does not realize it unit later when Boot Camp does not work or the computer fails on a system upgrade or the controller does not work at all with a new version of Mac OS X.
Staying with the standard internal Mac Pro bay configuration will be the best configuration to avoid compatibility issues with future versions of Mac OS X. It is rumored that the new Snow Leopard may require 64-bit drivers. If that is the case, I would expect most if not all existing 3rd party controller drivers to fail. Some drivers will be upgraded after a few months while others may not. Having the internal Mac Pro SATA controller intact should at least allow the Mac Pro to boot if my guess about compatibility issues is correct.
can anyone give feedback to hardware SATA cards to power external drive bays with support for Disk Utility (to allow RAID1 pairings of internal drives to external snapshot-backup drives)?
There are a large number of external controllers that work with Disk Utility. Here are some of my favorites.
1. FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E and the SeriTek/5PM
http://firmtek.stores.yahoo.net/sata5pm2se2.html
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/firmtek/5pm/
2. Sonnet Tempo E4P
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/sonnet/mac-pro/
3. DAT Optic eSATA_PCIe8
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/datoptic/pcie8/
Have fun!

Has anyone tried 1 terabyte drives with Apple G5 PCI RAID card 1M9699g?

I am planning on setting up RAID 5 on one of my PPC G5 Xservers with an Apple PCI RAID card and 3 Hitachi 1 terabyte HDs. At $180 a drive and a $300 or so for a card this seems like a good setup. Has anyone tried this or have any suggestions.

It worked, for about $860 I now have a 1.8 TB xServer

RAID card or drive?

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