RAID Mirror using partitions

Hi all,
I've got 3 Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB drives in my MacPro. One is dedicated entirely to Time Machine backup. The other two I would like to split into two equal partitions and then setup RAID (mirror) arrays using Disk Utility like this:
RAID 1 = Disk1,Partition1 + Disk2,Parition1
RAID 2 = Disk1,Partiton2 + Disk2,Partition2
The first RAID gets created without a hitch... but then the second RAID fails and won't create/mount.
Is this even possible on OS X 10.5.8? If so... I'd really appreciate any help, as it seems like this SHOULD work, but it just WON'T.
Thanks!
- John

Kappy,
Thanks for the additional info. I've got scads of backup going on... I regularly (like, hourly) use Chronosync to synchronize all of my important files between my Mac Pro and my MacBook Pro so there's one... I also user SuperDuper to maintain bootable backups on separate external drives for both computers... AND I've got two separate external backups of my important client files (backed up into a secure sparse disk image on two different external drives).
So... I came up with the scheme of having the RAID on the boot disk while I was trying to re-allocate some new drives from my MacPro and external drive enclosures. I realized that the original, 320GB drive that came in the MacPro was a dog and was significantly hampering performance (the MacBook Pro is actually faster at performing disk-related tasks!). So... I had a Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB drive that I was planning to put into an OWC FW800/400/USB2.0/eSATA drive enclosure to use as part of my external backup scheme that I thought would serve me better as my boot disk. But, since I've only got about 200GB of the 320GB filled on the current drive, I figured I had a lot of space on the 1TB drive that would go to waste.
Hence... I hatched the "brilliant scheme" of partitioning 2 of the 1TB drives in the MacPro equally and then creating a RAID... figuring that would provide at least some reason for having the overly-large drive for my boot disk. RAID mirroring would give me a level of protection against disk failure and would reduce the "clutter" of having too many drives/partitions showing up on the desktop and in Finder.
But... all of your comments are excellent ones. So, I'm sticking with the interim solution I posted earlier. No RAID on the boot disk partition, but a RAID on the important client files partition to provide drive-failure protection above-and-beyond my existing backup schemes.
Thanks, again, for all of your input.
Regards,
- John

Similar Messages

How so I break a raid mirror yet retain data?

I have 2 500g SATA drives on my Mac Pro3.1. They were set up by a friend as a raid mirror using the disc utility software. My question how can I break the raid "mirror" and use these harddrives as individual harddrives???
Thanks
Rich

From DU's Help:
*To delete a RAID set*:
Back up any important files.
In Disk Utility, select a disk in the set that you want to delete, and click RAID.
Select the RAID set.
If you’re deleting a mirrored RAID set and you see a Convert button, click it to convert the RAID set from version 1.0 to version 2.0.
Deleting a version 2.0 mirrored RAID set leaves a usable copy of the set’s files on each disk. Deleting a version 1.0 set leaves the disks unreadable.
Click Delete.

RAID mirror with software utility caused kernel panic every time

Using disc utility to make a mirror of 2 drives, click create and i get kernel panic and have to power off machine. if i try to start the machine with either of the two disks in it (together or individually) i get same kernel panic and have to power off.
The disks are in an external storage array (sonnet d500). I have a second storage array with raided disks in and i have raided disk inside the mac too. these all work fine..
originally 2 weeks ago i had the 2 disks working in a group of 4 disks set as a mirror of 2 striped disks. One disk in this setup failed and with this config you can never 'recover'or rebuild it - you get a degraded mirror and you can backup the data, but you must completely rebuild the raid again as the mirror of stripes never lets you add a new disk in again.period. not good.
I replaced the failed disk and rebuilt the mirror of stripes. this lasted a day until a second disk failed (all 4 were bought at same time so i was kind of expecting that to happen once one failed).
i replaced the second faulty hdd and thought about my disk usage and decided i would not make another mirror of stripes and i would make 2 mirrors instead for safe-ish storage and then transfer data to a striped raid set for editing from instead of direct from the mirror of stripes volume.
i tried to delete the raid but got a kernel panic
if i started the machine with any of the 4 disks i would get a kernel panic.
i moved the disks one by one into an older G5 running Tiger and managed to erase the raid info on 2 of them. The two new ones had some strange raid info and the Tiger machien thought there was an extra disk in the machine and would not erase or partition or allow me to destroy the raid whatever i tried.
I will be moving these now into an old XP PC to try to erase the boot records etc and erase them to be able to use them again in either mac pro or G5. painful..
so.. i ended up with 2 erased drives and have 2 new drives with dodgy raid info that causes kernel panics on the leopard machine and wont go in the Tiger machine.
The two erased drives are what ive now been trying to use in the mac pro to create a mirror - this now caused kernel panics when creating the mirror to start with and when installed in the machine at all. so i will be erasing them again in the tiger machine soon (its busy erasing with zeros another new disk that i added to the Tiger machine 2 weeks ago which seems to have some fault when raided!!! but thats another story).
so.. is anyone else having problems with creating basic mirror in 10.5.4 or is it just me??
i have a sonnet tempo e4p card with 2 external sata disk enclosures, latest firmware for the e4p card. all other previously existing raid volumes are working fine. i have one set of 2 striped disks, one set of 3 striped disks and one set of 2 stripes which are mirrored - all happy and working fine. but i cant make a new mirror of 2 disks...
I phoned Apple support and they said all raid info was kept on the disk itself and nothing on the actual machine and suggested i take the machine to an apple care centre for some tlc (although its disk i am having a problem with). since all my other disk arrays work fine i don't really want to rebuild the whole machine from scratch if i can avoid it.
Any suggestions of what i can try ??

well it turns out the new disk i bought just werent any good. my g5 powermac raid mirror issue was related to one new disk with lots of bad blocks (speed tools showed that up) so i have learnt my lesson on cheap non raid disks for raid..
am waiting on a couple of new ultrastar enterprise disks to tuen up so i can go back to the macpro and try to add a mirror again.
i am still stuck wih several new disks that i cannot format now in the macpro on leopard or on the g5 powermac with tiger.
ive tried softraid and that cant do it, speedtools pcformat util cant do it, disk utility crashes when i try to eras them and diskutil from termianl starts then doenst get anywhere and my pc sata card doesnt work so my last resort pc option still doesnt help me clear the partition map on these drives - ones that diskutility on leopard made for me - and drives which still cause kernel panics on the macpro if i put them in it..
here is what diskutil says on my g5:
/dev/disk0
#: type name size identifier
0: GUIDpartitionscheme *465.8 GB disk0
1: EFI 200.0 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_RAID 465.4 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot 128.0 MB disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#: type name size identifier
0: Applepartitionscheme *233.8 GB disk1
1: Applepartitionmap 31.5 KB disk1s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 233.6 GB disk1s3
/dev/disk2
#: type name size identifier
0: *465.4 GB disk2
/dev/disk3
#: type name size identifier
0: Applepartitionscheme *931.5 GB disk3
1: Applepartitionmap 31.5 KB disk3s1
2: Apple_HFS backup1T 931.4 GB disk3s3
/dev/disk4
#: type name size identifier
0: Applepartitionscheme *931.5 GB disk4
1: Applepartitionmap 31.5 KB disk4s1
2: Apple_HFS tempi 931.4 GB disk4s3
disk0 is the one with the bad partition info.
it thinks it has a double raid as the console shows on startup:
(both store45 and cache it thinks are on this disk - cache was my old mirror of stripes set on other machine, store45 was new name for my mirror, so seems like it hadnt deleted the original raid partition info before making new info which now kernel panics)
Jul 18 18:48:05 localhost kernel[0]: AppleRAID::degradeSet - starting the set "STORE45" (B9C48619-6B2C-4547-A01E-4864754EA7E2).
Jul 18 18:48:35 localhost kernel[0]: AppleRAID::degradeSet - starting the set "CACHE" (64F914A5-5556-4A44-AEE2-DC437868766B).
Jul 18 18:48:35 localhost kernel[0]: AppleRAID::completeRAIDRequest - error 0xe00002c2 detected for set "STORE45" (C0E139A4-2A6D-49C6-8F77-202AF7F9285D), member 50207BE5-E487-410E-8E8E-C4C4DCD2687B, set byte offset = 999527018496.
Jul 18 18:48:35 localhost kernel[0]: AppleRAID::completeRAIDRequest - error 0xe00002c2 detected for set "CACHE" (64F914A5-5556-4A44-AEE2-DC437868766B), member C0E139A4-2A6D-49C6-8F77-202AF7F9285D, set byte offset = 999527018496.
so currently i have 2 new 500gb disks which cant be partitioned back to anything at all on either machine. looks like i will have to buy a new pc to reformat them..
any suggestions of how to clear the partition map info and get them back to freespace ??

Software RAID setup by partition or by drive?

I've outgrown my ext FW drive that has served me well. May I still use it in a RAID 1 with a partition from a larger drive I am going to get?
I've spent the last few years backing up a TiBook to an ext FW 120GB Maxtor drive, which has worked well. I use SuperDuper to create the bootable backup every week or two and usually keep one or two old versions. It also holds my music and photo libraries, which are multi-GB.
With that said, I now have a MBP w/100GB int HD, so the 20GB partitions will no longer suffice. I've been thinking of getting a Maxtor 600GB RAID 0 as an upgrade. I like the speed but remain concerned about the risk of RAID 0. If SW RAID is by partition, it recently occurred to me that I can RAID 1 mirror the ext FW 120 GB drive and one 120 GB partition of the RAID 0 600GB dirve. Is that possible?
These appear to be the advantages: 1. RAID 1 on the backup, so if either the old drive fails or one of the drive in the RAID fails, the data is still fine. 2. Still get speed on the new RAID 0 ext. drive.
Please advise.
fellow

Hi fellow;
With the experience I have had supporting servers with RAID for IBM, I personally would try to find a different solution. I see too many variables, such as the buses and drives, to make me think it is going to be worth the effort. About the only RAID solution that were worthwhile were those that followed the rules.
Allan

Got new miniMac servers with 2x750GB drives. How to setup and confirm RAID mirror?

Literally just got shiny new miniMac Server with the dual 70GB internakky hard drives/disks with
OS X 10.7.$ LION pre-installed. What a nice machine in a super cool box!
Seemed to bootup and run fine!
Now my issue (there will be more for this MAC newbie):
A. How to setup AND more importantly (item B below) CONFIRM that a RAID MIRROR is working?
Want nothing fancier than 2-nd drive is exact duplicate of 1-st drive at all times.
That is, an 'active and full up-to -the second" backup of the main 1-st drive.
I have done nothing to 1-st drive as it came from APPLE.
When I try to setup RAID set using DISK Utility, I get message about system(1-st drive) can't be used in a RAID or such.
yet I can add 2-nd drive to what I tink is a RAID set and then 'Enable' it.
It seems to add another entry to thr left-side of drves list panel but not sure that 1-st and 2-nd drives are BOTH in the new
"RAID SET' or that the set just consists of the "single" 2-nd disk?
B. I don't think that 1-st drive data is actually being duplicated to 2-nd drive.
For instance, how do I know that it was 'caught up' to match 1-st drive AND then is
staying caught up?
C. A 'RAID UTILITY' Icon brings up a not-available message, but I think that is because I don't
have HARDWARE RAID controller, just software RAID, correct?
D. What is 'Time Machine' and how does it play into this? I do assume that somehow/someway I need to
have off-machine backups also to be truly protected? How would a 2-nd identical miniMAC server be best
deployed to back each other up, in addition to their own internal RAID-ed disks that items above address?
My whole point of buying 2x750GB disks was to have mirror RAID set and
(foolishly) assumed that factory would set it up that way.
Please help me get setup right so when the inevitable crash happens,
I have some chance of recovering from it.
Regards,
Paul T
emai: [email protected]
Apple ID: N3UD
Phone: 610-613-0610

A. What are you adding to the RAID: a partition or a hard drive? You can only add hard drives to a RAID. RAID Utility should confirm that your RAID is working
B. No, I don't think so
C. It's because you haven't got RAID hardware.
D. Time Machine is a backup system in external drives. If you want, you can do backups in a external hard drive.

Advice needed installing XP Pro onto RAID Mirror with XP Home on IDE already

Hi Y'all,
I have the rig described below.
Currently, I'm running Win XP Home SP2 booting on the 80gig IDE drive, with another partition on it holding my files.
I want to clean install XP Professional SP2 (slipstreamed) onto the 120gig SATA Mirror RAID array and use that as the boot drive. This is empty but has been formatted and partitioned so the system recognises it as a drive.
Once that's done I want to wipe off XP Home and use the IDE drive as a pagefile and backup drive.
I had thought of doing it this way:
1. Prepare floppy with SATA RAID drivers v1.0.0.19 (Files: fasttx2k; txtsetup.oem; Fasttx2k.cat; fasttx2k.INF; fasttx2k.sys; README.TXT)
2. Erase all partitions on the RAID mirror but leave both physical drives installed
3. Remove the IDE drive
4. Boot from Win XP Pro SP2 CD ROM and install the SATA drivers at the F6 prompt
5. Continue WinXP install as normal onto the RAID drive
6. Reconnect the IDE drive after OS has installed
7. Select Win XP Pro as the OS to boot
8. After bootup erase Win XP Home partition
9. Partition the RAID drive to have 2 partitions, one (C:) for the OS, the other (D:) for my files
10. Use Files & Settings Transfer Wizard to repopulate the OS with my stuff (previously exported to a safe place).
11. Get on with life...
Can anyone please advise if they forsee any problems doing it this way.
Just to show that I am really confused, advice I've read in the Windows XP Forum says I should break the mirror before doing trying to install any OS to a RAID array and use just one of the physical 120gig SATA drives to install XP Pro onto. Once this has been done I should rebuild the mirror and the drives will automatically become mirrored once the data has been duplicated to the 2nd SATA.
Is this the only way to do this? Is this the best way to do this (does WinXP install badly to a mirror RAID that has already been created)?
Advice I've already read on the forum here has only confused me further because:
a) it assumes a level of knowledge that I don't seem to have
b) it doesn't deal with my exact circumstances.
All help gratefully received.

An update on the situation.....
I am trying to install Win XP Pro SP2 (slipstreamed) onto a RAID Mirror of 2 Hitachi Deskstar SATA drives on my MSI K7N2G-ILSR. This is the exact procedure I've followed:
1. Formatted (both SATA drives) as drive I: using Windows Disk Management tool in WinXP (The mirror is seen by the BIOS & Fastrak BIOS)
2. Started Win XP Pro install via CD in d:\
3. Pressed F6 when requested
4. Windows Setup loads normally
5. Options to install 3rd party drivers for mass storage devices & other things appear
6. Press S to start installing RAID drivers
7. Insert floppy into A:\ & press Enter
8. Select Promise Fastrak 376 Win XP driver
9. Get following error message:
File \WINXP\fasttx2k.sys caused an unexpected error (18) at line 2113 in d:\xpsprtm\base\boot\oemdisk.c.
10. Press Enter to continue
11. Setup doesn't recognise the SATA drive I: so it doesn't appear in the list of partitions on which to install XP Pro
I've tried it every which way.
The following with IDE1 HDD disconnected, i.e. no operating system installed:
1 SATA drive only (mirror broken)
1 SATA drive striped array
Both SATA drives (mirror functional)
The same with IDE1 HDD connected and starting Windows Setup from within XP Home...
The only difference is if I use the original Win XP Pro disc (without SP2 slipstreamed) when the error message changes to:
File \WINXP\fasttx2k.sys caused an unexpected error (18) at line 2108 in d:\xpsp1\base\boot\oemdisk.c.
In a thread here there is mention of an error in a file but it isn't directly related to my mobo, so I am reluctant to fiddle with the file unless someone can explain clearly what needs changing. I'm just trying to find the thread at the moment.....
This is the text contained within txtsetup.oem:
[Disks]
d1 = "Promise FastTrak 376 Driver Diskette", \fasttx2k, \
d2 = "Promise FastTrak 376 Driver Diskette", \fasttx2k, \nt4
d3 = "Promise FastTrak 376 Driver Diskette", \fasttx2k, \Win2000
d4 = "Promise FastTrak 376 Driver Diskette", \fasttx2k, \WinXP
[Defaults]
scsi = FastTrak_TX2K_xp
[scsi]
FastTrak_TX2K_xp = "WinXP Promise FastTrak 376 (tm) Controller", fasttx2k
FastTrak_TX2K_nt5 = "Win2000 Promise FastTrak 376 (tm) Controller", fasttx2k
FastTrak_TX2K_nt4 = "WinNT Promise FastTrak 376 (tm) Controller", fasttx2k
[Files.scsi.FastTrak_TX2K_xp]
driver = d4, fasttx2k.sys, fasttx2k
inf = d4, fasttx2k.inf
catalog= d4, fasttx2k.cat
[HardwareIds.scsi.FastTrak_TX2K_xp]
id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_3376", "fasttx2k"
[Files.scsi.FastTrak_TX2K_nt5]
driver = d3, fasttx2k.sys, fasttx2k
inf = d3, fasttx2k.inf
catalog= d3, fasttx2k.cat
[HardwareIds.scsi.FastTrak_TX2K_nt5]
id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_3376", "fasttx2k"
[Files.scsi.FastTrak_TX2K_nt4]
driver = d2, fasttx2k.sys, fasttx2k
inf = d2, fasttx2k.inf
[Config.fasttx2k]
value = "", Tag, REG_DWORD, 1
I've also tried the following:
Change Boot sequence to CD-ROM> SCSI> HDD-0
Delete txtsetup.oem from floppy - Setup then says it's missing
Copied original drivers from nVidia driver & utility disk
None of these things has made the slightest difference
Need further help please!

How to restore a software raid mirror after a drive failure

i set up a software raid mirror with two hard drives in a mac pro. then one failed as reported by disk utility. i replaced the drive. it does not seem possible to restore this raid short of copying the files to a third location and then erasing and establishing a new raid. is there a way to simply "restore"?

Question: Do I need special software to administer the Mac Pro RAID Card or the Xserve RAID Card?
Answer: Normal administration can be carried out using the RAID Utility (found in /Application/Utilities) or by using the raidutil command. For more information refer to the User’s Guide or man raidutil.
The command-line utility should be available in Single-User mode.
To run RAID Utility, you may need to boot to an alternate source of Mac OS to be able to manipulate the Boot drive.
This article suggests using the Make Spare command:
RAID Utility 1.0 Help > If a Disk Fails
Message was edited by: Grant Bennet-Alder

Internal SATA RAID Mirror or Simple Back-Up Util

I have two 500gb SATA drives. One has the system, applications and data on it. The second drive is a new install and clean.
What would be the best strategy for back-up of entire drive? Use Back-up .Mac application to copy to the second drive or use a Raid Mirror on the seond drive?

Hi Jazzman,
Keep in mind that RAID level 1 is not a backup at all, its only for protecting the integrity of your data. In the case were you will delete a file or overwrite one, only a true backup will help.
RAID will only recover when the other disk will fail.
Ziv

RAID 5 re-partition

I'm running OSX 10.5.8 Server on a MacPro with RAID 5 running across 3 x 300 GB drives. The RAID was originally partitioned into 2 equal volumes; I now want to re-partition those volumes dynamically. Can anyone give me advice on how to do this?
Thanks!

You may not need commercial apps - Disk Utility can dynamically repartition drives, but there are some caveats.
The biggest question is how you created the partitions.
Did you create them at the hardware level (using raidutil)? or did you create one RAID 5 volume at the hardware level and use DiskUtil to partition it in two?
If the former then I think you're out of luck - raidutil can expand a volume, but not shrink it, so your only option is to delete one of the volumes, expand the other one, then create a new volume in the remaining space.
If you just created a single volume that you then soft-partitioned via Disk Utility, then you can resize the partitions if you used GUID as the partition format. The older APT can't be resized - at least that's what I recall... 10.5.8 is a little fuzzy now). If the disk is using GUID (and selecting it in Disk Utility will tell you) then you should be able to resize the partitions in the Partitions tab, otherwise it's a reformat and re-create job.

External HDD mirroring using USB Interface

Has anyone out there explored the possibility of mirroring two external HDDs (identical ones) through the USB interface ? If so, I would like to know how it can be achieved.
When I say mirroring, I mean that a single write operation actually duplicates the information on two separate external disks simultaneously. Much like the professional RAID mirroring on more expensive solutions. I am looking at a very inexpensive way of having redundancy built in for safeguarding my data. Perhaps some app out there can do this for me ? Or perhaps this may be a good idea for a brand new App ? Compromise on speed may be an issue, but it would be great value for money.

That is actually a classic backup solution using time machine, where both boot drive as well as EHD is being backed up incrementally in a format which is native to OS Mavericks. Such a backup can only be used to "Restore" the files back onto the source machine. Excellent for normal backup operations.
However, what I have in mind is two sets of EHDs (external HDD) formatted to FAT or maybe the NTFS, where the files are kept in a standard format and can be read on ANY machine whether OS X or Windows.
On a proper mirrored system, both HDDs appear to be one only, and the filesystem also appear to be one. So when we handle a file from the mirrored system, the cloning on the two HDD is done transparently without the user getting to know of it. Failure of one HDD will not result in loss of data since that would be available on the other HDD, and when the faulty HDD is replaced, the data gets replicated again from the good HDD. Such a mirrored system is very expensive and not affordable by ordinary mortals like most of us.
So, to get around the expense part of the whole thing, now that we have fast USB3 interfaces, we can possible use 2 x cheap EHDs hooked onto two separate USB 3 ports, and use them as a mirrored set. It is understandable that since the computer cannot access two USB ports simultaneously, there will be some trade-off to the speed of handling the two EHDs, but, that is acceptable. At least we have two identical sets of data available, which can be used in an emergency on any other system. Should one EHD crash, we can always extract all data from the second one.
I am not sure if such an arrangement is possible using the existing functionality of the OS X, and so someone may need to whip up an app or a script for doing this. Alternately, some really clever geek could come up with some remarkable solution/work-around. Looking forward for some bright spark from somewhere.

PATA Raid Question using Nvidia Raid

Hi!,
I have 2 Seagate 120 gig ATA drives (not SATA) I have installed on my PC. One is set to master, the other is set as slave. I decided to raid them (mirroring) using NRAID. Here is my question. It seems everything is working fine and the raid is healthy but 1 thing concerns me...........The drives are not exactly the same size. 1 shows up as 111.79 GB the other shows up as 111.76 GB. I know its not a huge difference, Should I be concerned?

Strange, what does the RAID BIOS say?
Maybe it's just a bug somewhere in the utility?

Raid 0 disk partitioning

Anyone know how to create a new partiition once up and running. 2 sata 80 gig maxtor's running in raid 0. Partition magic 8 doesn't work and windows won't do it.
any suggestions?

Do you really need to partition a RAID 0 array?
I'm asking because I found it just complicated things un-necessarily when I tried it with x2 160G Samsung SATA drives.
Firstly,a Raid 0 array offers no protection anyway so a Partition isn't going to make any difference to disk failure or data loss.
Also,the real benefit from Raid 0 is speed,not security,hence the trade off with Raid 1 Mirroring.
Last,Windows does allow you to change disk status through Disk Management .
Try it anyway and let me know how you get on.

Questions about repairing a RAID mirror

Hi,
I am running an Xserve G5 with two drives set in a RAID mirroring mode. I received an alert that the RAID has been degraded and when I check 'diskutil checkRAID', I see that one of the drives is listed as 'failed'. The S.M.A.R.T. status on both drives is Verified.
Does the RAID being degraded just mean that the mirror slice has gotten out of sync or is there likely deeper hardware problem?
Since the drive in the machine appears to still be ok can I rebuild the RAID with this same drive? And finally, when rebuilding the RAID does this take the server down while the RAID is being rebuilt, or can it still function with the good slice while the rebuild is processing?
I am trying to find out more before I attempt to fix this.
Thanks for your help,
Mike

Is there anyway to repair that drive and
rebuild the mirror using it?
Assuming the drive has not physically failed you can try to repair the mirror with the 'diskutil repairmirror' command. Check the man page for the exact syntax as it is not obvious. I have seen a number of cases where a mirror becomes degraded for whatever reason and a repair will allow it to go on functioning perfectly well.
If the disk has failed completely the OS will not see it and you will be unable to repair. A swap with a new unit is your only choice at that point.

Automatically Rebuild RAID mirror set

In disc utility intalled a raid mirror set of two external drives. Later, after using the combined drive, I opened disc utility again and selected 'Automatically Rebuild RAID mirror set'. I didn't select that while installing the raid set, but did that afterwards. Later discovered that when reconecting a drive this would automatically update the drive again.
This option 'Automatically rebuild raid mirrir set' stays selected while in disc utility. However, when I close and later open disc utility again this option is deselected again. Is this normal? Or does this option remain active when selected and closing disc utility and is it just that disc utility assumes that I've removed/connected one or more drives in the mean time when starting disc utility again? Giving me the option to select it again manually in order to rebuild the raid mirror?

I believe you must enable that option when you create the RAID. The option does not remain enabled if you check it after the fact, at least it doesn't on my system either.
According to the DU Help:
If you are creating a mirrored RAID set, choose whether to rebuild disks automatically with the RAID Mirror AutoRebuild checkbox.
Message was edited by: Kappy

Server won't boot from RAID mirrored pair

Some months ago we updated an OS X 10.4.7 server with a software raid pair of disks to 10.4.8 and were rewarded with a machine that sticks at the black-on-grey Apple logo with no cog wheel displayed. At that time I just bought a couple of new and larger disks, reinstalled OS X Server, updated with combo updates rebooted a couple of times to be sure and all has been well until tonight when our system manager tried to install Retrospect which required a reboot and, suddenly it's hanging at the Apple Logo again. Such cruel irony...
Booting from the install CD I can mount the raid, and apart from a handful of permissions needing fixing, Disk Utility says the pair is fine. Although Startup Disk lets it be selected as the startup volume, the problem persists and still won't boot.
Does anybody have any thoughts as to how to cure this problem reasonably quicky in way that preserves as much as possible of the existing installation. My only idea is to try bless(8) to fix the boot behaviour of the volume. However, its man page doesn't discuss blessing raid mirrors. Is there anything special required?
I'd also like to know what caused the problem in the first place, and how to prevent it in future.
Thanks
Charles

You say it has been working so I can't really tell you why it acts up now.
But the raid was setup using 10.4 Disk Util (RAID ver. 2 sw.)?
Tried diskutil checkraid disk3 in Terminal (from DVD)?
Tried running DiskWarrior?
A customer who bought a pair of new larger third party drives for his Xserve G5 and put them in his old 250GB drive bay carrriers couldn't get it working with sw RAID (I didn't look at it myself).

RAID Mirror using partitions

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