Software RAID as startup volume

I want to get 4 velociraptor hard drives for my mac pro. If I create a software RAID 0 in Disk Utility, and reinstall Leopard on that volume, can I use it as a startup volume? If you can, does it take longer for the computer to startup?
Thanks

Firstly, I'm assuming that you have an extra external disk for time machine. So in order to restore to the raid, maybe instead of using time machine clone it using superduper. Just to maybe make things easier. Clone the your boot volume to the external, create the raid of all 4 hds in disk utility, then once it's made clone back the boot volume from the external to your raid.
For superduper:
www.shirtpocket.com
But just to reiterate, (and adding to what hatter mentioned) maybe a couple larger 640 or 1 TB Western Digital Blacks might be better, instead of all VRs. You could maybe use 1 VR for your boot drive, and like 2 or 3 WD blacks(if that's what you want to do). 3 x 1TB Blacks might serve you better as you are using video apps.
Or if speed is your main concern, maybe an external enclosure might be a better fit. Sonnet, Firmtek, etc. Raid the drives on the external (using hardware or software raid) and use the internal slots for backup. Of course this will cost more, however it would probably be better for you down the road, especially since you are working with video.
http://www.amug.org/
They have some good reviews for external enclosures.

Similar Messages

Moving Thunderbold DAS with software RAID 1 to different Mac

Background: I am preparing to wipe my iMac (currently Mavericks) to then do a clean install of Yosemite. Attached to my iMac is a "WD MyBook Thunderbolt Duo". This external "DAS" drive model is a single enclosure that contains two, 2TB physical drives, and attaches to the iMac with a single Thunderbolt cable. I am not using any WesternDigital software on my iMac! Instead, I have used Disk Utility to manage the drive and have created a single 2TB software RAID 1 array (HFS+Journaled) incorporating both of the 2 physical drives as slices. The RAID 1 volume mounts as "DAS" on my Desktop and currently contains the majority of my media files.
Before beginning the repartitioning, formatting, and doing a clean install of Yosemite on the iMac's internal HDD, I plan on disconnecting the DAS's thunderbolt cable so it's safe from the install process.
Question: What I need to know is what to expect when I eventually reconnect the DAS to the new Yosemite installation. Will my RAID 1 volume "DAS" simply mount on the desktop as expected?
What I don't understand is where software RAID slice and volume configurations are stored. Is the software RAID 1 configuration stored as part of the partition table on the drives themselves or is it stored on the Mac? I am hoping to hear that the software RAID configuration is all on the drives themselves and therefore the drive can be reattached to a new Mac and it will just recognize the configuration and mount the volume normally with no additional effort. Can someone please confirm this to ease my mind (or save me before I go ahead with this).
Sorry to put this in the OS X Server forum but I thought that a software RAID question using Disk Utility would be best answered from the expertise here.
I appreciate any info you can provide.

Yes the software RAID configuration is stored on the drives themselves so it will be safe to disconnect from one Mac and reconnect to a second Mac.
Note to others. Any Mac that supports Thunderbolt is going to be running a new enough version of OS X so as to not cause a problem.

Change all the SoftWare RAID partitions to the VLM (physical volume)

My PC has a RHEL5.0 system and other 4 partitions(Software RAID type). Now I want to change all the SoftWare RAID partitions to the VLM (physical volume) partition and I do not want to reinstall the RHEL5.0 system.
How to do it?
Can fdisk tool work? Which tool is easy?

Hans,
I am using ASMLib and no raw partitions. All the
partions must be separated partitions without being
mounted by any system.For the partitions to be used by ASMLib the partition must still be known to the machine.
From the ASMLib pages:
"Every disk that ASMLib is going to be accessing needs to be made available. This is accomplished by creating an ASM disk. The /etc/init.d/oracleasm script is again used for this task: "

I have some questions regarding setting up a software RAID 0 on a Mac Pro

I have some questions regarding setting up a software RAID 0 on a Mac pro (early 2009).
These questions might seem stupid to many of you, but, as my last, in fact my one and only, computer before the Mac Pro was a IICX/4/80 running System 7.5, I am a complete novice regarding this particular matter.
A few days ago I installed a WD3000HLFS VelociRaptor 300GB in bay 1, and moved the original 640GB HD to bay 2. I now have 2 bootable internal drives, and currently I am using the VR300 as my startup disk. Instead of cloning from the original drive, I have reinstalled the Mac OS, and all my applications & software onto the VR300. Everything is backed up onto a WD SE II 2TB external drive, using Time Machine. The original 640GB has an eDrive partition, which was created some time ago using TechTool Pro 5.
The system will be used primarily for photo editing, digital imaging, and to produce colour prints up to A2 size. Some of the image files, from scanned imports of film negatives & transparencies, will be 40MB or larger. Next year I hope to buy a high resolution full frame digital SLR, which will also generate large files.
Currently I am using Apple's bundled iPhoto, Aperture 2, Photoshop Elements 8, Silverfast Ai, ColorMunki Photo, EZcolor and other applications/software. I will also be using Photoshop CS5, when it becomes available, and I will probably change over to Lightroom 3, which is currently in Beta, because I have had problems with Aperture, which, until recent upgrades (HD, RAM & graphics card) to my system, would not even load images for print. All I had was a blank preview page, and a constant, frozen "loading" message - the symbol underneath remained static, instead of revolving!
It is now possible to print images from within Aperture 2, but I am not happy with the colour fidelity, whereas it is possible to produce excellent, natural colour prints using its "minnow" sibling, iPhoto!
My intention is to buy another 3 VR300s to form a 4 drive Raid 0 array for optimum performance, and to store the original 640GB drive as an emergency bootable back-up. I would have ordered the additional VR300s already, but for the fact that there appears to have been a run on them, and currently they are out of stock at all, but the more expensive, UK resellers.
I should be most grateful to receive advice regarding the following questions:
QUESTION 1:
I have had a look at the RAID setting up facility in Disk Utility and it states: "To create a RAID set, drag disks or partitions into the list below".
If I install another 3 VR300s, can I drag all 4 of them into the "list below" box, without any risk of losing everything I have already installed on the existing VR300?
Or would I have to reinstall the OS, applications and software again?
I mention this, because one of the applications, Personal accountz, has a label on its CD wallet stating that the Licence Key can only be used once, and I have already used it when I installed it on the existing VR300.
QUESTION 2:
I understand that the failure of just one drive will result in all the data in a Raid 0 array being lost.
Does this mean that I would not be able to boot up from the 4 drive array in that scenario?
Even so, it would be worth the risk to gain the optimum performance provide by Raid 0 over the other RAID setup options, and, in addition to the SE II, I will probably back up all my image files onto a portable drive as an additional precaution.
QUESTION 3:
Is it possible to create an eDrive partition, using TechTool Pro 5, on the VR300 in bay !?
Or would this not be of any use anyway, in the event of a single drive failure?
QUESTION 4:
Would there be a significant increase in performance using a 4 x VR300 drive RAID 0 array, compared to only 2 or 3 drives?
QUESTION 5:
If I used a 3 x VR300 RAID 0 array, and installed either a cloned VR300 or the original 640GB HD in bay 4, and I left the Startup Disk in System Preferences unlocked, would the system boot up automatically from the 4th. drive in the event of a single drive failure in the 3 drive RAID 0 array which had been selected for startup?
Apologies if these seem stupid questions, but I am trying to determine the best option without foregoing optimum performance.

Well said.
Steps to set up RAID
Setting up a RAID array in Mac OS X is part of the installation process. This procedure assumes that you have already installed Mac OS 10.1 and the hard drive subsystem (two hard drives and a PCI controller card, for example) that RAID will be implemented on. Follow these steps:
1. Open Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities).
2. When the disks appear in the pane on the left, select the disks you wish to be in the array and drag them to the disk panel.
3. Choose Stripe or Mirror from the RAID Scheme pop-up menu.
4. Name the RAID set.
5. Choose a volume format. The size of the array will be automatically determined based on what you selected.
6. Click Create.
Recovering from a hard drive failure on a mirrored array
1. Open Disk Utility in (/Applications/Utilities).
2. Click the RAID tab. If an issue has occurred, a dialog box will appear that describes it.
3. If an issue with the disk is indicated, click Rebuild.
4. If Rebuild does not work, shut down the computer and replace the damaged hard disk.
5. Repeat steps 1 and 2.
6. Drag the icon of the new disk on top of that of the removed disk.
7. Click Rebuild.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2559
Drive A + B = VOLUME ONE
Drive C + D = VOLUME TWO
What you put on those volumes is of course up to you and easy to do.
A system really only needs to be backed up "as needed" like before you add or update or install anything.
/Users can be backed up hourly, daily, weekly schedule
Media files as needed.
Things that hurt performance:
Page outs
Spotlight - disable this for boot drive and 'scratch'
SCRATCH: Temporary space; erased between projects and steps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StandardRAIDlevels
(normally I'd link to Wikipedia but I can't load right now)
Disk drives are the slowest component, so tackling that has always made sense. Easy way to make a difference. More RAM only if it will be of value and used. Same with more/faster processors, or graphic card.
To help understand and configure your 2009 Nehalem Mac Pro:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/04/266ghz-8-core-mac-pro-review.ars/1
http://macperformanceguide.com/
http://www.macgurus.com/guides/storageaccelguide.php
http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/harddrives/index.html
http://macperformanceguide.com/OptimizingPhotoshop-Configuration.html
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404440.html

Striped software raid managed or referenced library

I am setting up a striped software RAID using a couple of internal drives on my MacPro in hopes of getting a little more speed out of Aperture 3. My question is should I keep a managed library on the RAID or should I keep a referenced library on the main startup drive and store masters on the striped RAID. Which would be faster? I am still using Aperture 2 right now and waiting to get an answer before I upgrade to 3. I plan to backup whatever is on the RAID to a Drobo.
Thanks of the help ya"ll

I would use referenced Even if you were putting both on the RAID. 2 drives Striped is not going to be a big benefit.
You will get more of a benefit putting your library on a separate drive than your raw masters and here's why. Raw files fall well into the category of Large block read speed that most current drives handle just fine, once it's read its in RAM so I usually don't recommend putting the RAWs on a striped raid of just 2 drives.
The real storage bottleneck is when the library is trying to write all of its filesystem previews and database changes to the drive concurrently as its trying to read raw masters at the same time.
If you understand Hard drive tech, you will know that For one volume to handle Small block random access read/writes and large block sustained reads at the same time is a recipe for a slowdown...
I'd put the Library on a dedicated SSD and your raws on your bigger internal drives.
Or... Just try putting the library on one drive and relocating the masters to another drive and see if you notice a difference first. I sure did!

Software RAID is not GUID but APM?

hi, all,
as far as I understand, SL needs the startup disk to be in GUID partition scheme. We have a new XServe with 2 disks (1TB each) and I would like to use a (software) RAID. My problem: I cannot find a way to format it in GUID, whatever I try, disk utility returns Apple_HFS as partition scheme.
Can anyone clarify if this is ok?
Thanks,
Michael

Create one or more ("more" can get tricky and cause DU to balk) partitions on the bare drives. Only then do you get the "options" button where you can select GUID, APM, or NFS etc.
I have carved 2 - 1TB drives into 5 partitions each and then mirrored identical sections into RAID slices. The resulting volumes show as "Apple Mirrored RAID v 2" and HFS plus. Disk Utility did not like me doing it and I am still uncertain as to how reliable it will be.
For easier going, you only have two choices. A hardware RAID card or SoftRAID. Next time I will use SoftRAID rather than Apple's DU. Just follow their procedure to create a bootable disk incase of emergency.
Or just mirror 2 identical drives with only one partition on them. Then Apple's DU will work just fine.

Can I move MobileSync to a hard disk other than startup volume?

I have been told many times by others 'in the know' that you have to keep certain files on the start-up volume. However, I have 2 internal HDs on my iMac, and the SSD (start up volume) is quite small - only 250GB. The other drive is 1 TB and I have about 15 TB of externals available via Lightning connection. The problem is that the internal SSD is continually filling up, and since I have several mobile devices I am synching with iTunes, they are gobbling up tons of disk space on the startup volume. Is it possible to move MOBILE SYNC to a different drive? There is nothing in 'preferences' for mobile sync that can specify the volume where these files should be stored. They are taking up almost 85GB of disk space. My temptation right now is to clone the 1TB internal over to an external drive, then clone the SSD internal over to the 1TB internal, and make that 1TB internal drive the new startup volume, but it would require reformatting and reinstalling operating system software, since there isn't any on that drive.
I am sort of 'stuck' because when I setup a replacement iPhone on Monday from a backup of the previous phone (that had a defective antenna), about 100 recordings in the RECORDER APP were not restored to the new iPhone, and I need to dig through some iPhone backups to try to find one that might have them on it. I hate to lose some of those very valuable recordings from a one-week intensive graduate seminar. Any suggestions for pruning the startup volume?
Disk Inventory X is showing only 7.2GB of open space and 225.8GB full on the SSD startup volume. Here are the big space 'hogs:'
Users - 168.5 GB (library 151.3GB; movies 15GB, which is odd, since all of the movies are stored externally.) In 'application support, MobileSync is taking up 82.5GB and Mail is taking up 47.9GB. (some of this mail goes way back, and needs to be archived, but I am not sure if that possibility exists in current OS)
Applications - 16.5 GB
Library - 11.5GB
iMac - intel (3 yrs old)
OSX 10.9.5
iPadAir
'the new iPad'
iPhone 5S
various other mac devices...

Well iTunes itself takes up virtually no space. I believe what you are suggesting is a move of your music files. Now these files can be moved to another drive and iTunes will act just like normal. The catch is that your music files pretty much have to be in one place. If you already have all your music stored in the My Music/iTunes/iTunes Music folder than you should be good. If you do not its a little trickier. In your preferences menu of iTunes under the advanced tab there are the options to "Keep iTunes music folder organized" and to "Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library". You will want both of these checked. Then under the advanced tab (The one not in the preferences menu) There is an option to consolidate library. This will copy all the music in your library not in the iTunes folder to the iTunes folder. Thus you will want to delete duplicated when the process is over. (If your drive is too slim on space for this opperation... then I don't know what to tell you.) With all your music in the iTunes folder just drag and drop said folder onto the new drive. Then under the advanced tab in preferences the first option is to change the location of your iTunes music library. Simply change it to where you have stored your library on the new drive and you will be set to go.

Software RAID Failure - my experience and solution

I just wanted to share this information with the iCloud community.
I searched a bit and did not find much information that was useful with regard to my software RAID issue.
I have 27 inch Mid 2011 iMac with SSD and Hard drive which has been great.
I added an external hard drive (I think if I mention any brand name the moderator will delete this post) which includes an nice aluminum case with two 3 TB hard drives within it, and it has a big blue light on the front and is connected via Thunderbolt. This unit is about 2 years old and I have it configured in a 3 TB mirrored RAID (RAID 1) via a software RAID configured via Mac OS Disk Utility.
I had at one point a minor glitch which was fixed using another piece of software (again if I mention a brand the moderator will delete this post) which is like a 'Harddrive Fighter' or similar type name LOL.   So otherwise that RAID has served me well as a site for my Time Machine back up and Aperture Vault, etc. (I created a 1.5 TB Sparse bundle for Time Machine so that the backup would not use the entire 3 TBs)
I recently purchased a second aluminum block of drives, and set that up as a 4 TB RAID 1.
Each of the two RAIDs are set with the option of “Automatically rebuild RAID mirror sets” checked.
I put only about 400 gb on the new RAID to let it sit for a ‘burning in period.’
A few days ago the monitoring software from the vendor who sells the aluminum block of drives told me I had a problem. One of the drives had “Failed.”   The monitoring software strangely enough does not distinguish the drives so you can figure out which pair had the issue, so I assumed it was the New 8 TB model. Long story short, it was the older 6 TB model, but that does not matter for this discussion.
I contacted the vender and this is part of their response.
“This is an indication that the Disk Utility application in Mac had a momentary problem communicating with the drive mechanism. As a result, it marked that drive as "failed" in the header information. Unfortunately, once this designation is applied to a drive by the OS, the Disk Utility will thereafter refuse to attempt any further operations with that disk until the incorrect "failed" marker is manually cleared off the drive.”
That did not sound very good to me…..back up killed by a SOFTWARE GLITCH?
“The solution is to remove the corrupted volume header, and allow the generation of a new one….This command will need to be done for each disk in the array… (using Terminal)…
diskutil zerodisk (identifier)
…3. After everything is finished, you should be able to exit Terminal, and go back into the Disk Utility Application to re-configure the RAID array on the device.”
Furthermore they said.
“If the Disk Utility has placed a flag into the RAID array header (which exists on both drives) then performing this procedure on a single drive will not correct anything.”
And…
“When a drive actually does fail, it typically stops appearing in the Disk Utility application altogether. In that circumstance, it will never be marked "failed" by the Disk Utility, so the header erase operation is not needed.”
This all sounded like a bad idea to me. And what does the Vendors RAID monitor software say then? “Disk Really Really FAILED, check for a fire.”
As I tried to figure out which drive was actually the bad RAID pair I stumbled on a solution.
First I noted that the OS Disk Utility did NOT show a fault in the RAID. It listed both RAIDS as “Online.’ Thus no rebuilding was needed and it did not begin the rebuild process.
The Vendors disk monitor software saw some fault, but Mac was still able to read and write to the RAID, both disks in the mirror. I wrote a folder to the RAID and with various rebooting steps I pulled the “Bad” drive and looked at the “Good” Drive….the folder was there…I put the Bad drive back in and pulled the Good Drive and the folder was there on the “bad” drive. So it wrote to both drives. AND THE VENDORS MONITORING SOFTWARE SHOWED THE PREVIOUSLY LABELED ‘BAD’ DRIVE AS ‘GOOD’ AND THE MISSING DRIVE SLOT AS ‘BAD’.
My stumbled FIX.   I moved a bunch of files off the failed RAID to the new RAID but before I moved the sparse bundle, a folder of 500 gigs movies and some other really big folders the DISK UTILITY WINDOW (which I still had open) now showed that the RAID had a Defect and began rebuilding the mirror set itself, out of the blue!   I don't know why this happened. But moving about 1/2 of the data off of it perhaps did something? Any Ideas?
This process took a few hours as best I can tell (let it run overnight) and the next day the RAID was fine and the Vendors RAID monitor did not show a fault any longer.
So, the Vendors RAID monitoring software reporting a “FAILED” drive without any specific error codes to look up. Perhaps they could have more info for the user on the specific fault? The support line of the the Vendor said with certainty “the Volume Header is corrupted” and THE ONLY FIX is to completely ZERO THE DRIVE! This was not necessary as it turns out.
And the stick in the eye to me…..
“I've also sometimes seen the drives get marked as "failed" by the disk utility due to a shaky connection. In some cases, swapping the ends of the Thunderbolt cable will help with this. Something to try, perhaps, if your problems come back. “
Ya Right…..
Mike

Follow up.
After going through the Zeroing process and rebuilding the RAID set three times, with various configurations, LaCie finally agreed to repair the unit under warrantee.
I tried swapping the power supplies and thunderbolt wires, tried taking the drive out of series with the newer big brother of it. And it still failed after a few days.
I just wanted to share more of what I learned with regard to rebuilding the RAID sets via the Terminal. The commands can be typed partially and a help paragraph will come up to give VERY cryptic descriptions of the proper use of the commands.
First Under terminal you can used the command "diskutil appleRAID list" to list those drives which are in the RAID. This gives you the ID number for each physical drive. For example:
AppleRAID sets (1 found)
===============================================================================
Name:                 LaCie RAID 3TB
Unique ID:            84A93ADF-A7CA-4E5A-B8AE-8B4A8A6960CA
Type:                 Mirror
Status:               Online
Size:                 3.0 TB (3000248991744 Bytes)
Rebuild:              manual
Device Node:          disk4
# DevNode   UUID                                  Status     Size
0 disk3s2   D53F6A81-89F1-4FB3-86A9-8808006683C2 Online     3000248991744
- disk2s2   E58CA8F5-1D2C-423A-B4BE-FBAA80F85879 Spare      3000248991744
===============================================================================
In my situation with the failed RAID, I had an extra disk in this with the status of Missing/Failed.
The command is "diskutil appleRAID remove" and the cryptic help paragraph says:
Usage: diskutil appleRAID remove MemberDeviceName|MemberUUID
        RAIDSetVolumePath|RAIDSetDeviceName|RAIDSetUUID
MemberDeviceName|MemberUUID is the number listed in the "diskutil appleRAID List" command, and
RAIDSetVolumePath|RAIDSetDeviceName|RAIDSetUUID is the Device Node for the RAID which here is /dev/disk4.
I used this command to remove the third entry (missing/failed), I did not copy the terminal window text on that one, so I cannot show the list of three disks.
I could not get to remove the disk2s2 disk listed as SPARE, as it gave an error message:
Michaels-iMac:~ mike_aronis$ diskutil appleraid remove E58CA8F5-1D2C-423A-B4BE-FBAA80F85879 /dev/disk4
Started RAID operation on disk4 LaCie RAID 3TB
Removing disk from RAID
Changing the disk type
Can't resize the file system on the disk "disk2s2"
Error: -69827: The partition cannot be resized
But I was able to remove it using the graphical interface Disk Utility program using the delete key.
I then rebuilt the RAID set by dragging the second drive back into the RAID set.
I could not get the command: "diskutil appleRAID update AutoRebuild 1 /dev/disk4" to work, because even though it was trying to execute it HUNG. I put the two drives into my newer LaCie 2big as my attempt at further trouble shooting the RAID (this was not suggested by LaCie tech), rebuild the RAID and now I am going to leave it setup that way for a few days before I ship it back to just see if the old drives work fine in the new RAID box (thus proving the RAID box is the problem). I tried the AutoRebuild 1 command just now and it gave an error.
Michaels-iMac:~ mike_aronis$ diskutil appleraid update autorebuild 1 /dev/disk4
Error updating RAID: Couldn't modify RAID (-69848)
Michaels-iMac:~ mike_aronis$
In my haste to rebuild the RAID set for the third or forth time as LaCie led me through the testing this and test that phase, I forgot to click the "Auto Rebuild" option in the Disk Utility program.
Question for the more experienced:
As I was working on this issue, I notice that each time I rebooted and did work in the Terminal (with and without the RAID plugged in to the thunderbolt connection) I notice that the list of drives would change and my main boot drive would not stay listed as drive 0! Some times it would be drive 0, sometimes the RAID would be listed as Drive 0. It's strange to me...I would have thought the designation for Drive0 and Drive1 would always be my two build in drives (SSD and spinning drive).
Mike

Mac OS X 10.4 - Software RAID 10???

Hello All...
As a motion graphics artist by trade and a musician at night, I am constantly faced with the on-going dilemma of my storage needs. As you may probably already know, these two activities eat up drive space and require a speedy storage solution as well.
Here's my current setup:
- PowerMac G5 Dual 2GHz (PCI-X) w/ 3GB of RAM.
- Sonnet Tempo-X eSATA 4x4 PCI-X card.
- MacGurus Burly 4 bay SATA enclosure.
- 2 250GB WD drives in the Burly enclosure.
I have the two 250GB WD drives in the external SATA enclosure software-RAIDed together to form one RAID 0 (striped) volume, using the OS X disk utility RAID feature. While that has resulted in an excellent, fast, big disk... I am starting to run into errors, and starting to lose sleep over the fact that the current setup is not redundant / reliable.
My initial solution was to buy two more disks, RAID them together as another striped volume and run backups from the first two-disk WD striped volume to the new striped RAID. So, four disks, two striped raids with two disks each.... But when I called Sonnet Tech Support, the support guy said that OS X 10.4 has support for RAID 10. That changes everything! If I could fill the Burly enclosure with 4 of the same disks and software RAID 10 them together, I'd be in business... I think...
Does OS X 10.4 really allow you to create a software RAID 10???
If so, do you think this is the most ideal solution for what I'm working with?
Keep in mind, I'm working with a low budget. No, XServes/XServe-RAID is NOT an option!
Any input is greatly appreciated!
TIA

Hi, noka.
Yes, it supports RAID 10. See "Disk Utility 10.5 Help: Protecting your data against hardware failure with a mirrored RAID set."
However, you may not get the performance you expect.
FWIW and IMO, unless one is running a high-volume transaction server with a 99.999% ("Five Nines") availability requirement, RAID is overkill. For example, unless you're running a bank, a brokerage, or a major e-commerce site, you're probably spending sums of time and money with RAID that could be applied elsewhere.
RAID is high on the "geek chic" scale, low on the practicality scale, and very high on the "complex to troubleshoot" scale when problems arise. The average user, even one in your lines of business, is better served by implementing a comprehensive Backup and Recovery solution and using it regularly.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Apple software RAID 0 not spinning down while not in use

I have a G-Tech G-RAID w/ Thunderbolt, 8TB external enclosure. It has two 4TB fujitsu drives in it, set up as RAID 0 with Apple's Disk Utility v13 (426) that ships with 10.8 Mountain Lion. This is attached to a very cleanly installed Mid 2011 Mac Mini, which is acting as a media server. There is basically no 3rd party software on it, because it's acting as a NFS filer server for streaming digital players around the house.
However, I have the G-RAID set to spin down when possible in energy saver, and it's not. It never spins down. I have 4 external drives on this media server, ranging from USB to FW800 to the Thunderbolt drive, all from different manufacturers, and different sizes and models. All the other drives spin down after 10 minutes.
Not only is the checkbox "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" checked in Energy Saver, but a
pmset -g
reveals that the "disksleep" is set to 10 (min).
In frustration, I have tried a lot of things including (but not limited to) removing all other hard drives and hardware, starting up with shift held (safe boot) and removing any software at all that I thought would be keeping the drive "alive."
Finally I decided to start monitoring the drive with fs_usage, to see if I could suss out what is keeping this one drive alive.
"fs_usage | grep DISKNAME" reveals that SystemUIServer is accessing the drive every minute, about seven times in a clump. Considering that SystemUIServer is the peice of software that controls the little menu add-ons to the right of the menubar, I have spend a great deal of time trying to figure out what would use SystemUIServer that is accessing this drive.
Now it's true that this drive is set up as a time machine drive, but I have disabled time machine, and spotlight, and still I get the same SystemUIServer accesses every minute. Here is a fs_usage dump:
orion:~ seanb$ sudo fs_usage | grep Betelgeuse
Password:
15:53:16 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000029   SystemUIServ
15:53:16 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000011   SystemUIServ
15:53:16 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000017   SystemUIServ
15:53:16 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000010   SystemUIServ
15:53:16 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000008   SystemUIServ
15:53:16 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000010   SystemUIServ
15:53:16 statfs64          /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000017   SystemUIServ
15:54:16 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000025   SystemUIServ
15:54:16 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000007   SystemUIServ
15:54:16 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000011   SystemUIServ
15:54:16 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000011   SystemUIServ
15:54:16 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000009   SystemUIServ
15:54:16 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000010   SystemUIServ
15:54:17 statfs64          /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000014   SystemUIServ
15:55:17 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000062   SystemUIServ
15:55:17 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000013   SystemUIServ
15:55:17 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000024   SystemUIServ
15:55:17 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000010   SystemUIServ
15:55:17 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000009   SystemUIServ
15:55:17 getattrlist       /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000010   SystemUIServ
15:55:17 statfs64          /Volumes/Betelgeuse     0.000014   SystemUIServ
As you can see, it's the same seven drive accesses every minute. This is NOT occuring with any of my other drives. Now, here comes my wild conjecture. Is this something the system does because they are RAID slices? Do OS X software RAID slices check themselves every minute? This seems to be preventing them from sleeping.
Any help would be appreciated, I'm going nuts here.
Sean

The second column in your fs_usage report says that iStat Menus is what is accessing your disk (Istat64). Disable iStat Menus and I bet your issue will go away. I know there is a module in iStat Menus to monitor drive space, but if I recall correctly, even if that module is disabled, iStat has a habit of checking drives anyhow. I remember hearing people getting rid of istat menus in order to allow their HDs to sleep propely.
In fact, and easy way to test this would be to reboot your Mac with the shift key held down until you see your desktop load up. This will prevent 3rd party add-ons from loading like iStat Menus. Let me know if that works.
Unfortunatrly this is not the problem I am having, as I've booted with shift, and I still see the "getattrlist" accesses in my fs_usage report.
EDIT: stupid font made your report look like iStat when it was Lstat. So what I said about iStat Menus is probably incorrect. But using the shift key to boot could still lead you to the correct anwer. I'm doing testing on my end as well. Let you know if I see anything that pertains to your issue. (I got an Lstat entry in my fs_usage when I open the drive during testing, but I have not beeing getting them an regular intervals like you do. I would still guess that you have 3rd party software that is checking on drives periodically, and that holding shift might suss that out.)
Message was edited by: Cheule

Cannot get software RAID-1 going on root (/) on Sun V240's

Hi All,
I for the life of me cannot get software RAID-1 going on the root file-system. I've followed the instructions in Solaris Volume Manager Admin. Guide and I think I'm doing it right. This is in a Sun V240 with two 137GB drives.
I basically do the following:
Disk0 - c1t0d0s0
Disk1 - c1t0d1s0
prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s2 | fmthard -s - /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0s2
prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0s2 (Double check that disk 1 looks like disk 2)
metadb -af -c 2 /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s3 /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s4
metadb -af -c 2 /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0s3 /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0s4
metainit -f d10 1 1 /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s0
metainit -f d20 1 1 /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0s0
metainit d0 -m d10
metaroot d0
lockfs -fa
reboot
Before I reboot, I do a metastat and it shows the following:
# metastat
d0: Mirror
    Submirror 0: d10
      State: Okay
    Pass: 1
    Read option: roundrobin (default)
    Write option: parallel (default)
    Size: 20494464 blocks (9.8 GB)
d10: Submirror of d0
    State: Okay
    Size: 20494464 blocks (9.8 GB)
    Stripe 0:
        Device     Start Block Dbase        State Reloc Hot Spare
        c1t0d0s0          0     No            Okay   Yes
d20: Concat/Stripe
    Size: 20494464 blocks (9.8 GB)
    Stripe 0:
        Device     Start Block Dbase   Reloc
        c1t1d0s0          0     No      YesUpon reboot, I get this:
Rebooting with command: boot
Boot device: /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/disk@0,0:a File and args:
SunOS Release 5.10 Version Generic 64-bit
Copyright 1983-2005 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
Use is subject to license terms.
Cannot open mirrored root device, error 19
Cannot remount root on /pseudo/md@0:0,0,blk fstype ufs
panic[cpu1]/thread=180e000: vfs_mountroot: cannot remount root
000000000180b960 genunix:vfs_mountroot+2b8 (18aa800, 0, 185e6f8, 3000153dc40, 1859ce8, 4)
%l0-3: 0000000000000000 0000000000000003 00000000018a40b0 00000000018a40b0
%l4-7: 000000000185b800 00000000011cb000 00000000018aa800 0000000001834340
000000000180ba20 genunix:main+88 (1813c98, 1011c00, 1834340, 18a7c00, 0, 1813800)
%l0-3: 000000000180e000 0000000000000001 000000000180c000 0000000001835200
%l4-7: 0000000070002000 0000000000000001 000000000181ba54 0000000000000000
syncing file systems... done
skipping system dump - no dump device configured
rebooting...HELP! What am I doing wrong? Thanks!

You created to many metadatabases..
I'm not kidding, you did. You created 8 which i suspect trigged a bug which currently exists in Solaris 9 / Solaris 10.
This bug occours on the following disks: MAT3073N, MAT3147N, MAT3300N and ST373207LC, if you have any of those disks in your system (can be determined with iostat -En) you must use less than 8 replicas.
Check out bugreport 6244431, if you got a sunsolve login linked to a contract number.
You could try and boot up the system from a cdrom or similar and add "md_devid_destroy=1;" to the /kernel/drv/md.conf file above the 'Begin MDD database info' line.
hopefully your system will come up after this, if it does the best workaround is to remove a few replicas, the above line from md.conf and reboot.
Best regards,
//Magnus
Best regards,
//Magnus

Did 10.6.5 alter the permissions of the top level of the startup volume?

Since applying the 10.6.5 update it seems that non-admin users have read/write access to the top level directory of the startup volume. That means that non-admin users can create items there.
I am wondeing if this is a normal change for 10.6.5 or if something is weird with my system.
We updated from 10.6.4 via Software Update. This machine has only ever had Snow Leopard installed on it.
(Note that top level sub-folders such as Library and System do not appear to be affected by this)

Are you referring to the ownership and privileges for the drive? If so then if they aren't set at the default it's because of something a user has done because the installer makes no such changes. You can return them to the default as follows;
1. Select the drive and Press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window.
2. In the Ownership and Sharing section at the bottom is a checkbox labeled, "Ignore permissions on this volume." If the box is checked then click on the lock icon and authenticate. Uncheck the box.
3. Open the Terminal application in the Utilities folder and enter the following command then press RETURN:
sudo chown root:admin "/Volumes/Macintosh HD"
You will be asked to enter your admin password which will not be echoed.
If you now click onto the still open Get Info window you should now see the proper info:
Owner=system with r/w privileges
Group=admin with r/w privileges
Everyone is read-only
Click on the lock icon to prevent any changes. Close the window then quit the Terminal.

Possible to increase the total size of a software raid set?

Hi,
I need to increase the size of a software raid set which is internally in one of the Xserves - originally it had 2x 400G drives.
I've swapped drives into the raid so they are both now 500G drives.
diskutil info drive XX (ie raid set) shows that the raid is still a 400G raid volume as expected.
Question is - can I grow the Raid Total Size to use all the capacity of the member volumes?
I guess the alternative is to remove the drives from the raid, enable raid on one of them and then add the other drive as a member... but this would mean I would have to take the raid offline.
The raid sets are not my system disks.
Any clues?
TIA
Campbell
XServes Mac OS X (10.4.5) 12 Macs & far too many PCs

Thanks for your help.
I rebuilt the array using enableRaid. Worked fine with Raid Volume offline for approx 5 minutes - although I had to degrade the array (and go bare with no mirror) twice in the process.
In case anyone is interested, this is what the process was:
1 Swap into Raid array larger drive (say, disk 2) and let array rebuild
2 Disable file services.
3 removefromraid disk 2 (leave it mounted).
4 Unmount the raid set and eject drives (say, disk 1) Remove drive - it's the only original backup.
5 enableRaid on disk 2
Providing enableRaid is ok -
6 Insert a fresh larger size drive in the place of the removed drive (disk 1)
7 Unmount new drive and addToRaid
8 (Rebuild array). Providing rebuilding ok -
9 Start file services again.
Data, permissions & ACLs were all intact. So now users can fill the rest of the raid up with more MP3s this week <sigh>
Maybe not the best approach but it worked well for me.
XServes Mac OS X (10.4.5) 12 Macs & several hundred too many PCs

Failed Software Raid 1, trying to virtualize but getting I/O error failure

I will try to summarize all what has happened and where I'm at now currently:
Server is 2008 R2 (DC, exchange, IIS, SQL, etc) setup originally setup with software RAID 1. At some point years ago the software RAID had failed and the second disk wasn't part of the mirror anymore and it was never fixed in disk management.
Last week the server and wouldn't boot as the primary drive failed. I selected secondary plex during startup just to see if that disk was still functioning, which to my suprise it did boot up but data was years old.
At that point, I inserted Windows 2008 R2 DVD and started System Recovery from previous backup onto secondary plex drive. Once complete, the server was backup and running. Changed the system startup variable to secondary plex so it would
boot that drive if restarted.
I am now trying to virtualize the server using disk2vhd in order to move it onto new hardware, however each time I try it fails with I/O error. I have re-tried multiple times stopping all major services to minimize I/O during disk2vhd, but still errors out
about 3/4 way through. I have run checkdisk and it repaired a few bad sectors on the secondary plex drive, yet still fails during disk2vhd. I am currently running a defrag on the disk as it reported 36% defragmention and will try offline disk2vhd
once complete using System Center VMM 2012 (not R2 as that's been removed - found that out the hard way!).
I'm worried this disk has underlying errors which is why it failed years ago and Windows broke the mirror and why it won't work with online disk2vhd.
I have attached a picture of Disk Management which I find interesting as it shows Disk 0 as unknown (Not Initialized), Disk 1 having errors (can "Reactivate Disk" though unsure if that does anything destructive?), and then a missing disk at the
bottom which I can also reactivate. I'm not sure if restoring the last working backup from disk 0 somehow messed up Disk 1 or confused it? BIOS reports Disk 0 as 0MB so I'm thinking that drive is no good anymore.
I guess what I'm looking for with this post is any answer or suggestion as to why disk2vhd might be failing, whether an offline disk2vhd maybe a better successful option, and what (if anything) I should do in Disk Management with these drives in their current
state. I don't have a replacement 500GB drive for the mirror and I don't plan on getting one as I already have a new Hyper-V 2012 Core server setup to replace this failing server. I just can't seem to get it to virtualize using online disk2vhd and wondering
if it has something to do with the current drive setup/situation?

Hi,
à
I am now trying to virtualize the server using disk2vhd in order to move it onto new hardware, however each time I try it fails with I/O error.
Would you please let me know the complete error message that you can get?
Please refer to following article and check if can help you.
Troubleshooting Disk Management
à
I guess what I'm looking for with this post is any answer or suggestion as to why disk2vhd might be failing, whether an offline disk2vhd maybe a better successful option
In addition, this issue seems to be more related to Disk2vhd. I suggest that you should post the question in
the Disk2vhd forum. I believe we will get a better assistance there.
If anything I misunderstand or any update, please don’t hesitate to let me know.
Hope this helps.
Best regards,
Justin Gu

RAID 0 startup

Thinking of using 500GB and 750GB internal drives for a raid 0 startup disc (software raid obviously), any ideas/problems?

yeah either use a raid 0+1 solution, or back up your raid 0. raid 0 just spans the data across 2 drives for performance, raid 1 mirrors 2 drives so if 1 fails, the other is still there. so raid 0+1; raid 0: stripes your data across 2 drives for performance and raid 1 mirrors this on another drive. you would effectively need 3 drives (or partitions) e.g 2 250gb for raid 0 and another 250gb to mirror this but as you are looking to use the apple utility, this is software raid so if the boot drive dies, you still would lose everything. I suggest having another smaller drive for osx, have this in a raid 1, (2 drives) and data on a raid 0+1 so 5 drives in total. Geeez. Not that I have as many...
Luck...
Daniel

Software RAID as startup volume

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