Software vs Hardware RAID question

I want to mirror my data files (mainly music)to an external RAID 1 array. I already use Time Machine for my system disk and will probably keep it running off of an old Firewire 400 enclosure. I have seen many dual drive enclosures for Firewire 800 in 2 basic price ranges. For about $100 there are some nice aluminum ones with only RAID 0 and independent channels. For about $150 NewerTech makes a nice one with RAID 1 capability. Is the Hardware-based RAID in the enclosure a significant improvement over Tiger's software version? I've never used a software based RAID and don't know it's limitations. The NewerTech Guardian Maximus from OWC does have a feature to rebuild the bad drive, although it doesn't specify "hot-swapable". As an aside, if a multiformat enclosure includes a SATA port, is that port usable to get a SATA peripheral into my iMac (at reduced throughput) or is it for connecting the enclosure to your computer only. Thanks for any thoughts.

Where is your music stored now and why do you want to store it on a mirror raid setup?
The NewerTech Guardian Maximus from OWC does have a feature to rebuild the bad
drive, although it doesn't specify "hot-swapable".
They are not hot swappable because you have to take the case apart to change out the drive. RAID1 is where 2 drives are formatted to look like a single drive and the second drive mirrors the first drive duplicating the stored data. If one drive should fail then you can replace the bad drive and the RAID will "rebuild" just by mirroring the data from the other drive. This kind of RAID is good for redundancy but not any better for performance(often less). You also loose half of your total disk space of the 2 drives. For example 2 500GB drives in RAID 1 will look like a single 500GB drive which will have ~465GB usable storage space.
As an aside, if a multiformat enclosure includes a SATA port, is that port
usable to get a SATA peripheral into my iMac (at reduced throughput) or is it
for connecting the enclosure to your computer only. Thanks for any thoughts.
An eSata port is slightly different shape than internal SATA but they are exactly the same interface. The iMacs do not have any eSata ports on the back so there would be no way for you to connect the external via eSata. If you got a quad interface external case then you would just use the fastest interface you have being the FW800.
George

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HT204053 hi i want to use find my mac but i got this massage (some configurations, such as software or hardware RAID,do not support a recovery partition and can't be used with find my mac)

hi i want to use find my mac but i got this massage (some configurations, such as software or hardware RAID,do not support a recovery partition and can't be used with find my mac)

hi i want to use find my mac but i got this massage (some configurations, such as software or hardware RAID,do not support a recovery partition and can't be used with find my mac)

Some configurations such as a software or hardware RAID do not support a recovery partition and can't be used with Find My Mac.

I'm getting the following error message when attempting to invoke "Find My Mac"
Some configurations such as a software or hardware RAID do not support a recovery partition and can't be used with Find My Mac.

You have no recovery partition. This is a normal condition if your boot volume is a software RAID, or if you modified the partition table after running Boot Camp Assistant to create a Windows partition. Otherwise, you need to reinstall OS X in order to add a recovery partition.
If you don't have a current backup, you need to back up before you do anything else.
You have several options for reinstalling.
1. If you have access to a local, unencrypted Time Machine backup volume, and if that volume has a backup of a Mac (not necessarily this one) that was running the same major version of OS X and did have a Recovery partition, then you can boot from the Time Machine volume into Recovery by holding down the option key at the startup chime. Encrypted Time Machine volumes are not bootable, nor are network backups.
2. If your Mac shipped with OS X 10.7 or later preinstalled, or if it's one of the computers that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery, you may be able to netboot from an Apple server by holding down the key combination option-R at the startup chime. Release the keys when you see a spinning globe.
Note: You need an always-on Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection to the Internet to use Recovery. It won’t work with USB or PPPoE modems, or with proxy servers, or with networks that require a certificate for authentication.
3. Use Recovery Disk Assistant (RDA) on another Mac running the same major version of OS X as yours to create a bootable USB device. Boot your Mac from the device by holding down the option key at startup.Warning: All existing data on the USB device will be erased when you use RDA.
Once you've booted into Recovery, the OS X Utilities screen will appear. Follow the prompts to reinstall OS X. You don't need to erase the boot volume, and you won't need your backup unless something goes wrong. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade, so make a note of those before you begin.
If none of the above choices is open to you, then you'll have to start over from an OS X 10.6.8 installation. There's no need to overwrite your existing boot volume; you can use an external drive. Install 10.6 from the DVD you originally used to upgrade, or that came with the machine. Run Software Update and install all available updates. Log into the App Store with the Apple ID you used to buy 10.7 or later, and download the installer. When you run it, be sure to choose the right drive to install on.

Software or Hardware RAID for LVM

Well, I've been looking into setting up a RAID for my home server. I've been trying to decide between a software raid or buying a relatively cheap SATA controller and using it for a hardware RAID. I'm trying to figure out the pros and cons of buying a cheap hardware card for use rather than simply using a software solution.
Are there any negatives to using LVM with either setup versus the other? Have software solutions become decent enough to be relied on?
If you recommend a hardware solution, a card suggestion would be appreciated. Preferably something under $50.. if that's even possible for a semi reliable card.
I'm also curious as to whether there would be an issue with software raid if it is run across multiple SATA controllers. Can you even run a single hardware RAID using 2 separate controllers?
Appreciate any advice!
EDIT: I'd also appreciate any information on the processor overhead of running a software RAID 5 with 5-6 disks. The home server is just an old Core2 and doesn't have all that much power to it.
Last edited by nedlinin (2012-01-05 00:35:03)

Anntoin wrote:
Stick with the software RAID, more flexible and probably more reliable. Hardware RAID only - arguably - becomes worth it if you have fancy stuff like a battery backed write cache, etc...
I'd avoid using RAID 5 and go for something like RAID 1+0, look up 'RAID 5 write hole'.
The processor overhead should be quite low even on a Core2.
The wiki has a bunch on info on RAID and LVM:
e.g. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/So … ID_and_LVM
Appreciate the info. I've actually been reading over the RAID/LVM wiki over the past couple days making sure I get myself aligned to what needs to be done.
As far as avoiding RAID 5, I was specifically choosing it as it allows for some form of backup while giving me a large amount of hard drive space. I will be using 6x2TB drives in the array and using a RAID1 would end up giving me half of it usable, RAID5 giving me 10TB usable. Right now each of the drives are on their own so even with the write hole issues I'd assume I'd be better off with the RAID 5 then simply having the drives separate no?
I don't simply want to put all 6 drives into a LV as I'd be worried about one failing and losing more data than each drive on their own.

K8N Neo2-F Hardware RAID question

Hi guys,
Question for you. I have a Hitrachi 160GB SATA drive and I installed x64. After all is good and well I went out and got a second identical drive. I would now like to have these two drives Raided with the hardware raid. When I go into the RAID setup after POST, I can see both, add both, and mirror both. When I reboot, all I get is a post and it just stops after showing that box where it lists everything in the computer and what has what IRQ's. No error messages saying no boot drive, no system disk, etc. I switch it back and I can boot with the one drive. I also noticed during the RAID config, it asks me if I want to erase the drive. I always say no because I'm scared that it will erase the primary drive that I need to keep and not the new one for mirroring. Can anyone help me or confirm I'm doing this right. Thank you very much in advance.
Matt
-MSI K8N Neo2-F Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce3 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard
-AMD 64 4200+ and fan/heatsink that came with it - NO OVERCLOCK (YET)
-2 - HITACHI Deskstar 7K250 HDS722516VLSA80 -13G0254 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive
-CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory
-ASPIRE ATX-AS520W BLACK ATX 520W Power Supply 115/230 V CB IEC 950/ TUV EN 60950/ UL 1950/ CSA 950
-Windows XP x64 SP1
-BFG GeForce 6800 GT AGP

You windows installation don't have the nvraid drivers loaded sou you won't be able to boot that windows installation
with the xp64 disk put in a enabled raid array .
But perhaps you can fool the system by doing this .
Leave the xp64 HD as is (just as a regular sata say at sata 1 )
Connect the new disk to the other sata controller , say sata 3 ( as they are controlled in pairs )
Set sata 3 as raid enabled and create a raid-1 array in the nvidia raidbios with just this single drive in it .
Boot windows xp64 from the normal enabled xp-HD and it should detect new hardware is added and ask for drivers .
Install the nvidia raid drivers and reboot when asked .
Then check if you have raid manager and raid drivers enabled in the windows installation .
After this point you can proceed to do the thing you first tried .(but without clearing the disk)
Delete the workaround fake raid you made with the new disk .
Shut down and move the hd-connectors again so that you have the two drives either at sata 1+2 or sata 3+4 .
Make a new array that includes the xp installation with only this disk in it , leave the other one free .
Try to boot the system .
If it boots you use nvraid manager in windows to add the second drive and let the array rebuild (sync drives )
Note that rebuilding take several hours to complete .
Look in the nvraid user guide for details .
To fully understand the nvidia raid it's wise to read this from start to finish a couple of times ,
and to have a hardcopy of it printed out.
A copy of the nvraid userguide rev.20 here :
ftp://ftp.tyan.com/manuals/m_NVRAID_Users_Guide_v20.pdf

Solaris 10 X86 - Hardware RAID - SMC/SVM question...

I have gotten back into Sun Solaris System Administration after a five year hiatus... My skills are a little rusty and some of the tools have changed, so here is are my questions...
I have installed Solaris 10 release 1/06 on a Dell 1850 with an attached PowrVault 220v connected to a Perc 4 Di controller. The RAID is configured via BIOS interface to my liking, Solaris is installed and see's all my partitions which I created during install.
For testing purposes, the servers internal disk is used for the OS, the PowerVault is split into 2 RAID's - one is a mirror, one is a stripe...
The question is; do I manage the RAID using Sun Management Console and the tools OR do I use SMC?
When I launch SMC and go into Enhanced Storage... I do not see any RAID's... If I select "Disks" I do see them, but when I select them, it wants to run "FDISK" on them... now this is OK since they are blank but I want to ensure I am not doing sometinhg I should not be concerned with...
If the PERC controller is controlling the RAID, what do I need SMC for?

You can use SMC for other purposes but it won't help your with RAID.
Sol 10 1/06 has raidctl which handles LSI1030 and LSI1064 RAID�enabled controllers (from raidctl(1M)).
Some of the PERCs (most?) are LSI but I don't know if they are chipsets used by your PoweEdge (I doubt it).
Generally you can break it down like this for x86:
If you are using hardware RAID with Solaris 10 x86 you have to use pre-Solaris (i.e. on the RAID controller) managment or hope that the manufacturer of the device has a Solaris managment agent/interface (good luck).
The only exception to this that I know of is the RAID that comes with V20z, V40z, X4100, X4200.
Otherwise you will want to go with SVM or VxVM and manage RAID within Solaris (software RAID).
SMC etc are only going to show you stuff if SVM is involved and VxVM has its own interface, otherwise the disks are controlled by PERC and just hanging out as far as Solaris is concerned.
Hope this helps.

Software Raid - HardWare Raid

We finnaly got our Novell Server Setup and configured. and we just noticed
in the bios that The hardware raid was disabled. and that we have been
useing software raid. Is there anyway to enable the hardware raid and do a
back up of our system or do we have to start all over. -=\
Erik

Erik, I suspect you will have to do this one from scratch.
What sort of RAID controller?
Barry Schnur
Novell Support Connection Volunteer Sysop

OS/Software RAID vs Hardware RAID

Good day IT folks,
I'm a total noob on RAID techology. But I'm quite familiar on different RAID type. I would like to ask what's the pro's and con's of OS RAID vs Hardware RAID (OS RAID will be setup on Disk Management).
As we all know, OS RAID is the easiest way to setup a RAID. But what are the possible drawback if implemented on an environment having less than 200 users.
Thanks.
akosijesyang - the conqueror

This one may help.
http://www.adaptec.com/NR/rdonlyres/14B2FD84-F7A0-4AC5-A07A-214123EA3DD6/0/4423_SW_HWRAID_10.pdf
Regards, Dave Patrick ....
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights.

Using a Mac Pro w / Apple Internal Hardware RAID Card?

Anyone using a Mac Pro with a Apple Hardware RAID Card 2010?
( I have a 12 Core )
Is it worth the $600-700 ?
How much faster than the software RAID 0?
I see Hamm's RAID tips chart .. but it doesn't include such options .. plus it is based on a PC system.
Any tips would be great ..
I find many areas where the application is slow / unresponsive .. and I'm not sure where the bottleneck is ... Maybe the hardware RAID will solve it?
I'm really am impressed with CS5 .. it would be even better with some adjustments .. but I am absolutely disappointed with sluggish performance on my top-of-the-line Mac Pro 12 Core.
This is not what I expected for a $8,000 machine.
Some users says that the port of CS5 for the Mac has taken a back seat to the Windows version at Adobe.
I can't imagine that Adobe would not put 100% effort into Mac products.
Go Team!!!

I have a 2009 Mac Pro 3.33GHz Quad core w/ Apple RAID card, 16GB RAM from OWC, and Apple's Radeon HD 5870 GPU.
I have RAID 0 set across 3x1TB drives internally, and the standard 640GB drive for OSX and all program files. I set all video assets, renders, previews and such on the 3TB RAID.
This seems to work wonderfully. I built this system specifically to edit a feature film shot on P2 DVCProHD, and I've been impressed with how it handles it. This was all built prior to CS5, which took me by surprise. Had I known nVidia would become such a problem for Apple, I would have built a PC, but that's another story.
I just started a new project in CS5 on the same system, this time using H.264 video from my Nikon D7000, and so far, it seems to play just as nicely, despite not having hardware acceleration via CUDA technology. Yellow bars on top, even. I haven't had any problems with clips taking a long time to populate on the timeline or any of that, so perhaps the RAID card helps there.
All this aside, I've already decided to upgrade my RAID for another reason. Right now, my backup is performed via an eSATA-connected external drive through a PCI eSATA card. After every edit session, I dump everything on the RAID onto the external drive, and it goes much faster than the old FW800 transfer used to. I'm about to replace my Apple RAID card with an Areca card and set up a 4-bay RAID 3 via an SAS connection. This will allow for excellent data throughput while offering more security than my current RAID 0 / manual backup system, and free up the internal drives for backups, exports and render files.
I believe in hardware RAID, but I'm not as knowledgeable as Harm and others are about it. I had my Mac built to order with the Apple RAID card, so I have no experience using Premiere with a software RAID. Due to my smooth experience using it, I think it was worth it, but plenty of people say the Apple RAID card is rubbish, and to go with Areca or Atto cards. I didn't know about them until after I built my system, and even though it will cost a couple thousand to upgrade my RAID from this point, I expect to have an even better system than I already have.
I hope this helps, and feel free to ask any questions I didn't address.

My hardware RAID 1 only showing up in disk utility and not finder.

Last week I finally was able to take my early 2011 iMac in to have my Seagate 1TB hard drive replaced for the recall.
Late 2010 model iMac
OS X 10.6.8
OWC Mercury Elite Pro 4TB x 4TB Hardware RAID
When I took it in the RAID 1 was working just fine. When I finally got the iMac back and booted everything up the RAID 1 was getting the dialog box that read "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer."
I have tried going into disk utility to see if I can verify the disk and then saw it is coming up as two different volumes... Along with those two different volumes, I can not go to click verify as it is greyed out.
I contacted OWC and they said they have never heard of this and had two solutions, to try a software like diskwarrior, or if that didnt work I can take the drives out and try another external dock to see if it is the RAID hardware.
If anyone has any ideas as to what could help with this situation that would be great as I was under the impression (and told by a number of other people) that having a RAID 1 as my backup was good and should not need anything else. I just want to be able to get all the data off then I will rebuild it or send it into OWC.
Thanks!!!!

So a fault in the Hardware Raid controller could make it not read properly? I am planning on having a good backup set up after this!
As for the screenshot, the original was not set up with the SoftRaid. When I got the computer back I installed that to see if that may pick it up and make it at least readable to save the data on it. The two in question are the highlighted 4TB drives, which befor also read as one drive as it was set up in the OWC enclosure as a hardware raid.

RAID questions

I have a couple of questions on Raid. According to Danny, ICH5R is not hardware raid. This question was risen in my last post "Help creating partitions in RAID 0 volume", because it seems Partiton Magic only works with hardware raid. Also, I got the impression that a RAID 0 volume can only be created in a Dynamic Disk. However, Windows disk manager shows my Raid 0 volume as being a Basic disk. I'm confused. My questions:
- Does software in general recognize my Raid setup as being software raid (ICH5R)?
- Is it true that there is little gain in speed with software raid?
- Why does my raid volume show up as being a basic disk?
- How much does it cost a TRUE hardare raid controller? Any decisive advantages over my mobo's ICH5R?
- As anyone used Partion Magic for partitoning Raid volumes using software raid?
I've been serching the web for answers but I've found more contradictions than answers Any help is appreciated. Thanks

I can't answer all your questions but here's a start.
Theoretically, the ICH5R has twice the bandwidth of the PCI bus so should be faster. In practice, most people with FIS2R boards have found the Promise controller a little quicker. It seemed a little faster for me as well but it wasn't a huge difference and I suspect it depends on what you're using it for. As for hardware/software issues, I don't know. I do know that I got hard drive performance increases of between 30 and 70% on both Raid controllers compared to a single drive depending on which benchmark program I used and the type of test. I also found that Partition Magic 8 seems to function properly using the boot floppy with either the Intel or Promise Raid controller. I also use Drive Image 7 which comes with a boot CD and it works with both Raids as well. I have learned the hard way not to use any features where you make changes in Windows and the program then boots automatically into DOS to make changes and then boots into Windows again. If the program is not completely compatible with the 865/875 chipset(I doubt any can promise that yet), it will hang in Dos mode and you're stuck with a Dos partition at the beginning of your C drive. So I like to boot these programs from a floppy/CD.
I'm not satisfied yet that the Raid0 config is really stable so I have WinXP installed on a single SATA in the Intel controller and a Raid0 array on the Promise controller for all my media/Games. I also put my pagefile on the Raid. This allows me to load game levels/movies/large images etc... quickly and keep my OS a little safer. After Windows loads, it doesn't access the XP drive much anyway with 1GB of memory. Then I just periodically save important media/game saves on the XP drive or CD and use drive image to save the OS on the Raid drive.
Hope that helps answer some of your questions.

Solaris 10 colormap hardware support question

Hi -
[Reposting an article that disappeared...]
I am porting an X application from Solaris2.6/Sparc to Solaris 10/x86. The display application requires multiple (hardware) colormaps to correctly display images without "flashing".
Does anyone have a Solaris 10 x86 installation with a PCI (or PMC) graphics card interface that supports more than 1 hardware colormap? The command:
xdpyinfo | grep colormaps
will show you how many maps your hardware supports. I would be grateful to learn of any Solaris 10 x86 PCI (or PMC) graphics hardware that supports at least 2 maps.
Thd following gets a bit more away from a platform question, and into an X question, but:
How does the Xserver determine how many hardware colormaps are available? My X server says that my ATI Radeon 7000 hardware only supports 1 hardware colormap - could it be mistaken/"fibbing" about this capability? Perhaps just 1 colormap is a fallback default and can be changed?

You can use SMC for other purposes but it won't help your with RAID.
Sol 10 1/06 has raidctl which handles LSI1030 and LSI1064 RAID�enabled controllers (from raidctl(1M)).
Some of the PERCs (most?) are LSI but I don't know if they are chipsets used by your PoweEdge (I doubt it).
Generally you can break it down like this for x86:
If you are using hardware RAID with Solaris 10 x86 you have to use pre-Solaris (i.e. on the RAID controller) managment or hope that the manufacturer of the device has a Solaris managment agent/interface (good luck).
The only exception to this that I know of is the RAID that comes with V20z, V40z, X4100, X4200.
Otherwise you will want to go with SVM or VxVM and manage RAID within Solaris (software RAID).
SMC etc are only going to show you stuff if SVM is involved and VxVM has its own interface, otherwise the disks are controlled by PERC and just hanging out as far as Solaris is concerned.
Hope this helps.

Can I make a hardware raid with the on board Marvell SE9128 chip on p67a-gd65?

Hi,
as you all know the RAID 0/1/10/5/JBOD with the p67 chipset are pure software raids or "fake" raids. I saw some sata-raid pcie 2.0 x1 cards on the sell which have the Marvell SE9128 chip. So my question is: Can I make a hardware raid with the onboard Marvell SE9128 chip on the p67a-gd65?
Thanks
--pepe

Quote from: Stu on 06-November-11, 02:31:26
Hardware RAID explained:
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/conf/ctrlHardware-c.html
What do you want to say with this? I know what's the difference between a software (fake) and hardware raid? Your post doesn't answer the question. The p67-chipset has integrated software raid. The marvell se9128 is also found on some hardware raid cards. That's why I'm still wondering if it is for a hardware raid on this board or not.

Partitoning a Hardware Raid

OK, I have already searched the net to no avail, im hoping someone here will be able to help me.
I currently have an external 300gb HD with 2 partitions, one is a bootable backup and the other is storage. I have recently realized that if this drive were to fail I would lose a ton of important data. I therefore have decided to create a raid setup. I am considering purchasing a Buffalo DriveStation Duo with 2 500GB drives in it. I would set this up in a RAID 1 array so I will have 500gb of usable space with a constant mirror image backup. My question is, can I partion the RAID into 2 partitions (as I have now with my 300 gb drive) one for a bootable backup and one for storage and still maintain the mirroring. In essence I want to have 1 drive with 2 partitions on it, and have the drive still be mirrored to the second drive.
First-Is this possible?
Second-Will I still be able to boot from the boot partition?
Three-If so, can having more than one partition on a raid create problems, such as increased disk failure, slower speeds, etc?
Thanks in advance to anyone that can help me with this!

Well, the reason that I wanted to do this raid array is because I store allot of files on my external drive that are not on my internal drive, therefore if my external drive were to fail my files would be gone for good. I also keep a bootable backup that I constantly recreate on a seperate partition of the external drive. I thought if I create the RAID then I would avoid loss of data in the event of a disk failure.
As far as using my current drive, I was going to upgrade the amount of storage that I had and set up the raid system at the same time, If I buy 2 500gb drives I will have 500gb of usable space instead of 300gb.
I am however unfamilier with OS X RAID software, is this the same as a "software raid" as I have heard that a software raid is much slower than a hardware raid because it uses you computers processer to mirror data rather than using a raid card in the enclosure.
As for cost, I can buy this drive station duo (does raid 0 and 1, has firewire 800, 400, and usb, and an internal hardware raid) with 2 preinstalled 500gb sata drives for $300. I thought that this was a pretty good price for what I am getting but I am very uneducated in all of this and could be very wrong.
If, like you said earlier, I can partiton the drives and then create a raid (with the harware raid and not need a "dual raid card" or whatever) I would do that. Are you saying that I would only be able to have the 2 raids required if I use the OS X software.
I guess my questions boil down to this
1. Is the OS X raid software considered a "software raid" and is it slower than a hardware raid? If so, by how much?
2. If its not any slower, What materials would you recomend to build this considereing I want 500gb of usable space rather than the old 300gb?
Also, if its not slower where is this software in the OS, Disk Utility? And how would I use it?
3. If this software way is slower then I would still want to use the hardware method that I have been pursuing, can I still make the partitions in advance and then make 2 raids or will this not work with the hardware method?

P67A-GD53 RAID Question

Hi All
Very quick question re RAID set-up on a P67A-GD53. Sorry if this analogy is lost on everyone, but do these boards handle arrays like, say, a Dell PERC card does? Essentially, is the array handled entirely by the hardware and transparent to any Operating System/Hypervisor that may be installed on the volumes presented to it by the controller.
I'm sure the answer, whatever it may be, is common to all MSI boards with RAID controllers and possibly to all consumer boards-I've just never had any experience of them!
Many thanks
Rob

Onboard RAIDs are mainly software controlled unlike hardware RAIDs by add-on cards.

Software vs Hardware RAID question

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