Mac Pro :: Re - RAID - SSDs And Boot Volumes
Jan 12, 2011
So I'm considering a new boot volume for my Mac Pro revolving around this RAID controller, since I have had great experience with 3ware's products in my Linux boxen and it really seems like $700 for the Mac raid controller is a bit much. My workflow revolves very heavily around virtualization. I've been thinking about a variety of options for SSDs and hybrid drives and even just fast laptop HDs. Am I crazy for considering 2.5" drives other than SSDs? I'm thinking of 2.5" drives because I put a pair of them in the lower optical bay without issue. The amount of storage needed on the boot volume is probably in the range of 150-200GB. Getting SSDs that size may not be in the budget. Thus, I am currently considering either a pair of 320GB WD Scorpio Blacks or a pair of 250GB Seagate Momentus XTs. I'm not sure the hybrid Momentus drives are worth it. Additionally, I know that a lot of SSDs don't fully support RAID in their firmware. Thus, I am reluctant to buy one, let alone a pair, since a lot of places don't seem to have terribly generous return conditions for SSDs. Is this a fool's errand? Should I just relegate my VMs to other storage and get a smaller SSD for the OS + apps?
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May 20, 2009
I have a new Mac Pro Quad 2.93 with the Mac RAID card installed with four 1TB drives setup in a RAID 5 array. When creating the volumes in the RAID utility, you can not edit them, resize, etc. If one large volume is created in the RAID utility, you can then partition that one volume using the Apple Disk Utility, which then allows you to resize if needed.
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Aug 28, 2010
Difficulty deciding between 1 or 2. Unsure about real world performance gain of 2. No experience with SSDs or RAID 0. Worried about alignment and sleep/hibernate issues. Stock 5400rpm 320GB will go inside eSATA enclosure. Does anybody have a good eSATA ExpressCard/34 to recommend? I don't care about the SuperDrive. But I'll keep it for Care warranty purposes.
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Aug 19, 2010
I am checking out the market on SSDs for my Macbook Pro and I've found a few manufacturers differentiate their product lines as "regular" SSDs and Raid-Ready SSDs. The raid ready's being more expensive and having a little less space. I'm not as tech savvy as I should probably be, so I don't know what Raid or Raid-Ready means and what value it might have.
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Jun 8, 2012
I am trying to set up a RAID5 but am having trouble with the volumes. My RAID set is 5.23TB but my Volume is only 2TB. I am creating a second volume of 3.23TB. Is there a way to combine the two volumes into one volume of 5.23TB to match the RAID set?
Info:
Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
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Mar 24, 2009
I popped a new drive into my Mac Pro that's running a 2 disk raid-0 stripe set. I thought I could add the new drive into the existing raid array but I fail. Disk Util won't let me drag the new drive into the raid set.
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Jun 25, 2010
Im trying to reinstall osx from my flash drive. The problem im having is after i hold option and click on the flash drive icon to boot it, nothing happens the arrow icon greys out like its being click, but it does nothing.
I also tried installing from the dvd with the same result. Im posting here because I searched google far and wide and have come up with nothing. Anyone know whats going on here?
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Aug 4, 2009
As we discussed in other threads it could be particularly advantageous to use SSD RAID0 arrays for dual or even multiple booting. With a decent amount of striped SSDs the idea is to run all your operating systems and applications with high speed. At least that is the theory. To test the idea I have decided to use two Maxtor 160 GB HDD in a very basic dual RAID0 array configuration for booting OS X and Vista-64 in AHCI mode.
Here we go:
First thing I learned is that you have to partition the HDDs prior to building your array.
Second thing I learned is that you have to keep it all in HFS+ to make it work.
So now I have used disk utility to create two equal size partitions in HFS+ with GPT on both HDDs.
Next I fused the two lower partions together for a first RAID0 array named 2R-Leo. Format is still set to HFS+ and RAID0 mode is selected.
Then I fused the two upper partitions together for a second RAID0 array named 2R-Vista. Here format is also set to HFS+ and RAID0 mode is selected.
With that done I exited the disk utility to get a fresh start on it. I then entered disk utility again.
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Dec 2, 2009
i turned my mac on last monday, and whn i tried to log onto my admin account, it took me to a light blue screen, then back to the login page. but i was able to log into a non-admin account. The system preferences is a question mark in my dock and it refuses to open when clicked in the apple dropdown.
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Jan 25, 2009
I decided that I couldn't wait for Gainestown and ordered a 2.8x8 MP today. I'm going to get another 8GB of RAM (I assume 10GB in matched pairs will still perform at full speed). My real dilemma is a Boot/Storage solution-I'm moving from a Dual 867 G4, so all my current drives, both internal and external are IDE, which basically means I'm starting over as far as internal drives goes. The G4 power supply gave out so I'm getting this external enclosure to put my old drives into for file recovery. As far as new drives go, I can't figure out what to do. I'll spare you my million iterations of drive configs I've sketched over the past two days.
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Nov 28, 2010
I have a 2009 MacPro. SSD has the boot and apps from the 2nd Optical Drive. Original 1x4TB drives are in Raid 0 and have all the data (home folder etc). They also have the original OSX and apps which are no longer in use since everything boots off the SSD.
I want to erase the 4 raid drives (disconnect raid all together) (data all backed up to a drobo). Use first 3 drives as new storage and the 4th as bootcamp.
however, when I try to erase the raid data drives, it says it can't unmount the disk (yes, have no apps running other than disk utility from the SSD apps)
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Oct 2, 2008
I don't know where I read about this, but I am getting ready to redo one of my systems. Currently it has 2 identical 250GB Hitachies, which use Super Duper every Sunday to backup. I tried doing a RAID 0 back in like 2004 on a system that had 4x60GB. I found out through trial and error and then later reading that you can't boot from a RAID in a Power Mac G4. But like I said earlier I don't know where I read this, but someone stated I could boot from a RAID 1 (mirror) in my Power Mac G4. Is this true? or not? Is it possible to boot from a RAID 1 in a Mac G4 but not RAID 0?
Something tells me this isn't going to work. I have a 10% glimmer of hope that maybe it will just see the drive as a regular drive. This would really be great. If anyone knows the answer to this puzzle please feel free to let me know...
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Nov 8, 2010
it has been a while since my last post, but i am running into a big issue with my mac pro. I just recently got a areca arc 1210 and i am trying build a bootable RAID 0 through the card. I have gotten snow leopard installed on the raid, but the system refuses to boot to the raid. Any assistance would be MORE than
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Aug 28, 2008
2x160 GB drives in a RAID-0 holding my boot driveI want to move it do: A) Ideally 2x250 GB drives in a RAID-0 or B) A 400 GB drive.I've tried:Straight up copying/restoring in Disk Utilit Carbon Copy Cloner File-levelCarbon Copy Cloner Block-levelI can copy everything, but I wind up not having the system recognize the new drive(s) as a boot drive.
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Jun 23, 2009
Can anyone please suggest a RAID card for a MAC Pro that will also let me get into Boot Camp.
I have a Rocketraid 2644 connected to an external box with a RAID 0 array but it forces me to boot into OS X and nothing else
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Jun 4, 2012
So I have a Mac Pro with Bay 1 acting as my regular start up drive. I also have three other Western Digital 500GB hard drives that I have been using as a RAID backup system. However, when I place all three of the RAID hard drives into Bays 2, 3, and 4, the computer will not boot. It never reaches the Apple logo, and continually tries to restart. So I figured one of the hard drives was corrupt.
However, I have tested all three hard drives in Bay 2 and the computer will boot just fine. I have also tested each bay individually (i.e. the same RAID hard drive in each of the Bays seperately) and the computer still boots fine. I can even power up with any two hard drives in Bays 2 and 3. The only time I can't power up is when all three of the hard drives are occupying all three of the extra bays.
Also, none of the RAID hard drives show up in Disk Utility or on the desktop. Shouldn't I be able to view them as normal internal or external hard drives being plugged into my Mac? They do show up in RAID Utility. Is this normal with RAID hard drives, or should they always show up in Disk Utility?
I created a new RAID backup with two of the drives together (Bays 2 and 3) and it recognizes it in System profiler. However, I want to be able to use all three drives for the RAID.
Info:
Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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Sep 22, 2010
I'll be going with the OWC SSD(s) ExtremePro for the boot drive................ either a 2x60 OSX SW RAID 0 or single 120. I'd rather err on the side of safety but always looking for more umph If going RAID 0 would it be advised to go with a dedicated controller?My data drive will be 2x1T RAID 0.
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May 9, 2008
I'd like to set up a separate 3-drive striped software Raid0 solution in Vista to increase write performance for FRAPS capturing, but need guidance on how to proceed.
Mac Pro 8-core 2.8GHz "Early 2008" 14GB RAM WD 640GB x4
Drive1 - Mac OS 10.5.2 / Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit (Boot Camp 2.1)
Drive2 - Striped Raid0 1/3
Drive3 - Striped Raid0 2/3
Drive4 - Striped Raid0 3/3
The 3 latter drives is what I'm trying to configure, but don't know how to do so for my Vista partition. Is this even possible? If so, does Vista have this built-in capability, or would I need to download a third-party software raid utility?
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Jul 7, 2008
i would like to reserve my 4th bay for windows only drive and a software raid will be used for these.
what would you think is a better set-up,
3x internal drives (all of the same model, probably WD 640's) set in raid 0 (both serve as boot drive and scratch disk) occupying bays 1, 2, and 3. In this set-up, everything (DVD's, music, photos, final cut media) would be stored on this array.
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Dec 31, 2008
Compatible to PCI-e 2.0
Boot to Mac OS X with Mac Pro (2006-2008) Models
Boot to Single Drive or RAID Array
Well,finaly it's bootable and raid bootable.Does anybody know is ti bootcampable?I just come back from windows,I find I lost so much,I can't even use foobar2000 and my 9800gt.
I hope it will be a positive answer
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Jun 5, 2010
Can you just install a vanilla PC raid card into a MP, stripe a few empty drives in a RAID 0 config, and make OS X ignore both the RAID card and the NTFS striped drives when switching to and from Leopard?
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Dec 1, 2010
This is what I've done so far: I set a Stripped Raid Set with two drives: a Seagate 500GB @7200 and the original WD 640GB @7200. Before setting the Raid, I partitioned the latter in two: a 500GB and a 160GB, so the extra space is not lost. The Raid was created successfully (using the disk utility Raid - no special hardware). So far, is this OK (specially the partition part)? Now, my question is, what's the best way to migrate all my apps and data, from the original single boot drive I've been using until now, to the Raid - so the benefits of the raid are most apparent?
a) As soon as the raid was set, still inside Disk Utility, I used the Restore function, using the original boot volume as source, and the raid volume as target. This is in progress, with an eta of 4 hours, but I can stop it at any time... is this the best way?
b) Another way that occurs to me, is to clone the boot volume to the Raid using Superduper or CCC....?
c) Or perhaps I should make a clean OS install in the Raid volume, and then use migration assistant or other method to bring the apps and data to the raid?Or, something else I haven't thought of...?
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Aug 31, 2007
Is it possible to boot a Powermac G5 Dual 2 GHz using the built in software Raid 0? I know that this can be set up using disk utility but wondered if it was possible to boot from the RAID set.
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Mar 15, 2009
I thought i'd share this with everyone if anyone has been interested or curious to do the same, I have installed a Raid 0 setup in my 2.4ghz Aluminum macbook using 250gb and 320gb Seagate 7200.3 2.5" drives with 16mb cache each. The reason its 2 different sizes? Because i'm stupid! I bought the 320 thinking the other drive was 320 aswell- only realising once i had installed both that they were different sizes. Not to fear- the raid would be slowed down by the slowest drive, specification wise they are both the same so no problems there. In fact in my case it creates something which is quite awesome- individual boot partitions on each drive.
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Jul 19, 2009
I purchased a 128gb Patriot Torqx to run as the boot drive for my Mac Pro. I know that the new Intels are coming but I am happy with the Patriots and wanted some instant gratification. The machine is definetly snappier but doesn't quite have the pep as my MBP running a 256gb SSD as the sole HDD.
I have (3) 1 TB 5400 rpm drives in a striped RAID array. It seems sometimes when I start an application that lives on the SSD boot drive, the other drives begin to run as well (I can hear them spinning). Any thoughts on what could be done to speed up my system and also make sure that the SSD runs as independent from the traditional Hdd's as possible?I am running a early 2008 Intel 2.8ghz machine, 8 cores, 6gb RAM.
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Jul 11, 2009
I just got a used mac pro quad. I plan to use it for video production- final cut pro, pics - aperture, and music production- protools. THe computer came with 3 - 10k rpm 160g hd's. Two of them are set up as a raid 0. I like the idea of having a faster drive as a boot drive, but 160 seems kind of small to me as the drive to run memory hungry apps and the operating system. Am I right? I could go to a 300g 10k rpm drive. I am also thinking about getting a bigger drive, say a 750g or 1 tb 7200 rpm. Should I use this as the boot drive or as a secondary storage drive?. If it's the boot drive should I add the other 160g 10k drive to the raid or keep it separate? I assume that neither way would be wrong, nor create a problem, but since I haven't put anything on it yet, I'm wondering what would be the most efficient way to manage my files and get the most out of my computer.
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Oct 15, 2009
So I have followed a bunch of the 'MacPro with mac raid card users wanting to do bootcamp' threads. I have attempted all the hacking required but have not been successful. I heard that bootcamp 3.1 will fix this problem possibly... so in the mean time I would like to remove my SAS drives and raid card and just use the sata drives that I have to do Mac OS and Windows.
I have removed the card but when I plug the drives in and boot up the machine, the drives are not recognized. Is there some plug that I need to reconnect somewheres?
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Mar 8, 2010
I've been looking at the Mac Mini server for my next computer purchase, but I've had a few things confuse about the set up. I've seen at least one thread where someone got their Mini server to use RAID 1 settings on the dual internal drive set up.
What I want to know is will a RAID 1 configuration play nice with Boot Camp?
Is it even possible to use boot camp on a RAID 1 configuration?and if it is possible, would the RAID 1 duplicate the Bootcamp Partition too?
These are three important questions because I like the idea of the RAID 1 security and because I'll be pairing it with a Blu-ray drive I'd most likely have to install Windows via Boot Camp to watch them.
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May 3, 2012
After many hours of head-banging, I now realize that Lion cannot be installed on a boot drive that is part of an Apple software mirrored RAID (early Mac Pro hardware, Snow Leopard.)Something about a limitation that a RAID drive cannot be repartitioned to allow for the creation of the Recovery partition.Sad, but so be it.So, I plan to use SuperDouper! to copy my boot drive to a fresh, non-RAID drive, boot from that drive, and then and install Lion there.Once I have done that, will I be able to add the new Lion boot drive to a new Apple Software RAID mirror set? Or is Lion simply not capable of being booted from a software RAID device?
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Oct 1, 2008
I have a single boot disk with just the apps on, and 2 disks in a software mirrored RAID in which I keep all the important stuff.Its just occurred to me, if the boot drive fails won't the software RAID be destroyed as well?Or will it be easy to recover the data off one of the previously RAID1 disks, when the new boot drive is installed?
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