OS X :: Building File Server - Best / Safest RAID Setup?
Jun 24, 2010
I am currently building a RAID setup for storage of iTunes and other files. I have 4 hard drive spots to work with. I have been throwing around a few options. safest way of doing this would be great!
Option 1:
4 x 1.5TB (2x1.5TB RAID 0 + 2x1.5TB RAID 0 Clone) What would be the worst case scenario with this? if one hard drive fails I would just use the clone or vice versa.
Option 2:
4 x 1.5TB RAID 1 with no clone. Which of these is the better option? or is there an option 3?
Well I am building a file server/hackintosh. I want to run OS X and linux and possible windows. Is it better to just use separate smaller HDs are split a larger HD into thirds with a partition? Or does it even matter?
I have just finished setting up my first Lion Server from scratch on a Mac Mini with dual 500GB Drives which I set up as RAID 1. I have the server exactly as I want it, and before the users start logging on and it gets all screwed up I would like to create a disk image of it so that I could reinstall if necessary w/o having to start from scratch.Â
Is the process of creating a disk image for a RAID 1 any different than that of a disk image from a single drive set up? Will Disk utility just see this as a single volume or will it want to create a disk image of the entire RAID? i.e will the disk image be 1 TB (500 GB x 2)? And when it comes to reimaging my RAID, will I just recreate a RAID 1 and be able to write to it from that disk image?Â
I have a bunch of Mac Computers here and I want to make a file server for them with about 5 drives in an RAID array to be a little bit secure. I am fairly certain how to go about and build myself a basic file server for a bunch of PCs networked together, but I am not sure about how to do it for a network of Macs.
What's the safest way to copy a 6 gb .dmg file that has 4 gb of data on it, to another .dmg file with the same name, same data just changing to 5gb size.
My brother is going to start school in June for Film. He is all set to buy a Mac and knows the software side of things but not so much the Hardware side.
I have a few questions:
1. Should extra hard drives be bought third party?
2. Should he do a raid setup for backups?
3. How much memory should he buy for Final Cut operations? (third party)
4. Should he look into getting a Dell monitor instead of Apple? What is a comparable Dell monitor?
My system is MacPro 2009 with 10.6.8 server and Apple RAID card. Last week, RAID util just notified me of one drive is not viable, so i decided to replace the drive today. The configuration of my system is... There is an Apple Raid Card for HW Raid system Bay 1 = 640 TB drive with Mac OS X 10.6.8 server installed Bay 2, 3, 4 = 1.5 TB drives set up as RAID 5 below is what I did to replace the degraded Bay 4...Â
1. I shut down the system
2. replaced the corrupted drive with the new hard drive
3. tried start the machine again.Now my machine refuses to start up with the blinking question mark... I guess that the system fails to recognize the new drive or cannot find the system files...Â
4. So I put back the degraded drive...
5. The machine still won't start...
6. I tried to use the 10.6 server installation disk to boot up the machine to check if I can fix the system via disk util; but, everytime I do this, I got kernel panic... Â
7. resetting PR Ram didn't help, cannot boot up via safe mode as well (since the system file is not accessible now, I guess...).
8. booting via 10.6.2 server installation DVD still gives me kernel panic... Â
Why would my system corrupt by just replacing one degrade drive? The Mac OS X is not even the part of the Raid system... How am I supposed to fix this issue with out the installation disk?
I have 2 1TB drives coming in on Monday, and I plan to put them in a mirror RAID using Disk Utility. How reliable is the OS X software RAID setup? Would I be better to just manually backup from one drive to another? The drives will be for my photography, I wanted a mirror setup so I'd finally have a backup of my (current) 250GB's of photos. (Most of which I could probably burn to DVD's but humor me.)
If the RAID crashed somehow via the software, would the data still be recoverable? I have a MP and will be putting them in Bays 3 & 4. Also, is there any benefit to the different block sizes? Since my files will all be at least 7MB would the biggest block size speed it up?
I just got a brand new MAC PRO desktop. It came with a 600GB HDD. I purchased a second identical internal 600GB HDD. I wanted to do setup a RAID 1 using these 2 drives. Currently the main drive has the OS and all my other apps installed. I installed the 2nd drive and was fooling with disk utility. I'm not sure how to set this up however. I tried numerous guides online but I just cant figure it out.
MAC PRO (takes up to 4 internal drives) - currently installed 2 identical drives Leopard Using Disk utility
The RAID tab says "online" and the status is green (indicating the RAID is working). However on my desktop i see the 2nd hardddrive mounted with no contents in it. I just want to able to use the 2nd drive as a mirror so this way if one fails I'm still up and running.
I'm planning to setup a RAID on My Mac Pro (2006 2.66 Quad Core). I know Bootcamp not support Hardware Raid Card. Can I use the Hardware Raid Card for boot Mac OS X and storage Data, and use the onboard controller boot the Bootcamp Drive?
this is what im currently goin with.. SSD as boot/apps and a 1TB for data.. but a couple people suggest 1TB drives in raid.. 1. what do I need for raid? 2. how does it compare against the SSD+1TB setup? 3. can I add raid to the SSD+1TB and get more 1TB drives later?
Basically this would create a big 4 gig array that I could split into multiple partitions. I'd have mirroring and fast performance. I was wondering what the performance difference would be between the Greens and Blacks - Greens are known for worse performance, but I was wondering if in RAID 10 it would even matter.
I have a PowerMac G4 I'd like to use as an "experimental" backup machine. I am looking to try and make a RAID setup in it, and I'm no expert with that. I'm wondering if this is even possible, first. I'm also wondering if I can do this with 2 40 gb drives and a 20 gb drive. I want to make it so it appears as 1 drive. I'd be using tiger and a software RAID if that is of any relevance.
Specs: 500 MHz PowerPC G4 640 MB SDRAM No hard drives currently
Setting up raid 0 for my mac pro 3,1. Right now I have the stock 320GB drive that I use with Mac OS X, and an additional 500GB drive running Win XP through Bootcamp. I read on apple's site that you could stripe multiple drives to create a raid 0 to increase performance on the Mac Pro w/o the raid controller card. So my question is how do I do that? I'm in the process of picking a new 2TB drive to set up the raid with the 320GB OS drive. Since the 500GB one is dedicated for XP I don't think I could include it in the raid right?
I bought this Hard drive under the impression that its going to be easy install. I went through the manual steps to install all went ok to last step which is partition and format using Disk Utility. now i dont know what to do, is the hard drive going to do the Raiding, or I have to setup using Raid tap in Disk Utility? I tried doing Raiding using Disk Utility but couldnt do it, i thought maybe i cant because its hardware raid or i searched until my head exploded, and I feel its easy but i am not getting something tiny here.
I plan on using a set of 5 [2TB] drives in a RAID setup. Looks like WD is the manufacturer but I'm not really seeing a lot of input online for these other than that they have been recertified
I have a Early 2008 Mac Pro. I have the Apple Hardware Raid Card Installed. I have 4 2TB disks installed. Currently I've got the system disk setup in Bay 1 as a single disk. Then I have the disks in bays 2 through 4 setup as a raid 5. I've been thinking that I might be better off to make all 4 disks into a raid 5 array and then just make volumes for the system disk and my work disk. My goal is to have a system volume an a scratch/work volume for image and video editing.
I have two questions. Firstly, I am considering buying a western digital MyBook Studio Edition II [URL]. If I use time machine with this drive, will I be able to remove one of the drives and keep it off-site for safekeeping and have time machine continue to backup on the remaining one as usual? Secondly, if I remove drive #2 and keep it off site, would dropping it back into the raid setup update drive #2 with drive #1's current time machine backup? I'm new to raid, and I am basically trying to have a time machine backup, and a off site backup.
In my Mac Pro I currently have the stock HD as my OS/Home drive, while the other two 1TB WD Black drives are RAID 0 partitioned into a 1.5 TB Data drive and 256GB Scratch. I have these and my OS/home drive backing up to time machine but when I eventually upgrade to 10.6 (and probably clean install) will I lose my RAID setup and have to re-create it byte-by-byte in order to restore from my Time Machine backup? Or would I have to do the 'upgrade' installation to get around this since I used Disc Utility to create my RAID setup?
Yesterday I bought a new Mac Pro. I absolutely LOVE it, and don't care if they replace it tomorrow. It is a terrific machine. I do want to set up two sepeate RAID arrays inside it, and could use a little help, as I've never done this before. I want to set up one array, of two large (say 1TB) drives in mirrored (RAID 1?) format for all my data. I want to set up another of two smaller (300GB) WD Velociraptor drives, which I already own, in striped (RAID 0?) format for the operating system, and my applications, as well as a bootcamp partition.
This is where it gets complicated for me. Much of my data is on one of the velociraptor drives in another computer. My question is, can I install the two new 1TB drives, set them up as RAID 1, using the original drive that came in the Mac Pro, move my data over from the old computer, then install the velociraptors, set up that RAID 0 array, and install the operating system. In other words, will the "new" operating system recognize the data raid array that I had created with the "old" operating system?
An easier question. When setting up the operating system on what will be my new RAID 0 array, do I just boot from the CD? and secondly, do I first set up the striped raid, and then install the operating system, and then the bootcamp partition? Or is there a different sequence to use.OK finally, when booting into windows through bootcamp, will windows be able to see the seperate data RAID array?l
I've been trying to migrate data to a new RAID setup, but have been running into the error code 36 issue where Mac created invisible files are killing the file transfers. At any rate, I tried about three different directory cleanup utilities and for the most part got almost all the data to move. Now I'm onto the last bit which was giving me permissions errors as well.I used Batchmod to make everything read write and I ALSO CLEARED THE XTARS. Worked like a charm and everthing transfered. HOWEVER. Killing the extened attributes of the files turned them all into Executible files with no program ownership. BTW, there are font files so there are hundreds of them. Is there anyway to re-assign them or get some of the attributes back?Â
Literally just got shiny new miniMac Server with the dual 70GB internakky hard drives/disks with OS X 10.7.$ LION pre-installed. What a nice machine in a super cool box Seemed to bootup and run fine!Now my issue (there will be more for this MAC newbie):How to setup AND more importantly (item B below) CONFIRM that a RAID MIRROR is working? Want nothing fancier than 2-nd drive is exact duplicate of 1-st drive at all times. That is, an 'active and full up-to -the second" backup of the main 1-st drive.I have done nothing to 1-st drive as it came from APPLE.When I try to setup RAID set using DISK Utility, I get message about system(1-st drive) can't be used in a RAID or such.
yet I can add 2-nd drive to what I tink is a RAID set and then 'Enable' it.It seems to add another entry to thr left-side of drves list panel but not sure that 1-st and 2-nd drives are BOTH in the new "RAID SET' or that the set just consists of the "single" 2-nd disk? B. I don't think that 1-st drive data is actually being duplicated to 2-nd drive.For instance, how do I know that it was 'caught up' to match 1-st drive AND then is [code]
Info: Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.4), Pre-instaDual Internal drives/disks
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...?
We are trying to set up a system where 4 computers are connected to a set of hard drives and connected through Ethernet. We'd like a fast speed. Which systems to get? Which cable is fastest? Is it hard to set up?
Meeting with my IT dept this afternoon to go over final configuration options for the 09 MP I'm getting. I've monitored these forums for the past month, and I think I'm close but have a few more questions. Note: This will be the first Mac in an all-PC environment. No one at our help desk is trained to support Macs.
1. RAID setup - Based on another thread I started, it seems to make sense to go with the 640 GB system drive, an Areca ARC-1212 card, and 3 x Western Digital 1TB RE3s. By my calculations, this would be a better setup for half the cost of going with the Apple RAID and their 3 x 1TB drives.
My IT dept realizes this, but no one here has much experience setting up RAIDs, let alone on Macs, which they will be learning to support on the fly. Because of this, they are leaning toward the Apple RAID card, if only for Apple support reasons. Can anyone who has experience with Areca vouch for their quality of tech support and/or the ease of setting this up? Does going with a non-Apple option for a RAID have any effect on the Apple Care warranty?
2. Graphics Card - To use my existing (PC workstation) setup of 2x24� dell monitors plus a 19� preview monitor, the Apple rep said I would need the 2xNVIDIA GeForce GT 120 option (plus the Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter option) to run a non-Apple display for the third monitor. He mentioned they do sell more powerful cards to handle my same monitor setup, but they would have to be purchased separately and we�d still have to get the one I just mentioned.
I want to setup a mail server from a Mac OS X server machine.
I used the standard configuration as the wizard is going to setup all the services automatically.
I have an email of the kind server.com
After the finish of the configuration all the system was working perfectly, except one thing. I could not browse to any .com address I could not resolve the apple.com address. This is actually a DNS server issue and as my DNS server is hosted to my ISP, I closed the DNS service from the Server admin app. Now I could browse to .com addresses but all the settings to the client computers need to be done manually. Meaning not from the Directory utility. The problem is that the address of the server was changed from server.com to server.local so all the settings now are server.local, including my email address that changed from user@server.com to user@server.local that cannot be replayed from the recipient
My Question is can I change the default configuration settings that the directory utility sets?? or do any other configuration to solve the issue.
Also in the webmail when I send an email the email of the sender is the username continued by the ISP's internal static IP host which is different to my server.com. I found a solution to change the email from the personal information tag of the options button. Can I also pre configure these settings to be ready as a new user is created??
I'd like to setup a network account on Lion Server and allow that account to VPN in to my server. But I want this account to have limited access to my LAN, similar to how the stovepiped "Guest Network" works with Airport Extremes. I don't see any way to assign specific network accounts specific IP ranges outside the normal, say, 10.0.1/24. Is there even any way to assign a specific account something in the range,say, 10.0.2/24? Any way to further limit network access for Lion Server VPN sessions?
Info: Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.3), Lion Server, 8 GB
I've googled and searched, I can't see what I'm missing, so I am turning to the community for help, because I simply don't get this. I own 2 domain names. I'd like to use the build in Mail Server application into SL Server, so if your suggestion is using another mail server, please don't post that.Â
Let's say my domain's are domain1.com and domain2.com I've looked at the Mail Server Admin user guide, and I've followed a couple of wizzards, and... all in all, I am getting no where. Let's also say my email client is my iPhone.Â
Ok, so domain1.com currently has no email with my current provider, and domain2.com currently has email from my current provider, it's my desire to eventually switch this, but experimenting on domain1.com will do no harm, so I am experimenting on this. Both domains give me the ability to point to an mx address.Â
Here's what I've done. I've got my user created in Workgroup Administrator, and I am confiuguring my LDAP3v, and I am authenticated enough to create and delete users.Â
***I Should note that DNS is currently disabled, I gathered from all my reading that I don't need the DNS enabled because I manually put in the MX record to mail.domain1.com and domain1.com is correctly identified. The server is also the webserver, and all the web server functions are working as expected! I don't know if not having the DNS enabled is holding me back or not ***Â
1st, I enabled the mail service in the Server Admin. My domain name is ServerName.local and my host name is mail.domain1.com (I created an a entry in my dns settings for that). Enable SMTP is set, IMAP and POP are enabled as well.
I don't intend on setting a relay, because I want this server to do send email out. I do have some cases where I send a mass email out, not for spam but for Christmas card purposes, and I think this is a good free way to not have to limit myself to batches of 50 or so.
I have my created SSL certificate, and havce only the Kerberos and CRAM-MD5 settings set in the security.
In my hosting section, I have enabled Virtual hosting, and listed my domain1.com and domain2.com below.
Now in workgroup manager, I've connected to my LDAP3v database and created a test user, and a test group. In the server admin, I added the test group to the list of authenticated mail users. I made my test user a member of the test group, and made that his default group. I enabled the mail service, and set the mail server which is ServerName.local, and enabled POP and IMAP.Â
That's it. I've done nothing in terminal, just that. I was getting a user unable to authenticate error, it was able to download the certificate though. Then I realzed I had an MXE defined in my settings for my DNS domain manager. So I changed to an MX, to mail.domain1.com and then I created mail.domain1.com pointing to the same IP address as domain1.com, and unfortunately the DNS records haven't updated yet, because I initially didn't create the mail.domain1.com entry, and now it's saying the server isn't responding, so I am anxiously awaiting an update from the DNS in the world to see if the issue has now cleared up.Â
Info: Mac mini Server (Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
I'm thinking about getting a Mac Pro tower from apple, and then buying two 500gb hard drives to place them in a raid 0 config. My question is, is setting up raid as easy as taking out the existing hard drive, placing both the new drives into the mac pro, and selecting raid 0 from OSX when I reinstall the operating system?? Or does the Mac have something similar to a Bios setup where I select that?
