Mac OS X & RAID

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roonsterroonster
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I've got a PowerMac G4 800MHz, and two 80GB Maxtor ATA drives. I'd like to configure them as a RAID "Stripe Set", and then install Mac OS X.



It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation, because I can configure them, but then the Mac OS X installer ignores them! If I install Mac OS X on one first, then I can't configure them as a Stripe Set without losing the contents of both (including the Mac OS X installation I want to keep).



Does anyone have any suggestions?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    whisperwhisper Posts: 735member
    [quote]Originally posted by Roonster:

    <strong>I've got a PowerMac G4 800MHz, and two 80GB Maxtor ATA drives. I'd like to configure them as a RAID "Stripe Set", and then install Mac OS X.



    It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation, because I can configure them, but then the Mac OS X installer ignores them! If I install Mac OS X on one first, then I can't configure them as a Stripe Set without losing the contents of both (including the Mac OS X installation I want to keep).



    Does anyone have any suggestions?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I *think* the OS X installer CD has a copy of Drive Setup on it. Poke around in the menus when it asks you where to install. Oh, FWIW, I'm pretty sure that OS 9 can't read the raid format that OS X uses. Best of luck.
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  • Reply 2 of 4
    arakageetaarakageeta Posts: 141member
    I posted this over at macosxhints's forum, but haven't gotten any replies. Since there is already a thread on RAIDs, I guess I'll post my question here:



    I am thinking about setting up my computer's HD into a RAID 0. I understand this can be done now with Apple's DriveSetup. I already have a 40gig 7200 HD. I am thinking about buying another 60gig 7200 (IBM's 120gxp).



    Here are a few questions:

    1. How great of an increase in speed might I see?

    2. What are the issues concerning unbalanced raid disks? (ex. one larger than another or one faster than another)

    3. Does the processes of running a raid increase the chance of data corruption? If so, how much?

    4. What happens if I need to run a disk utility like Norton and whatnot?

    5. Is OS X raid stuff compatible with full-on OS 9?



    Thanks.

    -Glenn
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  • Reply 3 of 4
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    [quote]Originally posted by Arakageeta:

    <strong>I am thinking about setting up my computer's HD into a RAID 0. I understand this can be done now with Apple's DriveSetup. I already have a 40gig 7200 HD. I am thinking about buying another 60gig 7200 (IBM's 120gxp).



    Here are a few questions:

    1. How great of an increase in speed might I see?

    2. What are the issues concerning unbalanced raid disks? (ex. one larger than another or one faster than another)

    3. Does the processes of running a raid increase the chance of data corruption? If so, how much?

    4. What happens if I need to run a disk utility like Norton and whatnot?

    5. Is OS X raid stuff compatible with full-on OS 9? </strong><hr></blockquote>



    1) Roughly double for read and write with RAID 0

    2) Ideally, you want identical disks...same model, same firmware, etc.

    3) RAID 0 increases your chances of data loss by 2x because you have 2x the hardware with no real redundancy. With RAID 1 you get your data mirrored across both drives. Write speed is the same as a single drive's...read speed is better.

    4) Not sure, probably transparent.

    5) Not sure.
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  • Reply 4 of 4
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Update...



    At this time, RAID volumes created with Disk Utility are not bootable. They also do not mount in OS 9.
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