At the Jaguar premiere at the Palo Alto Apple store an expert told me that you are wasting your disk space to put the OS on the Raid drives. He told me the best thing to do would be to put the OS hard drive on the 66 MHz bus (that's the one that's not connected when you get the MDD) and do the raid in addition to it. He said that the OS will never get faster by putting it on the raid or the 100 MHz bus. So I'm planning on putting a spare 30GB 7200 RPM drive I have on the 66MHz bus of my 1.25GHz MDD and adding another IBM 120GB drive to the 100 MHz bus for my 240 GB raid.
Think of virtual memory, background loading and storing files, opening iApps (which should be
placed on start volume for internet upgrading purposes) and so on...
The Apple "tech" should go home.
His "solution" needs three disks. And the first nonraid only used for OS means clearly using space.
And what is this an arguement for "danger of data loss"?
The danger of loosing your data is worthy to think of your data but shure not the OS. You can reinstall the OS (even if its takes time) but not data files - if you haven't bachupped them.
And don't forget: you can backup your OS too.
Use CarbonCopyCloner.
The only trivial truth of the last post is that raid 0 will
double the risk of data loss - if you do not frequently backup.
On one channel? You need two channels. The 66 and the 100. Master-and-slave-raid would be a bad idea because a modern drive delivers up to 45 MB/s. Plus overhead and there is not much space for the data of the second drive. You need two real data channels for raid.
Just that the additional cost and risk of 2 extra disks, small ones to save costs even, is not going to justify the deal, if you can up your physical RAM and therefore bypass the performance benefits you'd get out of a faster RAID system.
Plus running a master/slave setup on an ATA-100 bus is barely going to be filled for sustained reads/writes.
For a professional work machine, I'd consider it pointless to fiddle with RAIDs for the OS disk.
Either you have the money for real hardware driven RAIDs 0+1 or more or you don't have the money and don't need it either.
And if you like dicking around for "play's" sake, you won't care about security problems either. Who cares if you lose your MP3 collection, because you put it on the RAID 0 and didn't know that if one drive fails, all content is gone....backups, what's that?
Get 4 fast and big harddrives a RAID controller and set it up as a 0+1, that's the only way to go for speed and security.
Well I was thinking about going for the 1GHz Dual machine with the 80GB 7,200rpm drive.
In addition I also have two identical Maxtor 80GB drives that are 5,400rpm (I think they are UltraATA/66). I'd like to set these up as a RAID stripe set and effectively have a very fast 160GB set. This would be ideal for my mp3 files and movies.
I'm also going to max out the RAM as soon as possible.
I'm guessing that I should leave the stock drive where it is and install the OS, and put the pair of Maxtors on the UltraATA/66 channel.
I'll be backing up the files to DVD-RW or CD.
Does this sound sensible? Any suggestions would be appreciated!
But know this: RAID 0 works in that way that the OS writes half of the file to the first HD and at the same time the other hald to the other HD.
That leaves you with nearly 2x the speed of a single drive (theoretically), but also increases your chances of losing your data by a factor or 1.9. Because, if one drive dies (assuming you can't repair it, headcrash or worse), you're left with one drive that contains only "half-files" and is thus worthless. So you lose all your data.
I do know people who had a single RAID 0 for the OS and files, caught a virus (a bad one, on a PC of course) which killed the RAID...=> 100% data loss, including several GB of Divx and MP3.
As I said, if your data is only fun stuff, it's half as bad. But remember that for business people, the data is ALWAYS the most valuable part of an IT system.
You're free to do what you want, I just wanted to warn you.
I just lost my 40GB HD without having very recent backups (well, except my Msc project fortunately). I don't really want to have to burn CD's regularly or use tapes. RAID-1 or RAID-5 seems perfect for me. HD's are fairly cheap anyway.
What do you guys think? Should I use software RAID in my soon to buy dual 867 or one of the ATA-133 RAID cards? Will the first harm my performance much? Technically I like RAID-5 very much, but the cards are very expensive and I've never heard of the company that creates NXRAID (nor do I trust a 1.0 version of low-level software).
<strong>I do know people who had a single RAID 0 for the OS and files, caught a virus (a bad one, on a PC of course) which killed the RAID...=> 100% data loss, including several GB of Divx and MP3.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's not the fault of RAID 0, nor can you prevent it using RAID 1. The virus is just a program that deleted all the files. If a nasty program has the priviliges to delete all the files on your harddisk, only a seperate backup will save you. RAID 0 will dutifully remove the deleted files from both drives, it doesn't provide historical recovery.
<strong>Wow, this is more complicated than I thought.
Well I was thinking about going for the 1GHz Dual machine with the 80GB 7,200rpm drive.
In addition I also have two identical Maxtor 80GB drives that are 5,400rpm (I think they are UltraATA/66). I'd like to set these up as a RAID stripe set and effectively have a very fast 160GB set. This would be ideal for my mp3 files and movies.
I'm also going to max out the RAM as soon as possible.
I'm guessing that I should leave the stock drive where it is and install the OS, and put the pair of Maxtors on the UltraATA/66 channel.
I'll be backing up the files to DVD-RW or CD.
Does this sound sensible? Any suggestions would be appreciated!</strong><hr></blockquote>
I would only use RAID 0 for files that you can afford to lose. Examples: Scratch area for Photoshop, temporary DV storage, keeping movies and mp3 that you also have backed up, etc.
<strong>No the virus didn't wipe all the files, it only killed the volume info. A RAID 1 repair function most certainly would have saved his data.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Why wouldn't the virus have wiped out the volume info on both disks? I don't get it.
<strong>That's the point, it only wiped it on one disk, but because the disks depend on each other in RAID 0 mode, both were rendered useless.
G-news</strong><hr></blockquote>
But on RAID 1, the disks are effectively one disk as well. If I do a format, both disks get wiped. So why would it stop a virus from doing something similar?
it is correct that the drives effectively are just one drive, but the second drive is storing exactly the same as the first, backing all it's data up. Which means killing the volume info on either drive would not destroy any data.
The point in RAID 1 is that the data is stored redundantly, so you always have everything twice. While RAID 0 is designed to store data striped/shared so that you store it fast and also read it fast. The virus case is probably not the best example to show the risks of RAID 0, as I'm unsure wether it actually also goes through the RAID 1 software routine, wiping data on both disks, or not. Take the physical headcrash instead, that occurs on one drive but not on the other, saving you the data.
I guess one would have to look at the source of the virus to be able to determine if it's RAID 1 proof or not.
Interesting topic and just what I've been looking for.
Would anyone care to recommend info or links to hardware raid options for the Power Mac? SCSI or IDE would be fine but preferably SCSI.
Btw, I'd like to add my 2 cents to this thread so here goes.
I'm sure most of the readers on this thread know this but I sense there are those who are still confused.
Consider RAID 1 or RAID 5 as both security strategies while RAID 0 is purely a performance strategy. None of the first two RAID options (1 or 5) guarantees data integrity indefinitely as you can hypothesize situations where they can fail and hence why the need for backups is CRITICAL especially for anything that can't be regenerated in a snap like data as opposed to OS and applications which can be reinstalled from scratch. RAID 1 and 5 do guarantee fast recovery and limited downtime when confronted with the most likely scenarios of one failed or corrupted disk. Even a typical RAID 5 (less than 5 drives) will not protect you should some freak situation destroy or affect 2 or more drives.
If you want the most performance and excellent data security for your OS and applications then RAID 0 two drives and mirror those two for a total of 4 drives. It's my opinion that with today's fast drives, a RAID 1 would be amply sufficient for the OS and applications drive. IMO, data should be stored on RAID 0 drives when you absolutely need performance, or RAID 5 when data security is critical between backup intervals. In all cases, regardless of what you are doing and what you are storing, BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP and BACKUP everything that changes. Most often this is only the application data like a database, your video project, photos etc. You normally only need to backup your OS and applications only when they change which is in most circumstances very occasionally for most home users.
Comments
If you want this use a PCI-IDE-card with hardware RAID.
Virtually doubles your chances of losing your data.
OS on a seperate disk makes sense
but if your using virtual memory, ie if you have little ram, i'd put it on the 100 anyway
the raid meanwhile is going to be fast on a ata-66 too.
G-News
Whats that? Think before write:
The OS on a Raid 0 makes the computer
much more responsive. Much more!
Think of virtual memory, background loading and storing files, opening iApps (which should be
placed on start volume for internet upgrading purposes) and so on...
The Apple "tech" should go home.
His "solution" needs three disks. And the first nonraid only used for OS means clearly using space.
And what is this an arguement for "danger of data loss"?
The danger of loosing your data is worthy to think of your data but shure not the OS. You can reinstall the OS (even if its takes time) but not data files - if you haven't bachupped them.
And don't forget: you can backup your OS too.
Use CarbonCopyCloner.
The only trivial truth of the last post is that raid 0 will
double the risk of data loss - if you do not frequently backup.
Do you aggree?
How do yo do a raid system on the ATA66-channel?
On one channel? You need two channels. The 66 and the 100. Master-and-slave-raid would be a bad idea because a modern drive delivers up to 45 MB/s. Plus overhead and there is not much space for the data of the second drive. You need two real data channels for raid.
Sure, put your OS ona RAID 0 if you want speed.
Just that the additional cost and risk of 2 extra disks, small ones to save costs even, is not going to justify the deal, if you can up your physical RAM and therefore bypass the performance benefits you'd get out of a faster RAID system.
Plus running a master/slave setup on an ATA-100 bus is barely going to be filled for sustained reads/writes.
For a professional work machine, I'd consider it pointless to fiddle with RAIDs for the OS disk.
Either you have the money for real hardware driven RAIDs 0+1 or more or you don't have the money and don't need it either.
And if you like dicking around for "play's" sake, you won't care about security problems either. Who cares if you lose your MP3 collection, because you put it on the RAID 0 and didn't know that if one drive fails, all content is gone....backups, what's that?
Get 4 fast and big harddrives a RAID controller and set it up as a 0+1, that's the only way to go for speed and security.
G-News
Well I was thinking about going for the 1GHz Dual machine with the 80GB 7,200rpm drive.
In addition I also have two identical Maxtor 80GB drives that are 5,400rpm (I think they are UltraATA/66). I'd like to set these up as a RAID stripe set and effectively have a very fast 160GB set. This would be ideal for my mp3 files and movies.
I'm also going to max out the RAM as soon as possible.
I'm guessing that I should leave the stock drive where it is and install the OS, and put the pair of Maxtors on the UltraATA/66 channel.
I'll be backing up the files to DVD-RW or CD.
Does this sound sensible? Any suggestions would be appreciated!
But know this: RAID 0 works in that way that the OS writes half of the file to the first HD and at the same time the other hald to the other HD.
That leaves you with nearly 2x the speed of a single drive (theoretically), but also increases your chances of losing your data by a factor or 1.9. Because, if one drive dies (assuming you can't repair it, headcrash or worse), you're left with one drive that contains only "half-files" and is thus worthless. So you lose all your data.
I do know people who had a single RAID 0 for the OS and files, caught a virus (a bad one, on a PC of course) which killed the RAID...=> 100% data loss, including several GB of Divx and MP3.
As I said, if your data is only fun stuff, it's half as bad. But remember that for business people, the data is ALWAYS the most valuable part of an IT system.
You're free to do what you want, I just wanted to warn you.
G-News
<a href="http://www.nyro.com/nxraid/"; target="_blank">NXRAID</a>
BTW:
[standard knowledge on]
combined striping and error correction needs just 3 drives.
[standard knowlegde off]
What do you guys think? Should I use software RAID in my soon to buy dual 867 or one of the ATA-133 RAID cards? Will the first harm my performance much? Technically I like RAID-5 very much, but the cards are very expensive and I've never heard of the company that creates NXRAID (nor do I trust a 1.0 version of low-level software).
<strong>I do know people who had a single RAID 0 for the OS and files, caught a virus (a bad one, on a PC of course) which killed the RAID...=> 100% data loss, including several GB of Divx and MP3.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's not the fault of RAID 0, nor can you prevent it using RAID 1. The virus is just a program that deleted all the files. If a nasty program has the priviliges to delete all the files on your harddisk, only a seperate backup will save you. RAID 0 will dutifully remove the deleted files from both drives, it doesn't provide historical recovery.
<strong>Wow, this is more complicated than I thought.
Well I was thinking about going for the 1GHz Dual machine with the 80GB 7,200rpm drive.
In addition I also have two identical Maxtor 80GB drives that are 5,400rpm (I think they are UltraATA/66). I'd like to set these up as a RAID stripe set and effectively have a very fast 160GB set. This would be ideal for my mp3 files and movies.
I'm also going to max out the RAM as soon as possible.
I'm guessing that I should leave the stock drive where it is and install the OS, and put the pair of Maxtors on the UltraATA/66 channel.
I'll be backing up the files to DVD-RW or CD.
Does this sound sensible? Any suggestions would be appreciated!</strong><hr></blockquote>
I would only use RAID 0 for files that you can afford to lose. Examples: Scratch area for Photoshop, temporary DV storage, keeping movies and mp3 that you also have backed up, etc.
G-News
<strong>No the virus didn't wipe all the files, it only killed the volume info. A RAID 1 repair function most certainly would have saved his data.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Why wouldn't the virus have wiped out the volume info on both disks? I don't get it.
[ 09-13-2002: Message edited by: wfzelle ]</p>
G-news
<strong>That's the point, it only wiped it on one disk, but because the disks depend on each other in RAID 0 mode, both were rendered useless.
G-news</strong><hr></blockquote>
But on RAID 1, the disks are effectively one disk as well. If I do a format, both disks get wiped. So why would it stop a virus from doing something similar?
The point in RAID 1 is that the data is stored redundantly, so you always have everything twice. While RAID 0 is designed to store data striped/shared so that you store it fast and also read it fast. The virus case is probably not the best example to show the risks of RAID 0, as I'm unsure wether it actually also goes through the RAID 1 software routine, wiping data on both disks, or not. Take the physical headcrash instead, that occurs on one drive but not on the other, saving you the data.
I guess one would have to look at the source of the virus to be able to determine if it's RAID 1 proof or not.
G-News
Would anyone care to recommend info or links to hardware raid options for the Power Mac? SCSI or IDE would be fine but preferably SCSI.
Btw, I'd like to add my 2 cents to this thread so here goes.
I'm sure most of the readers on this thread know this but I sense there are those who are still confused.
Consider RAID 1 or RAID 5 as both security strategies while RAID 0 is purely a performance strategy. None of the first two RAID options (1 or 5) guarantees data integrity indefinitely as you can hypothesize situations where they can fail and hence why the need for backups is CRITICAL especially for anything that can't be regenerated in a snap like data as opposed to OS and applications which can be reinstalled from scratch. RAID 1 and 5 do guarantee fast recovery and limited downtime when confronted with the most likely scenarios of one failed or corrupted disk. Even a typical RAID 5 (less than 5 drives) will not protect you should some freak situation destroy or affect 2 or more drives.
If you want the most performance and excellent data security for your OS and applications then RAID 0 two drives and mirror those two for a total of 4 drives. It's my opinion that with today's fast drives, a RAID 1 would be amply sufficient for the OS and applications drive. IMO, data should be stored on RAID 0 drives when you absolutely need performance, or RAID 5 when data security is critical between backup intervals. In all cases, regardless of what you are doing and what you are storing, BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP and BACKUP everything that changes. Most often this is only the application data like a database, your video project, photos etc. You normally only need to backup your OS and applications only when they change which is in most circumstances very occasionally for most home users.
Hope I didn't bore anyone with my 2 cents.