Mac Mini Disc Usage - RAID 1 setup

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Mac Mini Disc Usage - RAID 1 setup

I am new to both Mac and server operations. Purchased a Mac Mini w/ Server software installed for very small office network with two Macbook Pros. Having had several hard drives fail in the past I was interested in using the two drives in the mini to create a RAID1 setup. However, I also noticed some people keep server info on one drive and data on the other using external drives for RAID1. What is the advantage of separating out the data? Also I would like to backup the entire configuration to a removable disc but am unsure about what might be best (looking for simplicity, no overkill and of course reasonable price). Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Jan 11, 2010 1:30 PM

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Answer 1

carana

Level 1

50 points

Jan 14, 2010 12:16 PM in response to svrnewbie

I have deployed 5 Minis to project offices over the past 5 months, and I'm about to deploy the first Mini Server.

With the standard Minis my hardware list was as follows:
A) Mini with Snow Leopard Server 10.6.2 4GB RAM 250GB internal drive
B) Guardian Maximus RAID-1 Firewire 800 drive box
C) MiniStack 250GB USB2 drive
D) MiniStack 2T USB2 drive

My layout is as follows:
A) The 250GB internal drive is the OS drive only
B) The firewire RAID-1 drive is where my shared folders live
C) The 250GB drive is where the OS drive gets cloned weekly
D) The 2T drive is where the OS time machine backups and the nightly data drive backups live

With the Mini Server, the only changes I've made to the above layout is changing the MiniStack 250GB to a MiniStack 500GB, and using the second internal drive to create a RAID-1 for the OS to use.

Keeping the data on a different physical drive from the OS means that I can more quickly recover from any type of hardware failure. Restoring the OS from a failed boot drive is faster than restoring the entire server including data.
Splitting the drive duties also means I can run different backup operations simultaneously without worrying about interference.

Hope this helps!

G. Discenza

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Answer 2

Jan 14, 2010 10:04 PM in response to svrnewbie

I have just setup my mini server with RAID 1 on the 2 internal drives and will use a external Firewire drive as a Time Machine backup. This allows me to have the RAID 1 benefits although they are both inside the mini ( the advantage of external drive as part of the raid is if the external one fails it is easy to swap over, i dont believe their is any performance benefit at least from the mini's perspective as it doesn't have hardware RAID)

If you dont think your data and applications will go over the 500 gig then this is an option with them separate you get 500gig for each.

The time machine backup is good for if the raid gets corrupted then both the RAID drives become corrupt so i have the time machine version to restore from.

I also bought a Promise 4Tb Firewire 800 for my data drive and back that up separately but it hasn't arrived yet so am using the mini drive at this stage.

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Answer 3

svrnewbie Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 25, 2010 10:41 PM in response to svrnewbie

Thanks for the responses - very helpful. Although I now see the benefit of keeping the data on a different physical drive from the OS - since we don't have a hugh data storage need and do have budget restrictions I've decided to just keep OS & data on one internal drive and use RAID 1 to mirror it to the other with a backup to external drive via firewire.

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