n you move a software RAID between computers

Question

n you move a software RAID between computers

If I create a software RAID in OS X using Disk Utility, can I later move that RAID to another computer and keep the RAID in tact?

For example, I create a RAID1 using 2 external Firewire drives. If I unplug both drives and plug them them into another Mac, is there any way for that Mac to recognize those drives as a mirroed RAID1 set and retain the data stored on them?

Posted on Dec 1, 2005 7:52 AM

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Answer 1

reese_

Level 4

1,735 points

Dec 1, 2005 4:06 PM in response to Chris McFarling

Chris,
That should work. The disk utility should write the info into the disk header, then when a system sees the disks (boot, fresh plugin etc) it should know what the disk relationships are (mirror/stripe)
Note that I used "should" 3 times 🙂.

I would test before trusting someone's word (even my own).

You might also post in the XRAID forum to get the thoughts from folks who pay attention to disks.

Reese
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=832

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Answer 2

Dec 1, 2005 6:38 PM in response to Chris McFarling

Chris--

I've done it with SCSI drives that were striped (RAID 0), as a desperation move on a video story for a newscast. It was kind of a panic situation, so I don't remember much about it. But I don't remember it being especially hard, either.

FireWire might be more tricky, though, because you don't set explicit addresses like you do with SCSI, so definitely check it with data you don't mind losing before you try it with something important.

charlie

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Answer 3

EdCarlson

Level 2

250 points

Jan 21, 2006 9:25 AM in response to Charles Minow

I have a FireWire striped RAID set built on 10.4.3. I tried to move it to a PowerBook running 10.2.4, and nothing showed up. The disks showed up independently in DiskUtility, but i couldn't mount them or make them show up as a RAID on the desktop. When I moved it back to my iMac running 10.4.3, all the data was still there and it was still showed up as a RAID set.

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Answer 4

Jan 21, 2006 9:01 PM in response to EdCarlson

I have a FireWire striped RAID set built on 10.4.3. I
tried to move it to a PowerBook running 10.2.4, and
nothing showed up. The disks showed up independently
in DiskUtility, but i couldn't mount them or make
them show up as a RAID on the desktop. When I moved
it back to my iMac running 10.4.3, all the data was
still there and it was still showed up as a RAID set.

It seems like the RAID software has been changing quite a bit between versions of the OS. We found big changes between Panther and Tiger, so if you tried to mount them on a PowerBook running 10.2.4, I'm no terribly surprised it didn't work.

The one time I did it was between Panther systems. Both were SCSI, both dual G5s, so they were pretty much identical.

charlie

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