RAID harddrives for Mac Pro 2009

Question

RAID harddrives for Mac Pro 2009

Hello,

I'm planning to build a software RAID for a MacPro4.1 that offers me a quiet solution with reasonable performance. I would like to create a RAID 10 with four 2 or 3 TB drives.

I found the Western Digital Cavier Green 2 TB drives WD20EARS very tempting at first because of price and specs, but I read there are problems when using them in a Mac. It seems the problem is clicking, performance lags and final drive failures after a couple of hundret days. The specs page outline that these drives can be used for desktop RAID, but not for business critical RAID applications. So what does this mean? WD makes the 2 TB WD2003FYYS Raid Edition 4 drives with different features, but they are also 3 times more expensive.

If the WD20EARS drives are indeed a problem, how about the WD blue and black drives? Information from WD outlines that non of the desktop drives have the TLER features, which is necessary for RAID, among other things.

How about drives from other manufacturers like Seagate Samsung and Hitachi?

Thanks!

Mac Pro early 2009 8-core

Posted on Jun 5, 2011 6:34 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 5, 2011 7:57 PM in response to Markus Waldorf

Below are some links I found about WD green drives and RAID.

Apparently TLER is a problem only for hardware RAID and WD does not provide warranty unless the drive is failing in a stand-alone configuration.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/262798-14-wd20ears-advanced-format-raid

The following outlines that the drives are not working properly with Apple software RAID in Mac Pro 2009:

http://community.wdc.com/t5/Desktop/MAC-Software-RAID-using-WD20EARS/td-p/125986

3.0TB Western Digital Caviar Green "GreenPower" for Desktop RAID:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/WD30EZRSDTL/

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Answer 2

Jun 5, 2011 8:14 PM in response to Markus Waldorf

Apparently the LLC feature, which parks the drive after 8 seconds (click) of inactivity can be modified. Perhaps this is the solution?

http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=124&t=28344

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Answer 3

Jun 6, 2011 7:03 AM in response to Markus Waldorf

If performance is your goal, DO NOT use Green Drives at all, ever.

The Apple RAID card at this writing cannot access any drives beyond the 2.2TB limit.

Most users see RAID 10 as needless complexity, and opt instead to create a fast "temporary" striped RAID for output files. Once completed, output files are promptly moved off to more permanent non-striped storage.

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Answer 4

Jun 7, 2011 6:51 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks for your reply. My main goal is to get more reliable space in order to store and move around large files of several hundrets of GB's. Top speed is not a priority, but certainly helpful with such large files. I figured that a raid 10 will be the best option for me.

There are to many odds and unclear information about building a raid solution with the green WD Drives. I finally decided to get the RE (Raid Edition) drives. RE drives are also available as GP (green power), but I ordered the fast ones and hope they run silent. The RE drives are more expensive, but since I'm planning to use it for the next couple of years, hopefully worth the money. There is apparently quite a technology and quality difference between the RE and cheaper desktop drives.

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Answer 5

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Jun 7, 2011 7:04 AM in response to Markus Waldorf

You want quiet, otherwise I would have said go for hardware RAID controller and external drives, and look at RAID6.

Software can't - though some have with very mixed results - used Disk Utility but the overhead of 10 isn't conducive. And not worth the risks and limitations.

If Apple implemented hardware motherboard RAID, yes, but when you get into 2TB size drives forget RAID3/5 and others.

Just have redundant sets and good backup strategy.

Keep the boot drive to OS-only (and apps of course)

There are, have to be, one or two controllers with internal drive support, but harder to do on Mac Pro with its wiring of cables and such.

WD RE are meant for hardware RAID. Black edition are fine for software based. And if you want a better RAID mousetrap, I'd invest in SoftRAID 4.0 even for stripe or mirror (and a much better feature set to help protect your drives and data).

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Answer 6

Jun 7, 2011 8:43 AM in response to The hatter

I don't see much risk in raid 10 unless both pairs of a mirrored set die together, which isn't realistic. Raid 10 is the most expensive raid in terms of space, but will give me the maximum performance. I'm aware that raid is no solution for backup, only a hardware failover. I bought the RE drives since I might invest in a raid controller later, at which point I will regret to have purchased the blue or black drives. Whether or not this will be Apple, Atto or Highpoint, who knows. Or maybe I will move the drives to an external enclosure later.

Btw, the newer WD green drives are actually recommended for desktop raid systems according to the specs page, which seems odd, but apparently Western Digital does not provide warranty if those drives fail in a raid configuration.

Thanks for your reply.

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