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Level 2

219 points

SSD cards/drives for Mac Pro Server?

I need some advice on high-end hardware (worried about specs and stability - not price). I need to get a Mac Pro Server; this is for work and I'd like the fastest solution possible for the system disk (for a number of reasons I don't want to split it so that system disk and files are on different volumes). Is this

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/PCIe/OWC/Mercury_Accelsior/RAID

better that the SSDs that look like a hard drive and fit into a hard drive slot? Any down-sides to this type of product? And are the SSDs from OWC better than the SSDs offered with the Mac on the Apple site?

Also: I need the primary disk to be about 1.2-1.5 Tb. The biggest SSDs are smaller than that. Any problem with ganging two of them as a RAID? I will also have a (regular) disk for nightly clone backup and a regular disk for Time Machine (so I don't need redundancy on the RAID I think?).

thanks in advance!

Posted on May 29, 2012 5:38 PM

Best reply

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Posted on May 29, 2012 5:44 PM

OWC's SSDs are better than the ones sold by Apple. But as for the rest of your query I'd say that you would be better served by talking with the tech support people at OWC especially about their products.

Generally speaking you can RAID any number of drives whether HDD or SSD. I'm uncertain as to why you need constrain yourself to a one volume solution when you can create a RAID of high speed hard drives that can provide pretty fast service almost comparable with an SSD.

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19 replies

Michael Levin Author

Level 2

219 points

Jun 4, 2012 5:48 AM in response to The hatter

I found a bunch of people who reported (permissions) problems after moving the home folder on

http://chris.pirillo.com/how-to-move-the-home-folder-in-os-x-and-why/

and specifically this:

"The bottom line from Apple is the solution you're suggesting is intended for large networks of Macs (such as in colleges) where for security you may wish to store user details on an X-serve elsewhere. The Apple Care guy said don't do it on your home mac with external drives as it's not stable enough and that he didn't think it was covered under Apple Care support if you did."

is this not right?

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Jun 4, 2012 6:18 AM in response to Michael Levin

"The Apple Care guy" is not on my speed-dial.

You leave /Users alone and you are fine.

I'm sure some of the unix terminal commands are above his knowledge grade and just confused the poor guy.

There have been long discussions about how to automate terminal scripts and how best to do it. And unix people often love hard links and ability to add dozens of users at once.

that isn't the issue.

It works. And it fails when programmers don't do their job, not that users shouldn't.

Nothing in life is "guaranteed" but then I and anyone else would say keep your old system as is for backup. Try and find out if YOUR system and attempt. We all make mistakes and learn by doing. you don't learn enough just by reading. you have to get in the cockpit.

So ballony. Yes if you forget to attach a drive.

And what does Apple Care have to do with anything anyway?

IBM once found customers (PC ,not IT) would send in disk drives that "failed" but were software and directory, not from bad blocks or that the drive was now unusable, just needed to be repaired or re-initialized.

Mike Bombich was the first to show simple command line how to move user acccount. Ten years ago.

I can always find someone somewhere on the 'net. The problem is how people do things, and even could be the software or yes even Mac OS. I just have NEVER seen a problem that can't be fixed or that was related to this. And some threads and discussions on admin boards were long and we talked about "move home account" over period of months and longer.

Jun 4, 2012 8:00 AM in response to Michael Levin

The specific problems reported on Pirillo's blog were caused by users who:

1) typed the complete name of the secondary drive containing the new home directories into the home link-location field, THEN

2) changed the name of their secondary drive, without changing the home link-location field.

If you specify in detail where something is located, then eliminate that location, You WILL have trouble with this solution.

I do not see that as a deficiency in the solution. I see that as a cockpit error.

Jun 4, 2012 8:05 AM in response to Michael Levin

I use a variant of this solution on my home Network. ALL User data is stored on another drive, not even on the same computer (all User files are located on the central Server).

Your AppleCare guy needs to be sent back for training on a wider array of Apple products.

SSD cards/drives for Mac Pro Server?