RAID 0, Stripe, on XServe G5 Boot Volume

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Level 1

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RAID 0, Stripe, on XServe G5 Boot Volume

Hello ~

I have a client that has a G5 Xserve with three identical 500 GB hard drives. Right now it's configured as three independent physical drives, one has the OS, the other two are empty. I'd like to stripe the three drives. Can I stripe the full 500 GB's of the three drives without reinstalling and configuring the OS? Also, will the OS run from a software RAID (stripe)?

Thanks,

Chuck

PB Ti 1GHz - The last of it's kind Mac OS X (10.4.8) et al

PB Ti 1GHz - The last of it's kind, Mac OS X (10.4.8), et al

Posted on Mar 28, 2007 7:49 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Leif Carlsson

Level 5

4,954 points

Mar 28, 2007 11:48 PM in response to ChazH

"Can I stripe the full 500 GB's of the three drives without reinstalling and configuring the OS?"

If you use a fourth (external) drive to hold the data while striping the internal drives.

"Also, will the OS run from a software RAID (stripe)?"

Yes, but if you stripe, when any drive malfunction, all data is gone.
Concatenating the drives (you get a "spanned" volume) might be a better idéa.

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Answer 2

ChazH Author

Level 1

18 points

Mar 29, 2007 3:40 AM in response to Leif Carlsson

Great ideas, Leif! Thanks much!

Chuck

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Answer 3

Mar 30, 2007 2:25 PM in response to ChazH

Hi

Think carefully before doing this as you will not leave yourself a safety net if one of the drives in the RAID set fails. If you have 4x500GB drives consider stiping 2x500GB drives which will give you 1TB (RAID set 1), stripe the other two which will give you 1TB (RAID set 2) and mirror the first two with the second two. You wont get 2TB, you will only get 1TB but if any of the drives in the first RAID set fail, you will have redundancy in the second RAID set providing you with a safety net whilst you sort out the problems with the first RAID set. It can be tempting to JBOD all 4 drives to give you a massive 2TB but think of your disappointment as well as major data loss if one of your drives failed especially as you could have provided yourself with a safety net when first creating the RAID set.

HTH

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Answer 4

ChazH Author

Level 1

18 points

May 25, 2007 3:01 PM in response to Antonio Rocco

What I and the client decided to do, as they had already configured the OS and did not want to rinstall was to mirror the empty two 500 GB HDs. The first one I did partition, and have the OS in the first 100 GB, and then aa 400 GB empty partition they plan on using in the future.

FYI ~ I also discovered the Mac OS will not boot from a mirrored set if at least one drive is external (for backup purposes).

Thanks all!

Chaz

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