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BOOT RAID for < $30 (and without reinstalling)


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Im posting this on a brand new hackintosh I've built this weekend.

 

Here is the sil3132 controller you want:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16816132008

 

This card has the option when using RAID 1 (which I am using) to pick one of the disks to copy to the other to create the mirror. So what I did was install OSX (I used leo4all) the normal way with one hard drive plugged into the motherboard (im using a GA-EP35-DS3L). Once installed, go download and install the driver from here so that it will recognize the coming raid (because the 3132 driver in leo does nothing):

 

http://www.siliconimage.com/docs/siliconim...132r5_15160.zip

 

Then shutdown, plug the drive and the mirror drive into the raid card, setup the raid in the cards bios using the drive that was just installed to as the one to copy to the other, and then voila! you're booting from raid 0. I even used GUID.

 

Now for a RAID 0, I've heard of people using CopyCatX and using an extra drive to "ghost" over a working install to a raid within an install that has the raid mounted but not booted from. For that, this card will work as well.

 

Hope this helps some people looking for solutions.

 

Side Note: I also have 4GB ram and have no problem with it being recognized.

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Side Note: I also have 4GB ram and have no problem with it being recognized.

 

the issue with 4gb is not whether it is recognised, but that it causes random crashes.

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Ok, heres an update. After using it for a little bit, I did start getting random freezes and crashes. I went into the bios and disabled the IDE controller and its working like a charm. I am sitting here now with every application in the application directory open, including every CS3 app, iWork, and ms office 08. I also have 250+ firefox tabs open.

 

Before it was crashing with just a couple of torrents running and 5+ firefox tabs.

 

Here are the Xbench results, toolshed. Keep in mind this is a RAID 1 so this loses performance:

 

Results 25.03

System Info

Xbench Version 1.3

System Version 10.5.2 (9C7010)

Physical RAM 4096 MB

Model MacPro3,1

Drive Type SiImage

Disk Test 25.03

Sequential 36.30

Uncached Write 89.48 54.94 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 44.94 25.43 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 41.50 12.15 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 18.99 9.54 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random 19.10

Uncached Write 8.23 0.87 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 40.41 12.94 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 22.78 0.16 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 51.97 9.64 MB/sec [256K blocks]

 

 

Although, I set my swap and scratch disks to this :( :

 

Results 293.75

System Info

Xbench Version 1.3

System Version 10.5.2 (9C7010)

Physical RAM 4096 MB

Model MacPro3,1

Drive Type GIGABYTE i-RAM GIGABYTE i-RAM

Disk Test 293.75

Sequential 190.95

Uncached Write 168.89 103.70 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 206.48 116.83 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 159.07 46.55 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 256.62 128.98 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random 636.27

Uncached Write 486.17 51.47 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 379.57 121.51 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 6293.52 44.60 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 696.21 129.19 MB/sec [256K blocks]

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cool numbers, and the crashes come with jmicron hardware with a loaded driver. disabling the device in the bios will fix it.

 

i'm looking into getting an affordable RAID0 card thats bootable since i moved from my P5W-DH to my P5K Premium. just have to find a place that has that card in stock in canada.

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cool numbers, and the crashes come with jmicron hardware with a loaded driver. disabling the device in the bios will fix it.

 

i'm looking into getting an affordable RAID0 card thats bootable since i moved from my P5W-DH to my P5K Premium. just have to find a place that has that card in stock in canada.

 

Hey man - do you mind me asking which card in particular you're looking into? I'm more or less in the same boat and I'd love to follow your lead here.. :D

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Hey man - do you mind me asking which card in particular you're looking into? I'm more or less in the same boat and I'd love to follow your lead here.. :)

 

i'm trying to find the card posted in the original thread here from a place in canada or that will ship to canada for a decent price (newegg doesnt ship at all).

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Ah, that's what I figured, but wanted to make sure. Good luck sorting out the shipping man

 

Edit: I'm orderin one now. I'm using an ASUS m2n-sli board, but it shouldn't matter anyway. If I can get this thing to boot raid 0, I'm goin intel with the P35-DS3L...

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Thanks to jasoneisen for starting this thread & all the info.

A few days ago I ordered this RC-211 SATA RAID card from NewEgg.

Got it today & am now running Leo4Allv3 on my RAID 0 (2 750GB WD HDDs) off the RC-211.

 

What I did:

 

1 - Installed the card into my 2nd PCI Express slot.

2 - Connected both WD 750GB HDDs to the card.

3- Set up the RAID 0 by booting into the RC-211 BIOS.

4 - Installed Leo4Allv3 on my 230GB SATA Maxtor HDD (connected to my onboard ICH9) and installed the RC-211 RAID Driver.

5 - Installed Leo4Allv3 to my external 500GB USB 2 HDD and installed RC-211 RAID driver.

6 - Booted from the external 500GB USB Leo.

7 - Installed Copy Cat X

8 - Used Copy cat X to clone 230GB Maxtor Leo onto the 1.3GB RAID 0.

9 - Shutdown, disconnected 230GB Leo drive & turned off 500GB USB HDD.

10 - Booted with 1.3GB RAID 0 Leo - YES!!! :D

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Well, I'm stuck for the moment.

 

Because I have such an OSX unfriendly mobo (asus m2n-sli) I can't boot straight off the mobo with anything other than IDE. I hoped the raid card would let me work around that... I may have been too optimistic.

 

Following Vlad's guide above I actually use SuperDuper! to clone my working IDE drive onto my raid 0 drives (two WD 160gs) and everything seemed to have worked well, except when I disconnect my primary booting drive and try to boot off of the raid 0 drives I can't get anywhere.

 

Computers posts and gets to the Sil3132 screen where it lists my raid configuration and everything looks good, but after that I just get a blank screen with the flashing cursor in the upper right. No message about not being able to boot of disc or anything...

 

Any thoughts guys?

 

Edit: NM, I am getting Disk Boot Error now.

 

I'm wondering if there isn't some setting in BIOS I'm just forgetting... or if my mobo simply won't boot OSX off of the raid card...

 

Is there anyway to check if the copy I made of my primary IDE drive is truly bootable, by looking at it within leopard?

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bleeckerx - try using Copy Cat X - I tried using Super Duper to do something similar & it didn't work for me either.

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Although, I set my swap and scratch disks to this :D :

 

Results 293.75

System Info

Xbench Version 1.3

System Version 10.5.2 (9C7010)

Physical RAM 4096 MB

Model MacPro3,1

Drive Type GIGABYTE i-RAM GIGABYTE i-RAM

Disk Test 293.75

Sequential 190.95

Uncached Write 168.89 103.70 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 206.48 116.83 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 159.07 46.55 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 256.62 128.98 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random 636.27

Uncached Write 486.17 51.47 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 379.57 121.51 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 6293.52 44.60 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 696.21 129.19 MB/sec [256K blocks]

 

How can you set swap and scratch disks ???

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, I'm still fighting with this thing.

 

I've tried using Copycat, CCC, Superduper - I can't get anything to copy my Leo4all install onto ANY other drive - raid or not. I've been trying to clone my os x install from an external hd - and I can't get anything to take.

 

Did any of you guys install EFI before or after using any of these ghosting techniques? If so, is there anyway to install EFI on a raid 0 drive set-up?

 

I can't figure out what my problem is - I'm using a very common os x version with one of the most compatible chipset boards and trying aps that work for everyone else??? There's gotta be something simple I'm missing here...

 

Is this a stupid question: You guys having your raid configurations formated as GUID, right?

 

Edit: well, I had some small success, I managed to get copycat to work on my regular drives (wouldn't before) turns out it would ONLY clone from an internally mounted drive to an externally mounted drive. Who knows why (I was trying to copy external to external with no luck.) next to work on the actual raid partion...

 

 

Edit 2: NM. Turns out I just had a {censored} HD. I got everything up and running. And it's faaaast. ; )

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  • 6 months later...

Sorry to bump up a 6 month old thread, but I was wondering if this was a hardware RAID or software? And if I get this card and install leopard on it, could I boot into windows on another (non-raid) drive and see the RAID, and have read/write access (with the right programs of course)?

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