DarkGhostHunter Posted July 5, 2008 Share Posted July 5, 2008 Hardware RAID and Leopard Issues If you want to install Leopard in a RAID set, you should read this first. What is RAID? (noob) RAID is a set up for two or more drives to take advantage of SATA and the IO Controller of your Motherboard/PCI Card/PCI Express Card in different ways, depending of your choices. Currently, most of the latest board supporting 4 SATA ports can make usually 4 types of RAID (link to wikipedia) RAID 0 - RAID 1 - RAID 0+1 - RAID 5 As you can see, RAID is very useful to power up your machine's performance with more drives. This is specially for video/audio editing (large files), and other kind of stuff. Leopard can also make RAID, but not by hardware. I mean, It can make a Software RAID, basically is almost the same principle but with another technique. So.. What is the problem? The problem resides in Mac OS X, and Leopard. This OSX86 doesn't detect Hardware RAID, even in the installation, so, is theorically impossible to boot and/or install from it. (expanding) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/114136-faq-raid-by-hardware-leopard/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
gufus Posted July 6, 2008 Share Posted July 6, 2008 As far as I know, what you call Hardware RAID is almost never really a hardware RAID, and must always be supported software-wise. If it was a Hardware RAID, the Hardware layer would create an abstraction-layer, and present one single drive to MacOS X. Most of the so-called RAID on the motherboard cannot do this. We once spent a day on trying to get such a "hardware RAID" to work on linux, because we didn't want to waste the onboard SATA ports. But our conclusion was that it is just some crappy software raid. We then decided to do a real Hardware RAID with a 3ware controller (http://3ware.com/), and it worked within 10 seconds. The RAID was then shown to the OS as a single "drive". My conclusion: Don't get fooled by the motherboard-sellers promises at RAID functionality. If you want a real RAID, invest some $ and by a controller. You might want to try apple's built-in software RAID, but I don't think that this is a good-choice performance-wise. Also, If a drive fails, It might hook up your entire system, while in a real hardware RAID, you just need to change the failed drive and the hardware RAID will do the rest for you without interrupting the system. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/114136-faq-raid-by-hardware-leopard/#findComment-808931 Share on other sites More sharing options...
weaksauce12 Posted July 6, 2008 Share Posted July 6, 2008 This information is not correct. There are some boards that support Onboard RAID under Leopard. Also, Leopard supports RAID cards. I myself have two 2-port RAID cards and there are many users on my old Bad Axe 2 thread who are using various RAID cards with more than two ports. Also, I have been able to boot from a Hardware RAID set using SuperDuper to clone my installation from a single boot drive to the RAID array (you just have to install the RAID drivers first). In addition, there are users who have gotten software RAID to boot. I personally don't think it's a good idea to boot from Software RAID, but it's doable. Also, I haven't gotten good performance from Software RAID, which is why I use Hardware RAID. So yes, you CAN have Hardware RAID (and software) under Leopard. You just have to do your homework first Perhaps you should note that MOST boards don't support Onboard RAID, so be sure to research compatibility first before depending on an Onboard RAID system working for you! Hardware RAID and Leopard Issues If you want to install Leopard in a RAID set, you should read this first. What is RAID? (noob) RAID is a set up for two or more drives to take advantage of SATA and the IO Controller of your Motherboard/PCI Card/PCI Express Card in different ways, depending of your choices. Currently, most of the latest board supporting 4 SATA ports can make usually 4 types of RAID (link to wikipedia) RAID 0 - RAID 1 - RAID 0+1 - RAID 5 As you can see, RAID is very useful to power up your machine's performance with more drives. This is specially for video/audio editing (large files), and other kind of stuff. Leopard can also make RAID, but not by hardware. I mean, It can make a Software RAID, basically is almost the same principle but with another technique. So.. What is the problem? The problem resides in Mac OS X, and Leopard. This OSX86 doesn't detect Hardware RAID, even in the installation, so, is theorically impossible to boot and/or install from it. (expanding) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/114136-faq-raid-by-hardware-leopard/#findComment-809203 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hagar Posted July 6, 2008 Share Posted July 6, 2008 I read that SIL 3132 controllers work, haven't had a chance to try one yet. by adding the driver to a boot-132 style ISO, it should theoretically be possible to install from retail to raid.. has anyone tried this? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/114136-faq-raid-by-hardware-leopard/#findComment-809219 Share on other sites More sharing options...
bleeckerx Posted July 6, 2008 Share Posted July 6, 2008 The sil3132 approach does work. I'm on a raid drive using the sil controller right now. There's a couple helpful threads in the hardware forum. Here's one: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=111140 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/114136-faq-raid-by-hardware-leopard/#findComment-809315 Share on other sites More sharing options...
weaksauce12 Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 I read that SIL 3132 controllers work, haven't had a chance to try one yet. by adding the driver to a boot-132 style ISO, it should theoretically be possible to install from retail to raid.. has anyone tried this? Yes, it does work. I have used an SIL-3132-based card for both secondary drives and as a boot drive (requires cloning since you have to install the RAID driver first). Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/114136-faq-raid-by-hardware-leopard/#findComment-810584 Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkGhostHunter Posted July 12, 2008 Author Share Posted July 12, 2008 Thanks to all. I will do NOT the guide thanks to Silicon Image. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/114136-faq-raid-by-hardware-leopard/#findComment-816359 Share on other sites More sharing options...
seanmcgpa Posted September 25, 2008 Share Posted September 25, 2008 Has anyone gotten a software raid working with the Boot-132 loader? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/114136-faq-raid-by-hardware-leopard/#findComment-905418 Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamG Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 Hardware RAID and Leopard Issues If you want to install Leopard in a RAID set, you should read this first. What is RAID? (noob) RAID is a set up for two or more drives to take advantage of SATA and the IO Controller of your Motherboard/PCI Card/PCI Express Card in different ways, depending of your choices. Currently, most of the latest board supporting 4 SATA ports can make usually 4 types of RAID (link to wikipedia) RAID 0 - RAID 1 - RAID 0+1 - RAID 5 As you can see, RAID is very useful to power up your machine's performance with more drives. This is specially for video/audio editing (large files), and other kind of stuff. Leopard can also make RAID, but not by hardware. I mean, It can make a Software RAID, basically is almost the same principle but with another technique. So.. What is the problem? The problem resides in Mac OS X, and Leopard. This OSX86 doesn't detect Hardware RAID, even in the installation, so, is theorically impossible to boot and/or install from it. (expanding) I've successfully have my raid 0 up and running, but whenever my machine goes to sleep they get ejected and my machine freezes. I'm using a Badaxe2, Highpoint 2640 raid card in a pcie slot with 10.5.6. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! This information is not correct.There are some boards that support Onboard RAID under Leopard. Also, Leopard supports RAID cards. I myself have two 2-port RAID cards and there are many users on my old Bad Axe 2 thread who are using various RAID cards with more than two ports. Also, I have been able to boot from a Hardware RAID set using SuperDuper to clone my installation from a single boot drive to the RAID array (you just have to install the RAID drivers first). In addition, there are users who have gotten software RAID to boot. I personally don't think it's a good idea to boot from Software RAID, but it's doable. Also, I haven't gotten good performance from Software RAID, which is why I use Hardware RAID. So yes, you CAN have Hardware RAID (and software) under Leopard. You just have to do your homework first Perhaps you should note that MOST boards don't support Onboard RAID, so be sure to research compatibility first before depending on an Onboard RAID system working for you! I've successfully have my raid 0 up and running, but whenever my machine goes to sleep they get ejected and my machine freezes. I'm using a Badaxe2, Highpoint 2640 raid card in a pcie slot with 10.5.6. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! This information is not correct.There are some boards that support Onboard RAID under Leopard. Also, Leopard supports RAID cards. I myself have two 2-port RAID cards and there are many users on my old Bad Axe 2 thread who are using various RAID cards with more than two ports. Also, I have been able to boot from a Hardware RAID set using SuperDuper to clone my installation from a single boot drive to the RAID array (you just have to install the RAID drivers first). In addition, there are users who have gotten software RAID to boot. I personally don't think it's a good idea to boot from Software RAID, but it's doable. Also, I haven't gotten good performance from Software RAID, which is why I use Hardware RAID. So yes, you CAN have Hardware RAID (and software) under Leopard. You just have to do your homework first Perhaps you should note that MOST boards don't support Onboard RAID, so be sure to research compatibility first before depending on an Onboard RAID system working for you! I've successfully have my raid 0 up and running, but whenever my machine goes to sleep they get ejected and my machine freezes. I'm using a Badaxe2, Highpoint 2640 raid card in a pcie slot with 10.5.6. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/114136-faq-raid-by-hardware-leopard/#findComment-1127029 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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