Narayana Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 Hello- I have a Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P (BIOS F11) and want to configure my computer in the following way: 2 80GB SSD for OS X/Win 7 4x250GB RAID5 formatted in FAT32 1 500GB Drive for Time Machine 1 BluRay/HDDVD drive I connected these drives to the following ports: sata0-3: RAID 5 sata4: 80GB SSD sata5: 80GB SSD gsata0: 500GB HD gsata1: BD/HD drive There is a severe performance penalty if I run the SSD of the gsata ports (which I believe are driven by a jmicron controller) and the computer doesn't seem happy booting properly. If I connect the SSD to the ICH10 sata ports everything works reliably. Unfortunately, I am not able to boot into OS X if I enable RAID in the BIOS. I am looking around for a solution, but have not found one yet. Is there anyway to set up a RAID 5 on sata0-3 and run OS X/Win off sata4-5 in AHCI mode? If I run Windows and OS X of the gsata ports (jmicron), will I be able to use the RAID5 disk booted into both OS? Is there any solution on how to increase the read performance and boot irregularities on the gsata ports? I am a bit lost and would appreciate any help! In the mean time, I will look the forums and hopefully find a solution. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
nerdalertdk Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 There is no raid drivers for ICH10R so you have to get a raid controller Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1416604 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted February 24, 2010 Author Share Posted February 24, 2010 Yeah, that is what I found last night too, so I picked up a RocketRAID 2300...upgrading my hard drives has quickly become costly. Hopefully my tiffs open much more quickly when this is all done! Thanks anyways, nerdalert! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1417009 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nerdalertdk Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 RocketRAID dos not make drivers for there internal raid cards to snow leopard http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=208003 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1417101 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted February 24, 2010 Author Share Posted February 24, 2010 NA, I saw that thread last night...this thread (which you also replied to) seems to state that the drivers are built into 10.6...which is the case? I was under the impression that you can control the array with a web interface...is this interface not supported in 10.6? Or will the RAID volume go undetected by the OS? If it is simply maintenance, I can initialize the drive, etc, using my Windows partition. Any thoughts? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1417132 Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarboneNet Posted February 25, 2010 Share Posted February 25, 2010 i use areca arc-1210;) native support for OSX...if you need 8port, you must to buy arc-1220;) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1417417 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted February 25, 2010 Author Share Posted February 25, 2010 I know the Areca cards are supposed to be quite nice, but unfortunately I cannot afford one. Will the RocketRAID 2300 really not work with SL? The only information that I can find backing up nerdalert (who I am not doubting), is on Highpoint's site (which doesn't list the 2300 or any internal-port card as SL compatible). That said, I have found people on this board (like one who's device had a USB icon, etc) and other's (Newegg's customer reviews) that have said this board does work with SL. Which is the case? I guess I will find out tomorrow when the card is delivered. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1417496 Share on other sites More sharing options...
fies76 Posted February 25, 2010 Share Posted February 25, 2010 please let me know if it works in 64bit! thx Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1417670 Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarboneNet Posted February 25, 2010 Share Posted February 25, 2010 please let me know if it works in 64bit!thx Areca? areca works fine with kernel at 64bit;) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1417773 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted February 25, 2010 Author Share Posted February 25, 2010 fies, I am running 64-bit 10.6.2 and everything seems to be working fine. The disk is seen by Windows and OS X, but is initializing now. Updating the firmware was a bit of a hassle (I wasn't able to use the win flasher), but didn't take all that long. The transfer speeds are laughable, but I hope that will get better post-initialization. I will let you know how things are working in about 6 hours Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1418085 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted February 26, 2010 Author Share Posted February 26, 2010 hmm...I formatted the drive in FAT32 in OS X, but I am having trouble copying files to it. I assume this is because of a character limit for names and size of file (<4GB, right?). I am not sure what to do at this point. I need a file system that OS X and Win can read, but can't be hampered by FAT32 limitations...any ideas? I can format the drive in NTFS and use something that will allow me to read/write in OS X, but I am concerned that I will negate the speed increase from my RAID configuration. I will read up on it, I guess. EDIT: I decided to format the drive in HFS and use MacDrive 8 on my Windows 7 drive. I haven't tested the performance of MD8 yet, but it is cool to be able to read and write to my Drobo in Win. Hopefully I'll be done with the initialization soon and I can start testing! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1418180 Share on other sites More sharing options...
fies76 Posted February 26, 2010 Share Posted February 26, 2010 great, please keep me updated, im almost ready to order my own rocketraid thx fies Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1418237 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted February 26, 2010 Author Share Posted February 26, 2010 Hmm...I am not sure how good of a test XBench is, but here are the comparisons between an 80GB G2 Intel SSD, a single 7200.12 500GB Barracuda, and 4 X 7200.4 in RAID 5 using RR2300: Intel 80GB SSD: 1 X Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 : 4 X 7200.4 Seagate Momentus in RAID5: I assume something is not right? The single 3.5" HD is outperforming the four 2.5" drives...Any ideas? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1418247 Share on other sites More sharing options...
fies76 Posted February 26, 2010 Share Posted February 26, 2010 how did you connect the disks, maybe the rocketraid isn't that fast?! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1418262 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted February 26, 2010 Author Share Posted February 26, 2010 I foolishly didn't test a single 7200RPM 2.5" drive to see how fast it was on its own...here is what I found using Windows 7: RAID 5 in HFS: 7200RPM in HFS: 7200RPM in FAT32: Intel SSD in NTFS: To summarize: (Seq Read/Write | 512K R/W | 4K R/W) in MB/s RAID 5_HFS: 144/159 | 47/45 | 1/.6 7200_HFS: 127/117 | 55/76 | .8/2 7200_FAT32: 114/111 | 54/76 | .8/1.6 SSD_NTFS: 261/87 | 205/87 | 22/58 I don't expect the 2.5" 7200RPM 16MB cache drive to be as fast as a 3.5" 7200RPM 16MB cache drive...but this is pretty miserable. The RAID5 composed of 4 disks only has marginally better sequential performance compared to a single drive. EDIT: I tested the 7200.2 8MB 120GB drive I have in my Macbook and got the following in XBench: The drive is a few generations/years older than the 7200.4 drives I used for my RAID. I assumed these drives would be able to read/write 50-70MB/s based on what I read and it would scale well...I guess not. EDIT 2: I found tests of people running the 500GB 7200.4 at ~70MB/s...I assume my single platter would be faster than a dual of the same generation? how did you connect the disks, maybe the rocketraid isn't that fast?! Not sure what you mean...I connected SATA cables from the HD to the PCIE card and bought SATA-power Y-cables to power the drives. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1418268 Share on other sites More sharing options...
fies76 Posted February 26, 2010 Share Posted February 26, 2010 so you tested all hdds using the rocketraid controller? the rocketraid is not really the fastest one (pcie-x1), but should work if you want to get cheap Raid5 function, raid0 althought seems to be fast: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=9556&page=4 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1418279 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted February 26, 2010 Author Share Posted February 26, 2010 No...the SSD and Barracuda are connected to ICH10. The 7200.2 was connected to whatever drives my MacBook's sata ports. I am correcting for the sampling error in my head PCIEx1 should have ~ 250MB/s limit...I am not even getting close. I picked up the card hoping/expecting 3 times the performance of one drive...which should put me closer to 200MB/s, but I am still far off, sequentially. Though this is less than precise, I monitored the disk transfer rates when I a. Copied a m4v from Barracuda to SSD (80MB/s) b. Copied the same m4v from SSD to RAID (155MB/s) Maybe I should break the RAID and test a single drive... Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1418287 Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarboneNet Posted February 26, 2010 Share Posted February 26, 2010 Try AJA system Test on Mac.......test R/W 8-16gb ! this is my Raid0 with 4Raptor: Xbench is not affidable! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1418311 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted February 26, 2010 Author Share Posted February 26, 2010 Hah, I am starting to get tired, but I will look at it tomorrow. I understand that both CDM and XBench aren't the best benchmarking utilities, but they do provide a quick comparisons. I tested a single Momentus 7200.4 250GB drive and a RAID0 of the 4 drives. Here is what I found...kind of concisely: Note: Single drives tested in ICH10R. EDIT: Either the RocketRAID 2300 doesn't perform all that well or I have misconfigured something (which I hope is what happened). Here is a comparison between running an Apple Software RAID on both the RocketRAID 2300 and Intel ICH10R: Time to go to bed, I will look through these numbers tomorrow. Maybe I will try different settings for the block size and test a single 7200.4 drive on the RocketRAID 2300. It seems that money would be well spent on a better RAID card...A single 3.5" Barracuda performs better than the 4 2.5" RAID 5 array! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1418348 Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarboneNet Posted February 26, 2010 Share Posted February 26, 2010 so, Apple Software Raid is more faster of controller RocketRaid?? how much you spend for it??? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1418408 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted February 26, 2010 Author Share Posted February 26, 2010 so, Apple Software Raid is more faster of controller RocketRaid?? how much you spend for it??? I think the Apple RAID will be faster than a lot of controllers, actually. I think the point is that the transfer speed, per HD, is much better on the ICH10R vs a PCIEx1 card. I think I bought the card from newegg for around $150 after tax/shippping. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1418783 Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarboneNet Posted February 26, 2010 Share Posted February 26, 2010 did you want see my result with Xbench??? Apple Raid is looser respect to Areca:D Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1418806 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted February 26, 2010 Author Share Posted February 26, 2010 That is undoubtedly better performance, BarboneNet You are obviously using extremely fast spinning drives, though. Might have been cheaper to RAID0 a couple of SSDs (<= apparently not). I don't doubt the Areca's performance, but $300 is a bit more than I can afford right now. I RMAd the RocketRAID 2300 and bought a RocketRAID 2640x4, which should arrive tomorrow. Let's see how the Marvell controller and wider bus affect performance. Though, if I keep on paying return shipping, maybe I should just get the Areca Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1418824 Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarboneNet Posted February 27, 2010 Share Posted February 27, 2010 That is undoubtedly better performance, BarboneNet You are obviously using extremely fast spinning drives, though. Might have been cheaper to RAID0 a couple of SSDs (<= apparently not). I don't doubt the Areca's performance, but $300 is a bit more than I can afford right now. I RMAd the RocketRAID 2300 and bought a RocketRAID 2640x4, which should arrive tomorrow. Let's see how the Marvell controller and wider bus affect performance. Though, if I keep on paying return shipping, maybe I should just get the Areca ehehhe i wait a bit for SSD! yet still cost too much; for now I'm very satisfied with the performance;) we'll see how the new controller works;) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1418938 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayana Posted March 1, 2010 Author Share Posted March 1, 2010 The 2640x4 came in this morning. I am currently Initializing the RAID 5 array, but here is the Xbench in RAID 0. RAID 0: 4 x 250GB Seagate Momentus 7200.4: This is more in line with what I was expecting performance wise. Ideally, I need a solution that will sequentially write as fast as the Intel SSD can read. In RAID0, the 2640x4 provides that. RAID 5: 4 x 250GB Seagate Momentus 7200.4: I am little concerned about the random read/write performance as this drive is only data. I love how fast the RAID0 was, but with 4 drives I am a bit concerned about a disk failure. I would have to make periodic backups to my Drobo either way. I will stick with the 5 now and see how it works for my workload. The RAID5 array nearly writes as fast as the Intel SSD (280MB/s) can read: I have had two kernel panics though. One while running XBench on the drive and the other while attempting to copy a 120GB Aperture Library to the drive. I will continue to monitor the set up for stability. But as far as speed is concerned, the RocketRAID 2640x4 is obviously much better than the RocketRAID 2300 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/211529-raid-5-setup-questions/#findComment-1421044 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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