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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > Boot mac pro raid 0 without SATA card?

Boot mac pro raid 0 without SATA card?
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paulmac
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Sep 18, 2007, 02:47 PM
 
Can I boot my mac pro 2.66 quad from two internal drives configured as a RAID 0 without a SATA card? Or do I need to buy a card? If so, what card would you recommend which has 4 ports and supports booting?
     
edge.it
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Sep 18, 2007, 02:59 PM
 
why wouldyou boot from a raid 0? what does a boot drive to hold the OS and APPS need striping for?

be smart set up a raid 1. what is a mac pro good for if you boot drive fails?!

macpro 2.66 | 4GB | 7 TB
macbook pro 2.4i5 | 4GB | 500GB 7200rpm
technic 1210 M5G
     
MacosNerd
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Sep 18, 2007, 03:28 PM
 
Yes you can.

OSX has a software RAID implementation that you can use to stripe the drive. A couple of things to consider.

If you do use RAID 0 on your boot device and apple supplies a firmware update you'll not be able to apply it (if history is an indicator) In the past you couldn't apply the firmware update when booting off a RAIDED drive.

Second, you'll not be able to use boot camp on a stripped drive

Finally you do increase the risk of data corruption and losing your data because if something burps or have a device failure the entire array fails and you lose everything. That being the case you need to make sure you have a great backup strategy in place.
     
mduell
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Sep 18, 2007, 03:53 PM
 
Originally Posted by paulmac View Post
Can I boot my mac pro 2.66 quad from two internal drives configured as a RAID 0 without a SATA card? Or do I need to buy a card? If so, what card would you recommend which has 4 ports and supports booting?
Yes, you can boot from a software RAID0 (or RAID1) array in OS X.
If you want to buy a card, buy the card Apple offers; it works with the 6 SATA ports already on the logic board.


edge.it: More bandwidth to improve OS/app launch/load time.
     
edge.it
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Sep 18, 2007, 04:26 PM
 
Originally Posted by mduell View Post

edge.it: More bandwidth to improve OS/app launch/load time.
yes i do know that, but the chance of corruption and loosing one drive which results in everything going KAPUTZ is much more impt then a few seconds of the load time of applications. i was merely saying that a raid 1 for the OS is smarter in the general sense.

now if he moved his ~/apps to a raid 0 which did not hold his OS, that would be a completely different story.

macpro 2.66 | 4GB | 7 TB
macbook pro 2.4i5 | 4GB | 500GB 7200rpm
technic 1210 M5G
     
mduell
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Sep 18, 2007, 06:38 PM
 
Originally Posted by edge.it View Post
yes i do know that, but the chance of corruption and loosing one drive which results in everything going KAPUTZ is much more impt then a few seconds of the load time of applications. i was merely saying that a raid 1 for the OS is smarter in the general sense.

now if he moved his ~/apps to a raid 0 which did not hold his OS, that would be a completely different story.
The OS is probably the least valuable piece of data on your computer; restoring it is trivial and relatively quick. 2-3 years of improved performance from RAID0 may well be worth the OPs increased chance of data loss.
     
paulmac  (op)
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Sep 19, 2007, 01:22 AM
 
Originally Posted by edge.it View Post
now if he moved his ~/apps to a raid 0 which did not hold his OS, that would be a completely different story.
Thanks to everyone for the replies. For some reason my raid wasn't found the first time I booted, but now it does boot without a card. And it's very fast. So what does the above suggestion mean? That putting my apps on a separate drive will speed things up? Just out of curiousity, I copied PSCS3 to a ram disk and ran it from there, but I found no speed increase.

I understand those who have warned about the penny wise vs pound foolish risk of using raid 0 for a boot volume. I'm just experimenting on how to increase performance in my system for fast image processing in photoshop and nikon capture and will clone my drive nightly to protect myself from hardware failures.

I think I'm somewhat limited by my processor's speed and having the OS boot from a RAID0 might not be worth the risk. Buying more RAM, say 8gb, and allocating 2-3gb for a scratch RAM disk might be the fastest I can make the computer go with Photoshop CS3. A RAM disk will always be faster than the fastest striped RAID, won't it? Of course RAM is expensive, but if I only need a few more gbs of scratch beyond the 3gb allocated to PSCS3 ram, than it may be worth it.
     
edge.it
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Sep 20, 2007, 11:10 AM
 
guide to move users--
Moving your Users Folder

macpro 2.66 | 4GB | 7 TB
macbook pro 2.4i5 | 4GB | 500GB 7200rpm
technic 1210 M5G
     
chris v
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Sep 22, 2007, 10:14 AM
 
I run a RAID 0 in my Quicksilver. I have 3 drives in it -- 2 80 gb drives, set to RAID 0 that I use for my startup partition, and 1 160 gb drive to which the RAID 0 backs up weekly, and is my Photoshop scratch disk.

Having it set up this way is about the only think that makes the pokey old thing usable.

If you're gonna go RAID 0, just make damn sure you've got a rock-solid backup solution, automated preferably, so you won't "forget."

When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. -- Jonathan Swift.
     
paulmac  (op)
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Sep 23, 2007, 02:26 PM
 
Thanks for the users folder redirect hint, edge.it. After a little more research, especially this great pdf over at Mac Gurus, I'm going to invest in 4gb more RAM first before I get an external raptor RAID0 scratch drive pair (to replace my fw800 external 7200rpm drive). RAM seems to be the most important investment for PS speedup for smaller files before you see the benefits of very fast multidrive RAIDS for scratch.
     
   
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