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Raid Card w/ Non-Apple Drives

Z

zachsilvey

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 5, 2008
444
3
Battle Ground
I am currently running 4x1 Tb drives in Raid 5 through the Apple Raid Card. This is a 1,1 MacPro so it is an early raid card. I can hear that one of the drives is getting loud and I am expecting imminent failure.

My question is can I replace a failed drive with a non-apple 1 Tb SATA drive?
 
Yes you can, and I would highly recommend NOT to buy any harddrive from Apple.
They currently charge 300$ for a WD Black, which you can get for 90$ on the market.
 
that is exactly why I was avoiding the Apple drives. So in theory if a drive dies in my raid I can pull it out and replace it with a same sized drive and Raid Utility will repair it without any issues.
 
zachsilvey said:
So in theory if a drive dies in my raid I can pull it out and replace it with a same sized drive and Raid Utility will repair it without any issues.
Click to expand...
In theory, Yes, but there's practical issues to contend with.

Usually, you check the card makers Compatibility List for tested & approved HDD's, but in Apple's case, I don't recall seeing one.

There's always a risk of an untested drive being non functional, and SAS cards in particular are picky about SATA drives. Most consumer models will fail, as the recovery timing values in the firmware aren't tailored to RAID use, and it's even more critical on SAS controllers than SATA. In such cases, you end up with drop-outs (rather often too) resulting in an unstable array. You'd get repetitive situations the system begins a rebuild.

Do be careful, and if possible, locate a HDD Compatibility List from Apple on that card.

Good Luck. :)
 
The only thing that I found that remotely represents a compatibility list is the faq on Apple's support page. It says it is compatible with Apple sata and sas drives. Do you have any recommendations on a 1 tb drives for a raid 5 configuration.
 
Of course don't buy the drive from Apple, as I said before, but if you can get the same drive from a free vendor, do so. That should minimise any issues with the Raid controller.
 
zachsilvey said:
I would buy the 1 tb drive from apple but they sell it for $299 when an equivalent from newegg can be had for $100-$150.
Click to expand...
You should be fine with Western Digital, preferably enterprise models, as they're made for RAID (especially on a ture hardware RAID controller, such as what you're using).

They tend to work most of the time, are the OEM supplier for Apple's drives, and in the cases they don't work with RAID, there's a utility that can allow you to adjust the recovery timing values in the fimrware.
 
Thank you nanofrog and Transporteur for your help the MacPro is a new acquisition and is used but from a trustworthy source (was used as a server at a friends business) as I got the machine for free I am willing to put a little cash into the drives, ram, and video card.
 
zachsilvey said:
Thank you nanofrog and Transporteur for your help the MacPro is a new acquisition and is used but from a trustworthy source (was used as a server at a friends business) as I got the machine for free I am willing to put a little cash into the drives, ram, and video card.
Click to expand...
What drives are in it now?
 
UltraNEO* said:
Ouch! From my experience (and maybe others) I've never had much luck with Hitachi drives, they used to fail constantly, so much so, many people started calling them "DeathStars!" :eek:

How is it for you?
Click to expand...
Those are consumer drives, not enterprise models, and I've had similar issues in the not too distant past. Hitachi's also horrible for Customer Support, especially if you ever need firmware. Simply put, they won't help you, and bounce you back to the system vendor (or RAID card if that's what it's attached to for any firmware update).

Their enterprise drives are better, but I still prefer to use other makes.
 
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