MP 1,1-5,1 5,1 Mac Pro w/ Quad SSD's - 4 Bay External RAID 1 - Is this even possible?

[Vecchiarelli]

Hello all! Since only the Mac Pro's have multiple internal drive setups I figured this would be a better place to ask this question than in the "accessories" forum. I have a 2012 (5,1) Mac Pro 3.46GHz 12-core machine rigged with 4 solid state drives of varying capacities in the hard drive bays and am interested in a RAID 1 backup solution. I have the drives configured as follows:

Bay 1 - 500GB Samsung Evo 850 SSD - System Drive: OS, Applications. etc.
Bay 2 - 1TB Samsung Evo 850 SSD - Factory Content Drive: All factory plugin files and libraries from Kontakt, Omnisphere, etc.
Bay 3 - 2TB Samsung Evo 850 SSD - My Content Drive: My own sample libraries, docs, pics, etc.
Bay 4 - 500GB Samsung Evo 850 SSD - Projects Drive: Audio recording and projects drive.

So... 500GB + 1TB + 2TB + 500GB = 4 drives with a combined capacity of 4TB.

I would like to find a 4 bay external drive chassis in which I can install 4 solid state drives of identical capacities to my currently installed drives (500GB - 1TB - 2TB- 500GB) and set it up in a RAID 1 mirroring configuration so that I have a backup solution that is identical to the drives in my setup but doesn't suffer the slow recovery time and other issues of using Mac OS's Time Machine that have pushed me towards a better solution. Ideally, FireWire 800 would be my first connection protocol choice on the 4 bay external drive chassis since my USB and PCIe busses already have a lot of devices on them. Given that the FW800 bus isn't being utilized in my setup it makes sense to me to put the RAID 1 mirroring load there so my other busses can stay dedicated to the hardware connected to them. However, I'll take any product suggestion that will work even if it's not FW800 based.

This will be be my first time doing anything RAID related so I'm a little unclear on the protocol and the limitations of what is possible. I've heard that different size drives cannot be used which makes sense to me when it's just 2 drives of unequal capacities but does that also hold true on a setup where each drive would have a matched drive of the same capacity? Is what I'm wanting to achieve even possible the way I've described it or in any other way?

Any help provided is greatly appreciated!

 

[mikas]

You have to keep in mind that RAID is not a backup. If you screw your working drives, let's say by accident - a human error or whatever, RAID is gonna mirror that too in an instant. RAID1 is for drive redundancy only. RAID0 is for speed and drive size. And external drives combined with internal drives in a RAID, I don't know if it's gonna be a good idea to try, if it even works.

You should use other methods for backup redundancy. Backup software ( tex. Time Machine et.al.) or Cloning software (tex. CCC=Carbon Copy Clone et.al.), or preferably both. There are options, these are just for example, and what I use.

One resolution could be a big CCC cloning drive (HDD comes to mind because of the needed size) partitioned to correspond your main drives, but the HDD could be two or more times the size your combined size of SSD's. Partition accordingly in proportion of your SSD's. Then program four cloning tasks, one for each SSD, to happen on a daily basis or more. Then switch on the safety net feature of CCC. You will have a clone plus some backup history too if things go south too bad. The recovery would be quite straighforward, replace the failed SSD, clone from backup, and get going again. Of course it takes some time too, but I find cloning a lot faster than Time Machine recovery.

It would be ideal to clone each of the SSD's separately to four discrete SSD drives, so you could just swap the drive and instantly get going again. Unfortunately that would need some thinking, because with 4 drives there's no room for that, not easily.

You would want a USB3 card if it's gonna be external case, but you might consider to use the other DVD bay to install the big backup drive. That is if you don't need two optical drives for your work/hobby.

I would still use Time Machine too besides the cloning software. Can't be too sure.

Hope this helps.

 

[Vecchiarelli]

Thank you for the detailed response! I get that the RAID setup wouldn't be an actual backup, and have considered using a cloning app instead, but the automatic part of RAID is what drew my interest. I've used Time Machine since it was introduced but ever since I installed a required update for the non-native NVIDIA Quadro P4000 graphics card in my Mac Pro I haven't been able to get Time Machine to run properly no matter how many correctly formatted drives I try. I've spent hours combing through solutions but still haven't been able to fix it. It will start backing up normally and then stop responding like clockwork. Up until a few months ago I kept daily Time Machine backups on an 8TB drive in my studio and then weekly Time Machine backups to a separate 8TB drive that I keep offsite. It was my way of keeping everything backed up safely in case of disaster without buying terabytes of online storage.

Given that Time Machine is basically a non-starter for me now I guess I'm going to have to just start cloning drives every once in awhile and keep them offsite. Even if I could get Time Machine up and running again with my system I'm not sure I would even want it other than as a last resort option since I've had Time Machine restores go wrong before and lost data.

Speaking of cloning drives, are there any apps out there that will update the drive to just the changes that were made on it? Wiping a solid state drive and then rewriting it every time I want to create a backup of that particular volume doesn't sit well with me, especially since I'll be doing it for 4 separate drives! If not I suppose I'll just backup much less than I used to. Any app recommendations or other info is appreciated!

 

[mikas]

Speaking of cloning drives, are there any apps out there that will update the drive to just the changes that were made on it?

Carbon Copy Cloner does that. Others too, I believe.

8 Best Alternatives to Carbon Copy Cloner for Backup Software in 2024 - CNET Download

Full list of the top Backup Software apps that are similar to Carbon Copy Cloner, including Mac Free Any Data Recovery, SuperDuper, SimplyBurns, Unlockit iCloud Remover, Wondershare Recoverit, Daemon Tools, MacQuisition Boot CD, SoftRAID

download.cnet.com

 

[h9826790]

I can understand your idea, and why you want that. However, IMO, not a good setup.

1) FW800 only has 100MB/s max, not a good way to connect 4x SSD. In worst case, each of the SSD only has 25MB/s bandwidth to use. Less than 5% of its max speed (more than 95% waste).

For RAID 1, it's the slowest speed hard drive define the whole RAID 1 array final speed. Which means, in worst case, even you internally connected SSD will be limited to 25MB/s only (90% slower than the original SATA port speed).

In other words, this RADI 1 setup will slow down your current storage speed by 90%.

2) As mentioned, RAID 1 is NOT a back up solution. It's redundancy, the idea of using RAID 1 is to "keep the system alive" when one of the drive fail. Never ever use RAID 1 as backup solution.

3) Using SSD as backup drive is very cost ineffective for normal user.

4) 1:1 is a very bad idea for backup. It provide little to no room to store the old snapshot. It's better to have 3x capacity (or even above) for backup storage.

In your case. My suggestion is

A) 500GB SSD connected to the optical SATA port. Make RAID 1 with the boot drive. This is the most important drive, so, making RAID 1 is reasonable. If this drive fail, the system will crash / hang, or even corrupt some data. This can also serve as backup boot drive if the primary drive fail.

Since the optical SATA port has same speed as the HDD bay SATA port, there will be no performance penalty (compare to your current setup).

B) Install a 4 ports USB 3.0 card (e.g. KT-4004) to get better transfer speed for external storage. (P.S. USB 3.0 is NOT bootable for cMP. So, it won't help to solve problem 1)

C) Install a high capacity HDD (e.g. 8TB or above). I personally will prefer to use it as Time Machine backup. It serve me well in the last 10 years.

This is for having "files snapshot". If you do everything right, may be you never need to read from this HDD. So, HDD is good enough, I won't too care about its speed.

D) Depends on your preference, may be another high capacity HDD, may be another three lower capacity HDDs for bay 2,3,4 SSD backup.

This serve as backup and some kind of redundancy.

For single high capacity drive (my personal preference). Just make 3 folders at root. Then use CCC to clone your bay 2,3,4 SSD to the corresponding folder. No need to keep any snapshot. A bit like RAID 1, but not really RAID 1. It's your choice to select the clone frequency. Usually once an hour is good enough (or even once daily), but if you want to, you can make it clone continuously (e.g. manually start task 1 - clone bay 1 SSD. Once finished, auto start task 2 - clone bay 2 SSD, then auto start bay 3, then auto start bay 4, then auto back to bay 1 clone......). Anyway, CCC only clone the changes, it won't waste unnecessary bandwidth to copy all those already existing files.

The reason to do this is because if you accidentally delete a file (or even worst, overwrite it) , you can simply go back to the corresponding drive to recover that file straight away (RAID 1 cannot do this). This will be much easier and faster than Time Machine. Of course, if you suddenly find out you've already lost a file for few weeks, you can''t get it from CCC clone, but need to get that back from Time Machine.

CCC is good for clone, but not that good for snapshot. It can keep all the old (deleted) files for you, but depends on the situation, it can be very very hard to located the backup file. TM is so much easier to recover a single file that you only have rough idea when it still on your machine, and you can't remember the exact name.

Furthermore, CCC clone won't throttle your SATA connected SSD (like RAID 1), and again, it's just a backup. Unless you expect high failure rate of your SSD (which is no true in general), there is no need to go for expensive SSD just to serve as backup.

And if one of the SSD suddenly fail during work, you can simply use the corresponding folder to continue to work (you may have to unmount the faulty SSD to avoid it jam the system). It will be a bit slower than SSD (how much degradation very depends on file type and size), but since this shouldn't happen frequently. I won't be too care about that expected performance degradation.

For three HDDs setup, same as above, but just use three separated HDDs, rather than one HDD but 3 folders.

-----------------

So now, you will have

You original SSDs

An extra bootable SSD (from RAID 1)

A TM backup (for all drives)

A HDD serve as 2nd backup (and redundancy)

No speed degradation for your original setup.

All data has two copies of backup and storage in different drives (if including the original, three copies immediately ready in your Mac).

Relative lower setup cost (and more total capacity)

Able to serve as real backup solution (compare to RAID 1)

All drives has associated redundancy to handle some degree of hardware failure.

 

[iluvmacs99]

Hello all! Since only the Mac Pro's have multiple internal drive setups I figured this would be a better place to ask this question than in the "accessories" forum. I have a 2012 (5,1) Mac Pro 3.46GHz 12-core machine rigged with 4 solid state drives of varying capacities in the hard drive bays and am interested in a RAID 1 backup solution. I have the drives configured as follows:

Bay 1 - 500GB Samsung Evo 850 SSD - System Drive: OS, Applications. etc.
Bay 2 - 1TB Samsung Evo 850 SSD - Factory Content Drive: All factory plugin files and libraries from Kontakt, Omnisphere, etc.
Bay 3 - 2TB Samsung Evo 850 SSD - My Content Drive: My own sample libraries, docs, pics, etc.
Bay 4 - 500GB Samsung Evo 850 SSD - Projects Drive: Audio recording and projects drive.

So... 500GB + 1TB + 2TB + 500GB = 4 drives with a combined capacity of 4TB.

I would like to find a 4 bay external drive chassis in which I can install 4 solid state drives of identical capacities to my currently installed drives (500GB - 1TB - 2TB- 500GB) and set it up in a RAID 1 mirroring configuration so that I have a backup solution that is identical to the drives in my setup but doesn't suffer the slow recovery time and other issues of using Mac OS's Time Machine that have pushed me towards a better solution. Ideally, FireWire 800 would be my first connection protocol choice on the 4 bay external drive chassis since my USB and PCIe busses already have a lot of devices on them. Given that the FW800 bus isn't being utilized in my setup it makes sense to me to put the RAID 1 mirroring load there so my other busses can stay dedicated to the hardware connected to them. However, I'll take any product suggestion that will work even if it's not FW800 based.

This will be be my first time doing anything RAID related so I'm a little unclear on the protocol and the limitations of what is possible. I've heard that different size drives cannot be used which makes sense to me when it's just 2 drives of unequal capacities but does that also hold true on a setup where each drive would have a matched drive of the same capacity? Is what I'm wanting to achieve even possible the way I've described it or in any other way?

Any help provided is greatly appreciated!

Have you considered perhaps getting another Mac, like perhaps a Mac Mini, as a dedicated server for your Mac Pro and have it automatically backup all your 4 drives on a continual basis?!? It will mirror all your Mac Pro drives and it you can connect your Mac Pro to the Mini via the Gigabit network which is faster than FW800 for sure. That is how I do it. I provisioned my old 2011 Mini which couldn't do much now these days as a file server for backing up my Mac Pro as well as my Macbook Air. The Mini is connected to 2 USB RAID 5 boxes with a total storage of up to 8Tb and I can take one of the RAID 5 box offsite if I have to as it is a mirror again of the 1st RAID box. All connected to the Mini's USB ports. The Mini is running Carbon Copy Cloner and Sync Folder Pro and it has features that allow automatically backing up and updating when any volume programmed to be backed up appear on the network. The Mini handles all of the network backup, so both my Macbook Air and Mac Pro aren't slowed down by the backup process. Using a Mac as a dedicated server and backup machine, you can configure the dedicated Mac to backup anything you want to your heart's desire!! Way better than the stupid and archaic Time Machine. Also, my Mac Mini backs up my files on my Windows 10 laptop as well as Windows 8.1 network wirelessly, so it all seamlessly synced to all my Macs.

With my setup, I don't really need to restore anything from CCC or Time Machine which you would traditionally do if you lost your original data as the backup would be on another mac, you can immediately see it, use it or deliver them to your client without delay.

 

[jbarley]

Given that Time Machine is basically a non-starter for me now I guess I'm going to have to just start cloning drives every once in awhile and keep them offsite.

Carbon Copy Cloner does automatic backups to pretty much any schedule you desire.
It is easy to set up and has never failed me since I used it to replaceTime Machine several years ago.
I really like the snaphot feature with APFS formatted drives.

 

[Vecchiarelli]

Hi iluvmacs99... I hadn't even thought about using a Mac Mini as a backup server but I like it! That sounds like it is going to eventually be my preferred solution as I add more machines to my setup. As for now, I'm done with Time Machine but still want an automatic solution where the drives are portable so I'm thinking of buying two of this 4 bay 2.5" enclosure (https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Drive-Docking-Station-DS-4SSD/dp/B0711L68MS) and filling them one of a few different ways while using Carbon Copy Cloner for backup duties.

Option #1 would be to fill each enclosure with Samsung 860 EVO SSD's in the same capacities as my current drives for a total of 4TB of solid state backup per enclosure. Each drive would be cloned to match its counterpart daily with a weekly swap out of which backup enclosure is offsite. Of the fully SSD options this one is the cheapest but also doesn't allow for much, if any, version retention. It will just be a straight copy of my system. Cost per enclosure - $651.10. Total cost - $1,302.20.

Option #2 would be to fill each enclosure with Samsung 860 EVO SSD's in double the capacity of each of the current drives for a total of 8TB of solid state backup per enclosure. Each drive would be cloned to match its counterpart daily with a weekly swap out of which backup enclosure is offsite. Of the fully SSD options this one is the most expensive by far but it will allow for more backed up versions of the system to remain on disk before being overwritten. Cost per enclosure - $1,211.10. Total cost - $2,422.20.

Option #3 would be to fill each enclosure with Samsung 860 QVO SSD's in double the capacity of each of the current drives for a total of 8TB of solid state backup per enclosure. Each drive would be cloned to match its counterpart daily with a weekly swap out of which backup enclosure is offsite. Of the fully SSD options this one is the second to most expensive but, like its counterpart with the 860 EVO drives, it will allow for more backed up versions of the system to remain on disk before being overwritten. Cost per enclosure - $921.10. Total cost - $1,842.20.

Option #4 would be to go for a hybrid capacity approach to an all SSD setup with a set of drives that stay onsite all the time and a set that is backed up weekly. The onsite enclosure would contain the double capacity drives and retain a more extensive backup version history while the offsite drives act essentially as a weekly "check-in" backup. Going with all 860 EVO drives the total cost would be $1,862.20 while mixing 860 QVO's for the daily backup and 860 EVO's for the weekly backup brings the total cost to $1,572.20.

Given how damn expensive an all SSD redundant backup system is, I'm also considering a hard drive based solution for half of the drives. In this case designating the double capacity hard drives for the onsite enclosure and the parity capacity SSD's for the offsite enclosure that takes a weekly trip seems the most logical to me. That setup ends up at $951.03. I also have a pair of 8TB external hard drives sitting around from before my Time Machine issues that could serve as backups of the backups for peace of mind.

More than anything, I think I just needed to hear some suggestions and type out some possible configurations to hash out what direction I’d like to take. Thanks everyone!