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Resolved Help with a poor man's 80 GB raid array (funny)

B

bungiefan89

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 5, 2011
565
76
I am poor.

I am so poor that for external HDD storage, all I have is the a 3.5" 60 GB Maxis HDD salvaged from my family's long-since-dead eMac, and the 2.5" 20 GB Seagate HDD salvaged from the external hard drive that came with my Xbox 360.

Anyway, I managed to get an external enclosure for both HDDs, and they still work and plug in to my computer with USB. So, how do I make the Seagate HDD and the Maxis HDD join forces to create an uber-glorious MAXISEGATE (must be said in a booming, manly voice) raid array with a super-awesome capacity of 80 GB?
 
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bungiefan89 said:
I am poor.

I am so poor that for external HDD storage, all I have is the a 3.5" 60 GB Maxis HDD salvaged from my family's long-since-dead eMac, and the 2.5" 20 GB Seagate HDD salvaged from the external hard drive that came with my Xbox 360.

Anyway, I managed to get an external enclosure for both HDDs, and they still work and plug in to my computer with USB. So, how do I make the Seagate HDD and the Maxis HDD join forces to create an uber-glorious MAXISEGATE (must be said in a booming, manly voice) raid array with a super-awesome capacity of 80 GB?
Click to expand...

I'm not really sure if this is a serious question, or you are just trying to be funny.... To be honest, if you are serious then your post is not the way to get help. If you are just being funny, then at least I am posting this to help those who might ACTUALLY want to do something like this in the future.

First off what you want isn't RAID really at all. RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. You want to create a spanning or JBOD. Here's an article on how to do it:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1646025/

Now for the warnings: 1st: These are some realllyyy old drives. I'm surprised they work at all. They will die soon. I understand you are poor, but it might be time to scrape together some cash and get a couple of new drives.

2nd: JBOD has no redundancy of any type. If a drive dies you are out all the information on that drive. It isn't as bad as a striped array where all data is partially copied to each drive, but it's no better than just having two separate drives hanging off your computer.

Anyway. My .02 worth. Not even sure why I bothered to respond to this thread. Maybe because it is 4AM and I am tired and can't sleep and my better judgement has been thrown out.
 
bungiefan89 said:
I am poor.

I am so poor that for external HDD storage, all I have is the a 3.5" 60 GB Maxis HDD salvaged from my family's long-since-dead eMac, and the 2.5" 20 GB Seagate HDD salvaged from the external hard drive that came with my Xbox 360.

Anyway, I managed to get an external enclosure for both HDDs, and they still work and plug in to my computer with USB. So, how do I make the Seagate HDD and the Maxis HDD join forces to create an uber-glorious MAXISEGATE (must be said in a booming, manly voice) raid array with a super-awesome capacity of 80 GB?
Click to expand...

Plug the drives into Mac (use an enclosure or dock). Go to the Disk Utility app. Click on one of the drives. Click the RAID tab along the top of Disk Util. Drag the two drives into the window. Name the RAID Set Name Uber Glorius (I am not sure if you can use a dash in between Uber and Glorius). Choose Format Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Choose Concatenated Disk Set. Click Create.
 
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xArtx said:
RAID originally stood for "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks",
and the later introduced RAID 0, actually provides zero redundancy,
and serves only to improve performance that "just a bunch of disks"
does not, but binds the two physical hard drives.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Does-RAID0-Really-Increase-Disk-Performance/394/3
Click to expand...

We didn't discuss RAID 0 and that wouldn't help the OP here anyway since they aren't the same size and if he were to RAID 0 them, he would only end up with 40GB. Further, originally it might have been Inexpensive, but today it is Independent. Congrats on knowing what it originally was I guess?

I guess I am not sure what your post added to this discussion other than to muddy the water with historical facts and information that doesn't pertain to the scenario the OP asked about?
 
paulrbeers said:
We didn't discuss RAID 0 and that wouldn't help the OP here anyway since they aren't the same size and if he were to RAID 0 them, he would only end up with 40GB. Further, originally it might have been Inexpensive, but today it is Independent. Congrats on knowing what it originally was I guess?

I guess I am not sure what your post added to this discussion other than to muddy the water with historical facts and information that doesn't pertain to the scenario the OP asked about?
Click to expand...

Certainly the disks are of different size, and small enough capacity that most would consider drawer spares, and I don't even know if Macs have a RAID controller.

What I intended to add to the discussion, is to bring to light the OP's possible
reason for enquiring about RAIDing two useless drives.
Education perhaps? Evaluating performance for future planning? ***** & Giggles? Who knows what would actually help the OP, You?
I would at least consult Wikipedia before making such assumptions.
A RAID 0 can be created with disks of differing sizes, but the storage space added to the array by each disk is limited to the size of the smallest disk. For example, if a 100 GB disk is striped together with a 350 GB disk, the size of the array will be 200 GB (100 GB × 2).
Click to expand...

Therefore 60Gb + 20Gb provides only 20Gb storage.. even more useless for practical purposes, the line in the sig already suggests he don't actually need the space.

RAID 0 is zero redundancy, therefore no wasted space for matching drives.
40Gb + 40Gb RAID 0 = 80Gb, not 40Gb, but improved performance.
 
opinio said:
Plug the drives into Mac (use an enclosure or dock). Go to the Disk Utility app. Click on one of the drives. Click the RAID tab along the top of Disk Util. Drag the two drives into the window. Name the RAID Set Name Uber Glorius (I am not sure if you can use a dash in between Uber and Glorius). Choose Format Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Choose Concatenated Disk Set. Click Create.
Click to expand...
*jumps and screams with joy* Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!!!!!!!! This is EXACTLY the kind of response I needed! Totally appreciate your help and willingness to provide fool-proof instructions on how to do something. The avatar beneath your name is well-earned indeed! :)

paulrbeers said:
ALL THE STUFF YOU SAID.
Click to expand...
For the sake of clarification, no, I was not joking around at all with this. Totally serious. But I thought others might find it funny (as I did, at least) that one would go through so much trouble for external storage with such old, low-quality and low-capacity HDDs. It is a stark contrast to the other threads on this board asking questions about fancy new multi-TB HDDs and SSDs with thunderbolt, wouldn't you agree?

Also, I figured a bit of humor and the suggestion that this thread might be funny in the title would draw in quicker responses... and it looks like I was right!

Oh, and thank you very much for informing me of the dangers of making a JBOD. I had originally planned on using this multi-drive setup for holding big fat video files for a college class, but instead I guess I'll just use it for storing away my computer games so I don't have to re-download all of them when I have to restart my Windows 7 trial on my Bootcamp partition. :D
 
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bungiefan89 said:
This is EXACTLY the kind of response I needed!
Click to expand...

Welcome to the Internet, where:

33% of the responses will be "why do you want to do that?" (with an implied "you idiot").
33% of the responses will be "there's no way to do what you want, ever".
33% of the responses, while interesting, will have nothing to do with what you asked.
...and 1 guy will post the answer.

A.
 
xArtx said:
Therefore 60Gb + 20Gb provides only 20Gb storage...
Click to expand...
:(

even more useless for practical purposes, the line in the sig already suggests he don't actually need the space.
Click to expand...
Actually... I kind of DO need the extra space. You see, my iMac may be equipped with a big fat 1TB HDD, but it is cloven in twain: 600 GB for my Max OS X partition, 400 GB for Windows 7 that I run through bootcamp.

You see, I'm a gamer, and I need Windows 7 to run 90% of the computer games I own. But since I am poor (and also just don't care for Microsoft) I've never actually purchased a full version of Windows 7. Instead, I run a 30-day trial of Windows 7 (which is free) and use a guide I found online that extends that 30-day trial out to 120 days.

The chief benefit of this system is I never have to buy Windows 7 while still using the full OS. But after those 120 days, Windows 7 will shut down on me after 1 hour of use unless I buy a key code, so I have to erase the partition and start the 120-day trial all over again.

The other benefit of this system is that because the entire OS and all the data on that partition is erased, I never have to worry about viruses or buying virus protection, because they're all erased along with everything else sooner or later. The flip-side of this benefit is I need to re-download all my games when I re-install Windows 7, and that's where the external storage comes in to play. Before erasing my bootcamp partition, I like to save a lot of my game data onto an external drive so I don't have to slow my family's internet speed to a crawl for days on end; I can just install the games locally.

WOW that was a long explanation, but I hope you can now understand it's perfectly logical for me to want external HDD space; because I can't just back up games on Windows 7 to my Mac OS X partition and then put them back and expect them to work... RIGHT? :confused:
 
in having the 2 drives show up as one, if one drive dies, you loose all the data.
with drives as old as yours, i might not take that risk.

that way you at least might save some of your data.
 
opinio said:
Not in concatenated. It will equal 80GB
Click to expand...

Yes I know, I was trying to point out that someone was being an ass,
and was indeed wrong with regard to RAID.
I think that if you're going to berate someone with your answer you should get it right.

OP if you're going to steal Windows, how hard is it to steal it properly?
It takes five minutes, and no such trouble, but I'd better not go into that here.
 
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xArtx said:
OP if you're going to steal Windows, how hard is it to steal it properly?
Click to expand...
I'm not stealing it. :)

I'm just exploiting the fact that I can reinstall Windows 7 an infinite number of times without having to pay Microsoft a dime.

The ONLY reason I have Windows 7 on my computer is to play PC games. This method works well for me, and it provides me with the best possible protection from viruses. Plus, it's all legal and I have the process committed to memory! :cool:
 
Oh, I get it.. you can exploit that legally if you're prepared for the stuff around.
Fair enough :D

I am actually very close. it's my Toshiba OEM key, but my Mac isn't a Toshiba laptop.

bungiefan89 said:
I'm not stealing it. :)

I'm just exploiting the fact that I can reinstall Windows 7 an infinite number of times without having to pay Microsoft a dime.

The ONLY reason I have Windows 7 on my computer is to play PC games. This method works well for me, and it provides me with the best possible protection from viruses. Plus, it's all legal and I have the process committed to memory! :cool:
Click to expand...
 
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