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LION, RAID and the doomed Mac Mini

S

Shrewdude

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 16, 2008
19
0
I just tried to upgrade OS X Snow Leopard Server to Lion Server on my Mac Mini. The Mini was running a striped RAID 0 of 2x 500GB drives. I had to reformat my drives to allow Lion to install properly. Which has now been done.

The problem that I'm now facing is that when I boot into recovery mode (onto the disk's partition where Lion stores the recovery files), Disk Utility tells me that it can't unmount the drives to allow for a RAID set to be generated.

Am I doomed to live with 2x 500GB under Lion?

Any suggestions????

Do I need to generate some sort of external Lion install drive? If so, how???

help.
 
You may need to make a Lion install DVD and boot off that instead, so that you're not booting off the drive that you're trying to set up.

If your Mac Mini doesn't have a DVD drive, and you have another Mac, you could try booting your Mac Mini in Target Disk mode w/ a firewire cable attached to your other Mac and install Lion to it that way.
 
Shrewdude, hope you post your results when you get it working. I've got a stripe as well on my Mini Server.
 
I couldn't get this to work on my 2010 mini server, and logged a bug report with Apple. I booted off an external drive containing the 10.7 installer. For me, after creating the RAID set (HFS+) and kicking off the install... following the reboot the installer just hangs and the mini falls asleep.

Installs fine on a non-RAID volume though.
 
Has anyone tried installing via Target Disk Mode? IE cloning the Mini Server boot drive, creating the RAID 0 array, and restoring it from the clone?
 
I'm planning on picking up a new (mid-2011) Mac Mini Server tomorrow to run with RAID-0, I'll report back what I learn.
 
Shrewdude said:
I just tried to upgrade OS X Snow Leopard Server to Lion Server on my Mac Mini. The Mini was running a striped RAID 0 of 2x 500GB drives. I had to reformat my drives to allow Lion to install properly. Which has now been done.

The problem that I'm now facing is that when I boot into recovery mode (onto the disk's partition where Lion stores the recovery files), Disk Utility tells me that it can't unmount the drives to allow for a RAID set to be generated.

Am I doomed to live with 2x 500GB under Lion?

Any suggestions????

Do I need to generate some sort of external Lion install drive? If so, how???

help.
Click to expand...


I have been largely unsuccessful in solving the problem. I tried installing Lion from an external HD to the Raid formatted set of the Mini but the installation hangs at the blue and white candy cane install bar.

The only solution I found was to bite the bullet. Simply upgrade Snow Leopard Server (Running the RAID disks) to Lion Server and loose FileVault and Restore capabilities.

Restore is not a big deal because you can still do it from a bootable USB key harboring Lion installation files.

My server is now up and running and is working fine under Lion with the RAID disks.
 
Shrewdude: Please report the bug to Apple. Although I have already done so, the more people that do the faster this will be fixed.
 
Raid on Lion = Danger

newfoundglory said:
Shrewdude: Please report the bug to Apple. Although I have already done so, the more people that do the faster this will be fixed.
Click to expand...

Just so you all know, my server crashed today. It won't reboot - stuck at the spinning wheel of death. I may have to forego the idea of running Raid with Lion. This is a real shame. The server was used to stream media to other computers in the house, to the tv and iPad. Fragmenting my mp3 and movie library over 2x 500gb is not something I wanted to do. It will Also resilt in misused free space.
I'm surprised that apple did not realize that so many of us who purchase the Mac mini Server routinely use Raid 0.

I fortunately did have a mirror copy of my Snow Leopard server.

I'm very disappointed.
 
Shrewdude said:
I just tried to upgrade OS X Snow Leopard Server to Lion Server on my Mac Mini. The Mini was running a striped RAID 0 of 2x 500GB drives. I had to reformat my drives to allow Lion to install properly. Which has now been done.

The problem that I'm now facing is that when I boot into recovery mode (onto the disk's partition where Lion stores the recovery files), Disk Utility tells me that it can't unmount the drives to allow for a RAID set to be generated.

Am I doomed to live with 2x 500GB under Lion?

Any suggestions????

Do I need to generate some sort of external Lion install drive? If so, how???

help.
Click to expand...

I spoke to Apple today following the failure of my RAID 0 Stripe under Lion. The technician suggests that I rebuild my server and see whether the RAID set fails again. If it does, I am to call back and report the issue to their engineers.

If any of you experience the same thing, it would be wise as Newfoundglory suggests to report it to help in solving the problem.
 
Shrewdude said:
I spoke to Apple today following the failure of my RAID 0 Stripe under Lion. The technician suggests that I rebuild my server and see whether the RAID set fails again. If it does, I am to call back and report the issue to their engineers.

If any of you experience the same thing, it would be wise as Newfoundglory suggests to report it to help in solving the problem.
Click to expand...

That's a bummer. If you get it up and running can you please run an AJA Disk test and post the Average Sustained Read/Write speeds for the RAID 0 array? I'm wondering how they will compare with a SSD. Thanks!
 
basher said:
Interesting comment. Can't say I understand it.
Click to expand...

You don't understand why running and operating system on a fragmented array is dangerous? OK...I guess if you don't care about any of your data, your cool. Better make sure you are using time machine for when one disk fails and you lose everything.
 
ZRD said:
That's a bummer. If you get it up and running can you please run an AJA Disk test and post the Average Sustained Read/Write speeds for the RAID 0 array? I'm wondering how they will compare with a SSD. Thanks!
Click to expand...

i7 mini server, 8gb ram, 1tb raid0:
8Dd7t.jpg

3tHCD.jpg

uC4YU.jpg

SzSOP.jpg

UXWa8.jpg

tazTu.png


File Size Sweep
MB MB/sec
Read Write
128.0 179.6 167.4
256.0 184.1 190.3
512.0 185.3 189.1
1024.0 190.0 176.2
2048.0 187.5 187.9
4096.0 187.5 189.0
8192.0 188.5 187.2
 
Last edited:
gentlefury said:
You don't understand why running and operating system on a fragmented array is dangerous? OK...I guess if you don't care about any of your data, your cool. Better make sure you are using time machine for when one disk fails and you lose everything.
Click to expand...

I have the same goals as Shrewdude, my Mini Server is a streaming media center and what I need is storage space. I have backups to 2 DroboPro's and a dozen other HD's. I like to believe that those of us who run servers understand the risks of RAID 0 and have backup strategies.
 
maestrokev said:
I have the same goals as Shrewdude, my Mini Server is a streaming media center and what I need is storage space. I have backups to 2 DroboPro's and a dozen other HD's. I like to believe that those of us who run servers understand the risks of RAID 0 and have backup strategies.
Click to expand...

Well said mate.
 
This is the same issue I ran into. I spent around 4 hours on the phone with Apple. The conclusion was that one of my hard drives was bad so they replaced it. Just got it back today and now I can't install the OS.
 
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