Mac Pro 8-core (08) + RAID + bootcamp

[mlabs]

got the card all connected up .. created a RAID set and volume ... but every few minutes I get an alarm going off .. over temp .. or over voltage ... also noticed that the fan RMP is zero ... something is not right...

 

[nanofrog]

got the card all connected up .. created a RAID set and volume ... but every few minutes I get an alarm going off .. over temp .. or over voltage ... also noticed that the fan RMP is zero ... something is not right...

1. What exactly did you do during the firmware flash?

2. What are the card's settings?

3. Check the fan cable/header connection (i.e. it could be backwards).

4. What version of OS X?

 

[mlabs]

ah well looks like it was a temporary gremlin .. I re-seated the PCI card in a different slot, to give it some more room and the fan started working ... this brought the temp down to normal operating levels and all the alerts went away ...

I now have my main 4TB RAID set configured with two volumes, booting off a cloned non-RAID OS disk .. a 2.5" 160GB scsi drive in the optical bay (will upgrade that to SSD v soon) .. moved all user settings to the RAID volume .. so now I can quickly re-clone the OS drive without losing anything...

I am one happy camper !

 

[nanofrog]

ah well looks like it was a temporary gremlin .. I re-seated the PCI card in a different slot, to give it some more room and the fan started working ... this brought the temp down to normal operating levels and all the alerts went away ...

I now have my main 4TB RAID set configured with two volumes, booting off a cloned non-RAID OS disk .. a 2.5" 160GB scsi drive in the optical bay (will upgrade that to SSD v soon) .. moved all user settings to the RAID volume .. so now I can quickly re-clone the OS drive without losing anything...

I am one happy camper !

Glad you got it sorted.

Now you need to get the testing done (forced failure to see how the card reacts, throughputs (i.e. stripe size experimentation, and stability of the drives in the array), as well as the SSD installed and finished up.

 

[mlabs]

:Now you need to get the testing done (forced failure to see how the card reacts, throughputs (i.e. stripe size experimentation, and stability of the drives in the array), as well as the SSD installed and finished up.

re: to force a failure.. I guess I can just pull a drive out of one of the bays while the machine is running?

 

[nanofrog]

re: to force a failure.. I guess I can just pull a drive out of one of the bays while the machine is running?

Yes. Even pull a second (assuming it's configured in 5, to see what happens in a total failure). Then see what you have to do to recover.

This will show/teach you how the card reacts to certain conditions, and what you need to do before it's critical. It takes time, and may seem like a PITA, but it's best to find out now, before a real event. Otherwise, you could bork the drive system by in incorrect proceedure.

Also yank the UPS's power cord during both a read and write (test data, not something you can't afford to have borked, just in case).

Both of these will show you why you got the card you did. For example, if you had a FakeRAID controller, pulling the power during a write would corrupt the file/s being written.

 

[mlabs]

hmm.. gremlins are back ... haven't tried the disk-pulling game yet but I just did a reboot and when the system came up I couldn't log in. So I booted off an external USB drive and noticed that my two new RAID volumes were nowhere to be seen - and given that I had just moved my Home directory to one of them, that might explain why I couldn't log back in....
Web config interface to card doesn't come up now.
Fan is spinning.
Maybe my card is now damaged after the overheating from yesterday?

 

[nanofrog]

hmm.. gremlins are back ... haven't tried the disk-pulling game yet but I just did a reboot and when the system came up I couldn't log in. So I booted off an external USB drive and noticed that my two new RAID volumes were nowhere to be seen - and given that I had just moved my Home directory to one of them, that might explain why I couldn't log back in....
Web config interface to card doesn't come up now.
Fan is spinning.
Maybe my card is now damaged after the overheating from yesterday?

I doubt it.

You need to check the firmware flash, as it's in multiple peices, and I don't know what you installed exactly. It's a starting point, anyway.

You could re-flash it as it comes off the site, then run the EFI version (it will replace the BIOS section). Remember, it can only hold one or the other.

If you've OS X 10.6.2 installed, dump it, and roll back to 10.6.1 as it works with RAID cards. 10.6.2 seems to be unstable.

Basically, starting over with the card installation. If there's still issues after that, we can go from there (cables, drive firmware,...).

 

[mlabs]

i'm running 10.5.8 so i'll try upgrading that... also I may have caused the problem by deleting this 'MRAID' folder that the install placed on my desktop ... because when I restored things.. the volumes came back!
At least my card isn't dead ...
Time to bust out the manual and do some reading

 

[nanofrog]

i'm running 10.5.8 so i'll try upgrading that... also I may have caused the problem by deleting this 'MRAID' folder that the install placed on my desktop ... because when I restored things.. the volumes came back!
At least my card isn't dead ...
Time to bust out the manual and do some reading

No, the card's not dead. It can actually take quite a bit.

You need the MRAID folder, as you discovered. The details of what's been done really do matter, as without them, I'm taking random stabs at helping you. It will be the same for Areca's support staff as well, if you ever need to contact them.

I thought you had upgraded to SL, and wanted to make you aware that 10.6.2 has caused problems with various RAID cards, including Apple's own POJ.

Check the drive firmware revisions to the HDD Compatibility List if you haven't done so already, as it DOES matter. If it's older they either won't work, or are too unstable (drop-outs). (Newer is typically fine).

It's also a good idea to test the SMART functions and scan the drives for bad sectors/blocks prior to creating an array as well. It's the best way to ID a suspect drive and save you time and effort later on (i.e. do it early where its quick and easy, as you can scan them in parallel).

 

[mlabs]

had an interesting time installing Windows7 on my other 160gb non-RAID disk ... but nothing to do with the Areca card... my mac pro uses two NVidia GForce 7300GT cards.. and the win7 installation has a bad driver for those... so the install BSODs ... to get past that, you have to boot win7 off the cd and 'repair' the installation .. basically go into the console and delete the bad driver... after that win7 boots up in SVGA mode.. and now I have to wait for a good driver from nvidia.
But then you just go to control panel-device manager and update the driver for the unknown RAID controller you see in there... Areca has the win7 driver on the install cd .. point it to that and you reboot... next time in I could see my Win RAID volume... init that and format... done

so the dual-boot works in this config .. can't see the raid volume via fusion though ... investigating that next..

very cool

 

[nanofrog]

had an interesting time installing Windows7 on my other 160gb non-RAID disk ... but nothing to do with the Areca card... my mac pro uses two NVidia GForce 7300GT cards.. and the win7 installation has a bad driver for those... so the install BSODs ... to get past that, you have to boot win7 off the cd and 'repair' the installation .. basically go into the console and delete the bad driver... after that win7 boots up in SVGA mode.. and now I have to wait for a good driver from nvidia.
But then you just go to control panel-device manager and update the driver for the unknown RAID controller you see in there... Areca has the win7 driver on the install cd .. point it to that and you reboot... next time in I could see my Win RAID volume... init that and format... done

so the dual-boot works in this config .. can't see the raid volume via fusion though ... investigating that next..

very cool

Sorry to hear about the graphics card mess. Maybe it's time to upgrade them, as I'm not sure they'll get newer drivers due to their age.

IIRC, you can make Fusion see it. But it's been too long to remember how.

 

[mlabs]

still no idea about fusion but it's not critical to me at this point...

so i've been having some fun with this card... it has a bios config interface but that's not usable on the mac pro hardware.. even though when booting windows7 I see the bios prompts, I can't access the setup.. areca confirmed this wouldn't work .. ok no biggie because there's also a web interface.. much nicer.. I found the best way to use this was to disable dhcp on the card and set the IP manually to a value in my local dhcp address range... then on my router, assign that IP to the card's MAC address.. otherwise, it was a bit hit and miss as to when the card attached itself to my router.

so tonight i set off a volume check .. went for a run .. came back to beeping... one of my disks had failed! Coincidence? No idea .. so now my volume is 'degraded' .. cool thing is I can still access my files on my drive But I know I have to replace that bad drive asap.

Pulled dives out while the machine was running... one at a time.. very interesting to see how the card copes with this..

amazing stuff..

crappy seagate drives though .. that's TWO that have failed in the last month ...

but now I have RAID

 

[nanofrog]

still no idea about fusion but it's not critical to me at this point...

You'd need to take this up with VMware, as I'd be taking random stabs at it.

it has a bios config interface but that's not usable on the mac pro hardware.. even though when booting windows7 I see the bios prompts, I can't access the setup.. areca confirmed this wouldn't work ..

Unfortunately, this is the case, given the system uses EFI based firmware.

But as you discovered, ARCHTTP is much easer to use. You also have the ability to send commands via CLI as well, and as mentioned, there may be an instance that you have to (commands not possible via the Web Interface).

crappy seagate drives though .. that's TWO that have failed in the last month ...

but now I have RAID

1. Toss the crappy Seagates.
2. Make sure your replacements are enterprise grade (every drive in the set).

I'm using WD for SATA, and have had good luck with their current lines.