Mac Pro RAID 0 software setup?

[Julien]

Bought a new Mac Pro This week (new to OSX) and have the following setup.

Main HD (named :Boot Drive) 1TB
2ed HD (named (and for) :Time Machine) 1TB

Ordered 2 750GB HD's and plain on doing the following steps.

1)Remove Main HD and install the 2 750GB HD.
2)Run Disk Utility from OSX CD-ROM and setup as RAID 0 1.5TB
3)Run Time Machine from the OSX CD-ROM and restore system to the new RAID 0 1.5TB HD
4)Reinstall the original 1TB main HD and RAID 0 the 2-1TB HD's and make that the new 2TB Time Machine HD

Are my steps correct and is it as easy as it looks? Any thing I'm over looking or need to do? Also can I name my new Main HD Pro Mac instead of Main Boot and restore okay?

 

[CanadaRAM]

IMO this is way overkill.

Are you editing HD movies and require extraordinary bandwidth? If not, why go through the trouble and risk of RAID?

 

[Julien]

IMO this is way overkill.

Are you editing HD movies and require extraordinary bandwidth? If not, why go through the trouble and risk of RAID?

I do have a small amount of HD materiel (about 200GB's mostly trailers) but I also have 400GB's of Apple Lossless music. I need to VM my Vista PC also. Together this adds up to a little more than 1TB. Also what's the big risk (other than twice as likely to have HD failure) since I will have a Time Machine backup? Is TM not a safe backup?

 

[velocityg4]

I would just use SuperDuper! to make an exact clone from your current Boot drive to your new 1.5TB Array just remove the other HD's during the duplication. For an exact duplicate the program is free it only cost money for the selective backup features.

 

[Julien]

I would just use SuperDuper! to make an exact clone from your current Boot drive to your new 1.5TB Array just remove the other HD's during the duplication. For an exact duplicate the program is free it only cost money for the selective backup features.

Is TM unreliable as a backup?

EDIT: Just to be clear on how it would work.

1)Install SuperDuper on Main Boot HD
2)Remove 1TB Time Mechine HD and install the 2-750 HD's in HD bay's 2 & 3.
3)Make RAID out of 2-750 HD's and then run SuperDuper to make a copy on the Main HD onto the new RAID
4)Remove Main Boot HD and then move the 2-720 RAID HD's into the first 2 HD bays (does it matter which one goes in bay 1 and if so how do I tell?)
5)Reinstall the original 1TB main HD and RAID 0 the 2-1TB HD's and make that the new 2TB Time Machine HD

 

[velocityg4]

Is TM unreliable as a backup?

I have not really used time machine since I trust have used SuperDuper. As for backups I only do them manually since I do not trust automated backups and any slight performance drop do to an automated task bugs me to no end.

I also do not trust OS integrated backup's mainly because of the lack of thorough options and the bad taste MS Recovery Console left me.

 

[Julien]

Once I install and setup up the RAID for the 2-750's (to be the boot drive) can I move the drives to the first two slots without destroying the RAID? Also could I put them in there to begin with and put the current boot HD in the 4th slot and boot up or does the boot HD need to be in the first slot?

 

[velocityg4]

Once I install and setup up the RAID for the 2-750's (to be the boot drive) can I move the drives to the first two slots without destroying the RAID? Also could I put them in there to begin with and put the current boot HD in the 4th slot and boot up or does the boot HD need to be in the first slot?

As for moving the RAID array to different SATA ports I could not say how finicky Apple's software RAID implementation is.

To the latter question you can move your single drive to any slot and boot off of it. Jjust set your 2x750GB RAID drives in slots 1 & 2 to begin with then set them up as your boot array from your current boot drive in either slot 3 or 4. Heck you could take your current single drive and put it in a firewire enclosure and boot off of it if you wanted to.

 

[Julien]

....To the latter question you can move your single drive to any slot and boot off of it. Jjust set your 2x750GB RAID drives in slots 1 & 2 to begin with then set them up as your boot array from your current boot drive in either slot 3 or 4. Heck you could take your current single drive and put it in a firewire enclosure and boot off of it if you wanted to.

Thanks, because this is all the answer I need since I won't HAVE to move them.