Pegasus2 and nMP not reliable, options?

[Cubemmal]

After having the 4 bay Pegasus2 with the nMP I've determined that it cannot be reliably used with sleep cycles. After a short while, within a week or two, the disk goes offline. It will usually still show as mounted but it will be wedged, either Rainbow Wheel if you try to access, or it doesn't but there is nothing shown. In either case I'm not finding anything in the console or Promise utility log. I don't know whether to log the bug to Apple, Promise, or who? Unfortunately there is NO diagnostic information I can give, so my hope of getting a fix is low. Anyhow maybe it's because I have four SSD's in a RAID 5, but to test I'd have to copy everything over to another disk somehow and then reinitialize it.

This is disappointing as with the new design of the Mac Pro it requires an external disk array for storage, however this is completely unusable. I need something that will survive sleep cycles reliably. Has anybody found anything that works?

 

[Gav Mack]

Until these sleep glitches with TB can be ironed out completely (which I am not confident about totally happening, it's been a problem with external raid TB +sleep since Lion days with iMacs and MBP I know of) the two best choices left are to disable sleep or shut the nMP down when not in use. Not had any issues with the array left on, just the OSX devices accessing it..

Though like with SSD the PCIe storage is very rapid booting up on the nMP. Startup will take under 30 seconds and not minutes like it was in the days of spinning hard disks for booting OSX, so having no sleep is hardly as painful as it used to be..

 

[shaunp]

I'm using a Pegasus 2 on a 2012 Mini. The computer is left on most of the time and only turned off if I know I'm not going to use if for a couple of days. I don't however use sleep in the power settings - it's on all of the time. I can honestly say that I haven't had a single disconnection issue. How much power does the nMP use when idle, maybe just don't use the sleep mode if power consumption is low enough

 

[CH12671]

May not be on the same level as what you want, but I have the lacie TB>eSATA with the OWC dual drive eSATA enclosure, and I've never had a single problem with it waking after sleep...and my computer is sometimes asleep more than it's awake. The drives always wake right back up, along with the computer, with a shake of the mouse. Granted, this is on my iMac. I will be trying it on my nMP later this month (hopefully)

 

[jerryrock]

Anyhow maybe it's because I have four SSD's in a RAID 5

Ya think? Using SSDs in the Promise Pegasus2 enclosure is not supported. How can you expect that configuration to work if it has not been tested by the company? I have been using the Promise Pegasus2 R4 since the beginning of January on my nMP and it is a very solid performer. It sleeps when it is supposed to and wakes immediately. It conforms to the sleep settings on my MacPro.

http://www.promise.com/support/download_file.aspx?rsn=1562&m=93&region=en-global

 

[Michael73]

I'm using a Drobo 5D and not having any issues.

 

[thefredelement]

If IIRC you can use the Promise utility and tell it to never put the drives to sleep

 

[Stephent]

I'm using a Drobo 5D and not having any issues.

I really wish that the Promises were more reliable I got an R6 with my nMP because I want the speed and planned on using it for current projects while getting a Drobo(s) as a larger scale archival system. But if this problem creeps up on me as well I may have to just go Drobo full time.

 

[g4cube]

If IIRC you can use the Promise utility and tell it to never put the drives to sleep

Also, SSD don't know how to spin down.

 

[drditty]

Pegasus unmount

I am using the pegasus R4 as a main data hard disk and keep only my applications and working files on the SSD. Like you, I initially had this issue and kind of "freaked out." I can assure you that if you elect to "never put hard disk to sleep" this becomes a non issue. I have had no further problems in two months. Good luck.

 

[deconstruct60]

After having the 4 bay Promise2 with the nMP I've determined that it cannot be reliably used past sleep cycles. ...
.....
This is disappointing as with the new design of the Mac Pro it requires an external disk array for storage, however this is completely unusable. I need something that will survive sleep cycles reliably. Has anybody found anything that works?

First, it isn't Promise 2. It is Pegasus 2. 'Promise' is the name of the company and they are still version 1.x .

This thread is very close to another currently active thread.


https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1702539/


One of the Apple discussion group threads points to some variability that happens between OS X and/or Promise firmware. One of the issues some Promise support has pointed to is to stop the Promise box from "sleeping" internally.


Uncertified SSDs probably aren't helping and certainly are going to hinder getting into a bug/fix support thread with Promise and/or Apple. If possible would want replicate stable behavior on another Mac and then loop back to it being a "new" Mac Pro issue.

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Also, SSD don't know how to spin down.

While a SSDs doesn't have to necessarily "spin down" many do have metadata to flush to go into a reduced power state. Likewise even those with power loss protection capacitors need to take measures if power to the drive is going into a non-normal state.

The controller and cache soak up power too even when there is no read/writing going on.

Most RAID controllers are highly geared toward minimal drive communication latency which means keeping drives spun up all the time. They may work in other conditions but that isn't primarily what they are tested under.

 

[Cubemmal]

Ya think? Using SSDs in the Promise Pegasus2 enclosure is not supported. How can you expect that configuration to work if it has not been tested by the company?

Because the 4 bay disk less is billed as the way to migrate your old MP disks to your new Mac Pro? Don't need to get snotty, I know about their comparability listing.

I'll try turning the disk sleep option off, and am trying Pass through mode to see if it's any better.

 

[Stephent]

Because the 4 bay disk less is billed as the way to migrate your old MP disks to your new Mac Pro? Don't need to get snotty, I know about their comparability listing.

I'll try turning the disk sleep option off, and am trying Pass through mode to see if it's any better.

it is ok I'm sure Jerryrock always reads all the instructions before he builds anything. What fun is that

 

[Cubemmal]

Looking in the Promise Utility I'm not seeing any sleep options. Neither on pass through devices

This is the Pegasus2 - yes I said "Promise2" but obviously I just mistyped. Some of these reports are coming from the Pegasus 1 device I think.

I did just check and found a new firmware

"Bug fixes:

- Addresses an issue where the RAID volume may not be detected on host restart"

Well, I saw that bug too I think, anyhow I'll update and see if it helps.

EDIT:

The update went OK - the utility is poorly written, has spelling errors and an odd workflow, but I got it updated. One thing I noticed, looking at my physical drive information I see "Power Saving Level - Full Power" on all my drives. So I don't believe there is any internal sleep mode occurring.

 

[Cubemmal]

I am using the pegasus R4 as a main data hard disk and keep only my applications and working files on the SSD. Like you, I initially had this issue and kind of "freaked out." I can assure you that if you elect to "never put hard disk to sleep" this becomes a non issue. I have had no further problems in two months. Good luck.

Where is that option?

 

[mikes79]

re:

For whatever it's worth; I've been using the pegasus2 r4, since about mid feb. with a nMP and I haven't had a single disconnection. 3 HFS+ drives and 1 NTFS drive. I also use system sleep, but not on any sort of schedule. I put the system keep after logging out to the login window.

No issues when doing this,

your milage may vary.

M

 

[jerryrock]

Because the 4 bay disk less is billed as the way to migrate your old MP disks to your new Mac Pro? Don't need to get snotty, I know about their comparability listing.

I'll try turning the disk sleep option off, and am trying Pass through mode to see if it's any better.

Listen Bud, you're the one trash talking this product as if it is defective when the problem is totally of your making.

The title of this thread should be How to screw up a perfectly good Promise Pegasus2 R4 and get everyone else to fix it for me.

 

[Cubemmal]

Listen Bud, you're the one trash talking this product as if it is defective when the problem is totally of your making.

The title of this thread should be How to screw up a perfectly good Promise Pegasus2 R4 and get everyone else to fix it for me.

The thread wasn't asking for help on fixing the problem with the drives actually, it was reporting an issue I'm seeing and asking for other options - specifically other disk array options is what I meant. Certainly I wasn't trash talking, I love the unit otherwise and wish that either Promise had guidance on how to use it (i.e. "only passthrough works with SSD's") or a fix. As I said clearly they intend for it to be used with other drives, including the fact that the drive trays have direct support for 2.5" drives.

Take your anger and posting immaturity elsewhere please, we don't need it here.

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For whatever it's worth; I've been using the pegasus2 r4, since about mid feb. with a nMP and I haven't had a single disconnection. 3 HFS+ drives and 1 NTFS drive. I also use system sleep, but not on any sort of schedule. I put the system keep after logging out to the login window.

Did you get the one with the Promise included drives?

 

[drditty]

Settings energy put disc to sleep choose never

 

[Cubemmal]

Settings energy put disc to sleep choose never

Hmm, sorry I need more help. I've looked at all the settings tabs, in Physical Drive, Controller, etc and don't see anything like this. I don't see anything in the manual either. This is "Promise Utility" version 3.18.0000.18.

Unless you're talking about the OS X System Preferences "Energy/Put hard disks to sleep when possible"? I always have that turned off.

 

[Cubemmal]

Ah, to do so you have to use the command line utility available on http://kb.promise.com. In fact they just updated it a few days ago, seems there is some trouble with this setting.


"How do I turn off all hard disk drive power management features of Pegasus2?
Open Terminal, located in the Utilities folder (choose Go > Utilities in the Finder).
In the Terminal window, type promiseutil. This will open a cliib> prompt.
At the cliib> prompt, type ctrl -a mod -s "powersavinglevel=0"
To verify the change, at the cliib> prompt type ctrl -v. You should see PowerSavingLevel: 0
To prevent the Mac from putting the Pegasus2 to sleep:
Open System Preferences -> Energy Saver
Uncheck the box beside "Put hard disks to sleep when possible"
*NOTE* If the above option is enabled, the hard drives in the Pegasus2 will spin down even if the PowerSavingLevel=0. The Mac will control all disk spin down.

Pegasus2 Firmware v5.04.0000.17 and above offers the following default hard disk drive power management settings:
IdleTimeToParkHead: 1 minute.
IdleTimeToLowRotation: 5 minutes.
IdelTimeToSpinDown: 30 minutes,
PowerSavingLevel: 3.

PowerSavingLevel Options:
Level 0 Disabled.
Level 1 Park R/W heads.
Level 2 Park R/W heads. Lower rotation speed
Level 3 Park R/W heads. Lower rotation Speed. Spin-down HDD.

As highlighted above there are three levels of power management offered by Pegasus2.
Note: 0 simply disables all.

Lets say the user unchecks "Enable Idle HDD Spin Down" from the GUI, only the spin-down function will be disabled (level 3)


Other HDD power management features are still enabled.

To disable all HDD power management features, please follow the steps shown above. Once you invoke via Promise CLI the command "ctrl -a mod -s "powersavinglevel=0" this will disable all power management of the hard disk drives in Pegasus2.

For the next service release we plan to disable level 1 and level 2 by default. This way the user only needs to change the setting via the Promise Utility GUI and simply uncheck "Enable Idle HDD Spin Down"

Attachments"

 

[mikes79]

re:

The thread wasn't asking for help on fixing the problem with the drives actually, it was reporting an issue I'm seeing and asking for other options - specifically other disk array options is what I meant. Certainly I wasn't trash talking, I love the unit otherwise and wish that either Promise had guidance on how to use it (i.e. "only passthrough works with SSD's") or a fix. As I said clearly they intend for it to be used with other drives, including the fact that the drive trays have direct support for 2.5" drives.

Take your anger and posting immaturity elsewhere please, we don't need it here.

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Did you get the one with the Promise included drives?

I forget to mention that I also am using hard disk sleep, with no issues whatsoever. the hard drives spin up when accessed. I bought the diskless version from the Apple Store and I filled it with these drives. Working well.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EIQTKAS/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Honestly I'd try updating the firmware in the promise if you haven't already and only system sleeping at login window. A few seconds after the system sleeps, the promise goes to sleep and wakes back up upon system wake.

I also have a highpoint thunderbolt toaster that works the same…..

M

 

[Cubemmal]

I forget to mention that I also am using hard disk sleep, with no issues whatsoever. the hard drives spin up when accessed. I bought the diskless version from the Apple Store and I filled it with these drives. Working well.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EIQTKAS/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Honestly I'd try updating the firmware in the promise if you haven't already and only system sleeping at login window. A few seconds after the system sleeps, the promise goes to sleep and wakes back up upon system wake.

I also have a highpoint thunderbolt toaster that works the same…..

M

OK Thanks. Well as I say above I updated the firmware, and turned off the system idle timeout as specified in the Promise support doc, and will see how it goes. Most of the time system sleep works for me as you say, but after a week or two of that is when I get a wakeup error of some time. Maybe one of these changes will fix the problem.

 

[Cubemmal]

Update, I've gone a week with the two fixes (updated firmware and turn off internal drive sleep) and it's reliable so far. Too early to tell but this is promising (ha ha).

 

[Cubemmal]

Final update, the problem turns out to be VMWare VM's on the external drive, not the Pegasus or OS X (perhaps). At least the problem always occurs when VMWare has it's VM's on it, and doesn't occur otherwise. I think what is happening is that as the drives wake from sleep, VMWare tries to access them too quickly, which leads to things getting wedged up.

I tried putting a bug report into VMWare but with "complimentary support" they won't accept it. Of course they don't tell you this until the last step, with an obscure error message.