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Selecting RAID controller for my needs

nanofrog said:
:cool:


I'd think Windows will use MBR on a single disk installation (don't recall being able to change the setting anywhere), but the stripe should be converted to GPT (as you're using a 64bit version). I don't know if this is going to cause problems.
Click to expand...

The problem is that disk manager will not stripe a GPT disk. I knew that from my previous trials with the multi boot approach. FYI, the Vista1 and Vista2 are the Vista SSDs. There are 2 other SSDs with OS X and two USB disks with a Vista system and another with the backup.

It is definitely not working. I cannot stripe a disk that has Vista installed and I cannot install Vista on a striped disk. It is catch22.
 

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gugucom said:
The problem is that disk manager will not stripe a GPT disk. I knew that from my previous trials with the multi boot approach. FYI, the Vista1 and Vista2 are the Vista SSDs. There are 2 other SSDs with OS X and two USB disks with a Vista system and another with the backup.

It is definitely not working. I cannot stripe a disk that has Vista installed and I cannot install Vista on a striped disk. It is catch22.
Click to expand...
Hmm... I had a couple of disks I could use as a test. I was able to confirm it converts MBR to GPT. I might have a solution, but it would require another disk. BTW, I also confirmed this ability is limited to certain versions of Windows Vista (Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate).

Install Windows on a separate drive, then go in and create the array out of the pair of Intel SSD's.

In my case, Windows is already installed on a RAID card based array, and I've made a stripe set out of a pair of drives so far. I'll try and see if windows will do this, so I'll get back to you on it. :)

UPDATE:
I tried the following:
1. Booted into the existing Windows installation
2. Created a stripe set in the Administration -> Drive management window, and selected Stripe Volume (wizard)
3. Started the Windows Installation
4. Installed the AHCI drivers
5. Hit REFRESH
6. NO STRIPE VOLUME available for install

So it seems you won't be able to at all, as you can't get to the RAID setting for the ICH in the firmware.

Sorry I don't have better news. :(
 
:cool:
nanofrog said:
...So it seems you won't be able to at all, as you can't get to the RAID setting for the ICH in the firmware.

Sorry I don't have better news. :(
Click to expand...

Yep, I spent some days on the issue and I concluded that it isn't feasible. I learned a hell of a lot about DISKPART commands. You can do a lot more with it than with the dung little GUI they are supplying. Who ever used Partition magic or Apple disk utility can only go mad with this piece of manure. Edit: BTW, I have the Business edition of Vista-64.

I'm off to buy a HP RR2642x4 tomorrow. It goes between 140-160€ and looks like a really nice piece of kit. The obvious advantage is that I will have two eSATA ports for my dual Sharkoon quickport, two Windows SSDs in the Addonix 5,25" bay (leaves two 2,5" bays free for cooling), two OS X SSDs in HDD bays 1&2 and two HDD bays for mass data with expansion ceiling to 4 TB. I will also have the opportunity to drop in another OS X SSD should I ever run out of space. The addonix still has space and the ODD-SATA port is free.
 
gugucom said:
:cool:

Yep, I spent some days on the issue and I concluded that it isn't feasible. I learned a hell of a lot about DISKPART commands. You can do a lot more with it than with the dung little GUI they are supplying. Who ever used Partition magic or Apple disk utility can only go mad with this piece of manure.

I'm off to buy a HP RR2642x4 tomorrow. It goes between 140-160€ and looks like a really nice piece of kit. The obvious advantage is that I will have two eSATA ports for my dual Sharkoon quickport, two Windows SSDs in the Addonix 5,25" bay (leaves two 2,5" bays free for cooling), two OS X SSDs in HDD bays 1&2 and two HDD bays for mass data with expansion ceiling to 4 TB. I will also have the opportunity to drop in another OS X SSD should I ever run out of space. The addonix still has space and the ODD-SATA port is free.
Click to expand...
:cool: At least you were prepared for such a result, and aren't reeling at the idea of having to get a piece of hardware. :)

And for others who would have wanted to do multiple OS array OS installs, now know for certain it can't be done. ;)

Good luck with it, and let me know how it goes, if you don't mind. :D
 
nanofrog said:
Good luck with it, and let me know how it goes, if you don't mind. :D
Click to expand...

Roger, on that! I have placed the order and expect delivery tomorrow.

Edit: I also added a request to Winclone 3.0 wanted feature list at Twocanoe forum. It would be great if they could add a feature that fuses NTFS RAID0 arrays from disk util NTFS partitions.

Some great info on how Winclone works is here: http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone/details.html
 
Another question for nanofrog.

I have now dumped my Vista system with Winclone to one of my SSDs. How is the installatio procedure with the Highpoint 2642 card? Ideally I would like to see:

1. Fitting the card and attached drives.
2. Booting OS X from previously installed SW RAID
3. Installing OS X drivers for the card
4. RR2642 will automatically communicate with EFI and make attached existing Vista disk bootable
5. Boot into Vista
6. Start Browser interface for WEB GUI
7. Extend existing Vista disk to RAID0 array without need to re install system

Is that right?
 
gugucom said:
Another question for nanofrog.

I have now dumped my Vista system with Winclone to one of my SSDs. How is the installation procedure with the Highpoint 2642 card? Ideally I would like to see:

1. Fitting the card and attached drives.
2. Booting OS X from previously installed SW RAID
3. Installing OS X drivers for the card
4. RR2642 will automatically communicate with EFI and make attached existing Vista disk bootable
5. Boot into Vista
6. Start Browser interface for WEB GUI
7. Extend existing Vista disk to RAID0 array without need to re install system

Is that right?
Click to expand...
I've never used Winclone.

Steps 1 - 3 look good, but from 4 down, I'm not so sure. I'm accustomed to having to get into the firmware for the card, and go from there (set up the stripe). GUI operation can be accessed afterwards. (There's almost ALWAYS features/or more detail for a feature in the firmware that are NOT available in the GUI access).

I have to do this on Areca's as well (also uses GUI browser interface).

So I'd think step 4 on would look more like:
4. Enter RR2642 BIOS, and make necessary settings
5. Boot into Vista
6. Make any necessary/wanted adjustments/changes via the GUI interface
7. Transfer clone (assuming done via Winclone, it would need to be done from the OS X side).

Keep in mind, this is essentially an educated guess, but is usually the process I've had to do with any card that has a web based GUI interface for settings access.
 
Thx, nanofrog for being helpfull once again. So I will keep my Winclone image close at hand in case I need it again for another cloning on a virgin array.
;) I allways knew virginity is over rated. ;)
 
gugucom said:
Thx, nanofrog for being helpfull once again. So I will keep my Winclone image close at hand in case I need it again for another cloning on a virgin array.
;) I allways knew virginity is over rated. ;)
Click to expand...
:cool: NP. :)

And thanks for the laugh. :D
 
About Winclone http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone/ It is a donation ware that allows you to clone Bootcamp partition images on mainly HFS+J formatted internal and external drives. It restores the image on same or other drives and allows you to beat Billy boy at his most favourite game: Annoying paying customers with grotesque copy protection mechanisms.

To re install my AHCI activated Vista64 with all programs would probably take me 48h of hard work. So in laymans terms we are talking a working week. The install has 50 GB now without much user data. Winclone does it in 20 minutes SSD -> SSD.

So it is a valuable time saver and it even migrates Windows between machines fairly well. It will not do every job but certainly MacPro1,1 to 4,1 would not be a problem. I just love it. I also use it to make backups of my Vista drive on the Mac although it is not recommended for this use.

I recommend the very readable essay of the Winclone programmer on the guts of EFI, BIOS, NTFS and how you tame it with unix programming. It is named: The details on how to clone bootcamp on Mac OS X

http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone/details.html
 
gugucom said:
About Winclone http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone/ It is a donation ware that allows you to clone Bootcamp partition images on mainly HFS+J formatted internal and external drives. It restores the image on same or other drives and allows you to beat Billy boy at his most favourite game: Annoying paying customers with grotesque copy protection mechanisms.

To re install my AHCI activated Vista64 with all programs would probably take me 48h of hard work. So in laymans terms we are talking a working week. The install has 50 GB now without much user data. Winclone does it in 20 minutes SSD -> SSD.

So it is a valuable time saver and it even migrates Windows between machines fairly well. It will not do every job but certainly MacPro1,1 to 4,1 would not be a problem. I just love it. I also use it to make backups of my Vista drive on the Mac although it is not recommended for this use.

I recommend the very readable essay of the Winclone programmer on the guts of EFI, BIOS, NTFS and how you tame it with unix programming. It is named: The details on how to clone bootcamp on Mac OS X

http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone/details.html
Click to expand...
I'm not running OS X. :eek: For software and RAID reasons, I did a DIY build, and use Vista64 primarily, though I occasionally boot up Linux. ;)

Prior to the build, I actually had an '08 2.8 MP, but it didn't work out, and I sent it back. I got hit with the shipping and restocking fees, but the RAID issue is what really did me in with it. The savings it had (even over a build with my specs) would have been eaten by external enclosures + extra. :(

Currently, I'm doing research into making this one a Hackintosh (was the intension when I built the system, and already have a drive installed that's reserved for OS X. But I've not gotten it done yet.
 
Ok, the Raid controller is fitted and all SSDs are in place. I have copied installation software to all Windows drives, and particularly the HDD not on the RAID controller.

This is what I have done so far:

1. Loaded driver in OS X. After restart card recognized and running ok with 4x
2. Booted Windows outside RR2642. Bios comes uop and says disks are ok. Horrible screen then long wait. Got a Windows crash and restarted with safe mode. Loaded RR2642 driver from disk. Restart and got a horrible screeching sound.

What to do now?

Nanofrog?
 
gugucom said:
Ok, the Raid controller is fitted and all SSDs are in place. I have copied installation software to all Windows drives, and particularly the HDD not on the RAID controller.

This is what I have done so far:

1. Loaded driver in OS X. After restart card recognized and running ok with 4x
2. Booted Windows outside RR2642. Bios comes uop and says disks are ok. Horrible screen then long wait. Got a Windows crash and restarted with safe mode. Loaded RR2642 driver from disk. Restart and got a horrible screeching sound.

What to do now?

Nanofrog?
Click to expand...

On the windows side, did you get into the firmware for the RR2642 and set up the stripe set?

If not, you've got to do this first.

Once that's done, you should be able to take one of two methods:
A. Install Windows (fresh), loading the drivers for the card during the installation process (same method as AHCI)

B. Attempt to place a clone on the set. This could be an issue though, as first, you'd have to get into the windows (existing prior to the clone transfer to the SSD set), and load the drivers for the RR2642. Otherwise, it won't be able to read the card.

That may be what's gone wrong, as I'm not sure to exactly what you did for software installation for Windows & the RR2642.

Let me know exactly what you've done, and hopefully, we can get you sorted out tonight, or at least by the end of the weekend (depending on when we both can get to the forum at the same time).

You're also welcome to send a PM (not sure if I enabled email). If not, I'll send you the address via PM.

Let me know. :)
 
There were several issues.

!. I forgot to expand the HDD Windows drive after taking a Winclone image. Then I copied the RR2642 SW to the Windows drive from OS X which ate up all the empty space and made Windows stall in the middle of building the desktop. That happened because it ran out of disk space to build a dynamic file.

2. The horrible screeching happens when the controller runs into a fault. I did not kill the installation on one SSD and it tried to boot into it getting lost somehow.

3. The screen corruption I havn't resolved yet But I belive it could be incompatible screen resolutions of my HDTV and the RR2642 BIOS. I will soon take the TV off to find out.

4. Loading Win drivers and setup software was resolved pretty soon and initializing drives and building RAID0 wasn't much of a problem from there. unfortunately Winclone isn't working which may be due to me not installing the AHCI and RR2642 driver as you have described. I will try to rectify. Updating RR2642 BIOS was no problem.

5. Booting from the LG BD is impossible. I will need to refit the superdrive with IDE. Now I know why the 2009 MP has two different SATA devices. It boots from a SATA ODD and those ports need to be seen different by the EFI.

So I'm happily slaving away on all those issues, as you see. I'll let you know how I get on.
 
gugucom said:
There were several issues.

!. I forgot to expand the HDD Windows drive after taking a Winclone image. Then I copied the RR2642 SW to the Windows drive from OS X which ate up all the empty space and made Windows stall in the middle of building the desktop. That happened because it ran out of disk space to build a dynamic file.

2. The horrible screeching happens when the controller runs into a fault. I did not kill the installation on one SSD and it tried to boot into it getting lost somehow.

3. The screen corruption I havn't resolved yet But I belive it could be incompatible screen resolutions of my HDTV and the RR2642 BIOS. I will soon take the TV off to find out.

4. Loading Win drivers and setup software was resolved pretty soon and initializing drives and building RAID0 wasn't much of a problem from there. unfortunately Winclone isn't working which may be due to me not installing the AHCI and RR2642 driver as you have described. I will try to rectify. Updating RR2642 BIOS was no problem.

5. Booting from the LG BD is impossible. I will need to refit the superdrive with IDE. Now I know why the 2009 MP has two different SATA devices. It boots from a SATA ODD and those ports need to be seen different by the EFI.

So I'm happily slaving away on all those issues, as you see. I'll let you know how I get on.
Click to expand...
1. Oops. :D I've done stuff like that too. :rolleyes: ;)

2. Those beepers are intended to drive you nutz, so you won't ignore them. :eek: ;)

3. I wasn't aware you were having this issue at all. But I think you've the right idea.

4. :cool: The AHCI drivers would help with the Blu-ray drive (absolutely needed with optical drives), and the RR2642 drivers are also necessary, if you ever want Windows to interact properly. Should be easy enough to get sorted.

5. Which ports have you attached the optical drives to?
Since Apple switched to the ODD_SATA ports (& SATA drives), it should be able to boot, though the AHCI drivers need to be installed for Windows. :confused:

BTW, I was under the impression the '09's no longer have an IDE/PATA interface.
 
nanofrog said:
3. I wasn't aware you were having this issue at all. But I think you've the right idea.

4. :cool: The AHCI drivers would help with the Blu-ray drive (absolutely needed with optical drives), and the RR2642 drivers are also necessary, if you ever want Windows to interact properly. Should be easy enough to get sorted.

5. Which ports have you attached the optical drives to?
Since Apple switched to the ODD_SATA ports (& SATA drives), it should be able to boot, though the AHCI drivers need to be installed for Windows. :confused:

BTW, I was under the impression the '09's no longer have an IDE/PATA interface.
Click to expand...

3. Screen corruption no better after HDTV disconnected
4. First trial to install Vista failed with fault message that some files were missing at 45% expansion of files. Will try again with different AHCI driver. Internal RAID volume for installation was found due to loaded RR2642 driver.
5. I have the 2006 MP and had thrown out the IDE superdrive to get space in an ODD bay for the Addonix SSD adapter. DVD booting failed logically. So I went back to fitting the IDE drive for the time being.
 
gugucom said:
3. Screen corruption no better after HDTV disconnected
4. First trial to install Vista failed with fault message that some files were missing at 45% expansion of files. Will try again with different AHCI driver. Internal RAID volume for installation was found due to loaded RR2642 driver.
5. I have the 2006 MP and had thrown out the IDE superdrive to get space in an ODD bay for the Addonix SSD adapter. DVD booting failed logically. So I went back to fitting the IDE drive for the time being.
Click to expand...
3. Definitely weird. If it were a PC, I'd ask you to check if there was a Plug n' Play setting in the firmware set as Enabled, but as this is a MP, I'm not quite sure here.

4. If you're back to an IDE optical drive, you might skip the AHCI for the time being, just in case there's a conflict.

5. Got it.
 
It said Windows can't load from the source. May be my USB stick which is also set as a boot device for flashing graphic cards. I will try to copy the AHCI driver to HDD and see what it does first.
 
gugucom said:
It said Windows can't load from the source. May be my USB stick which is also set as a boot device for flashing graphic cards. I will try to copy the AHCI driver to HDD and see what it does first.
Click to expand...
OK. Better than what I found, as it referenced a Windows Update error. :eek: :rolleyes: :p

Do you have another USB stick (not set up as a boot device) lying around, just in case?
 
I have copied the driver information to Windows HDD now.

I had other problems with the array and it took me 2h to go through several loops to get the aborted Windows installation on the array deleted and the arry online again.

I'm booting into OS X first to make the partition table GPT and get a GPT protection partition as on my HDD.

Then off to another try.
 
gugucom said:
I have copied the driver information to Windows HDD now.

I had other problems with the array and it took me 2h to go through several loops to get the aborted Windows installation on the array deleted and the arry online again.

I'm booting into OS X first to make the partition table GPT and get a GPT protection partition as on my HDD.

Then off to another try.
Click to expand...
You're installing Windows to a separate array, so do yourself a favor, and leave OS X out of it. Seriously. There's no need to go this way, and I think it's part of the problem.
 
nanofrog said:
You're installing Windows to a separate array, so do yourself a favor, and leave OS X out of it. Seriously. There's no need to go this way, and I think it's part of the problem.
Click to expand...

It is still expanding files. If it stalles again I will use Windows formatting next time. But having an EFI conform Partition table should normally be better for me.

Do you know if the partition should be active or not?
 
gugucom said:
It is still expanding files. If it stalles again I will use Windows formatting next time. But having an EFI conform Partition table should normally be better for me.

Do you know if the partition should be active or not?
Click to expand...
I'm not so sure, for a few reasons:
1. Windows is installed to a different controller (it might get the RR2642 driver confused)
2. I've gotten the impression Windows' GPT & OS X's GPT are a little different, and why you had problems previously (part of it at the very least)
3. EFI will load the BIOS emulator, then start Windows, even though Windows can technically handle an EFI firmware environment. Apple's is a little different (though based off EFI 1.10, it's proprietary), so it may not function in a manner Windows (Vista & Win7) can understand.

so n the EFI confor Parition table, No, I don't think so.

All you should need to do, is think of a system that you just built, and has absolutely no OS on it whatsoever.

1. Get the array setup in the firmware
2. Begin the Windows install
3. When it allows you, install the drivers (use a USB stick to contain AHCI & RR2642)
4. Hit REFRESH (otherwise it will give you an error if you try to select the array)
5. Select the array (format if required, sometimes this isn't necessary, but usually with true hardware controllers)
6. Continue with the installation
7. Once completed, install the Boot Camp disk, and load the Windows drivers

Done.

Given the firmware contains the BIOS emulator, you don't need to go through OS X at all, or Boot Camp's partition tool. You do need to load the drivers from it though, after Windows has installed.
 
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