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To Raid or not to Raid????
- Thread starter PEDRO524
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Does the Mid 2012 MacBook's optical drive have SATA2 or SATA3?
I have a few Macs with SW RAID0 as boot drives, although I have not tried it with Catalina yet.
I have read that SW RAIDs do not work with APFS, but, I have also read that Mojave (and Catalina?) will run cloned on HFS, but will not install nor update the OS on a HFS drive.
I have not gotten around to testing it, but I was going to try it sometime soon.
will definitely boost read/write performance while transferring large files, here's my 2012 13"MBP stock vs RAID0 APFS.
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What type of performance are your looking to boost? Boot times?
While a RAID0 would most likely increase your write/read speeds (probably almost double them), a downside would be that SW RAIDs use additional resources. While it is a small amount, depending on what you do with your computer, I guess it could have a negative impact.
I am also unsure about this one. Maybe someone else can answer this.
It may depend on what you are doing with Parallels VM.
If it is just write/read speeds you want to improve, a RAID0 would do that. If you are wanting to increase overall performance, I think there might be other ways to achieve this.
Can you still create RAIDs from the command line?
You could try formatting your internal drive into two partitions, one to boot off of that's normal HFS+. Then use the 2nd partition on that as part of a RAID 0 with the SSD in the optical drive. It would be sort of the same process as making a fusion drive, except you'd make a raid 0.
You'd have to use diskutil directly. It wouldn't increase your boot times, but it should speed up parallel's i/o rate.
You could try formatting your internal drive into two partitions, one to boot off of that's normal HFS+. Then use the 2nd partition on that as part of a RAID 0 with the SSD in the optical drive. It would be sort of the same process as making a fusion drive, except you'd make a raid 0.
You'd have to use diskutil directly. It wouldn't increase your boot times, but it should speed up parallel's i/o rate.
Howdy Folks,
If you are seeking faster performance, you would be better off getting an SSD. RAID is supposed to either boost performance, or boost redundancy. RAID 0 boosts performance, but basically doubles your risk of drive failure (if either disk has a problem, you lose all data). The other RAID levels have some sort of redundancy built in, allowing for data recovery. Check this site, as SSD prices have come way down: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-pro/2012. Even a slow SSD will be a huge upgrade from your current disks, and all software, including Parallels will benefit.
Good luck!
If you are seeking faster performance, you would be better off getting an SSD. RAID is supposed to either boost performance, or boost redundancy. RAID 0 boosts performance, but basically doubles your risk of drive failure (if either disk has a problem, you lose all data). The other RAID levels have some sort of redundancy built in, allowing for data recovery. Check this site, as SSD prices have come way down: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-pro/2012. Even a slow SSD will be a huge upgrade from your current disks, and all software, including Parallels will benefit.
Good luck!
The OP is already using a SSD.
I never understood this argument against using RAID0.
While true, it does double your risk of drive failure, SSDs in RAID0 tend to be be pretty reliable in my experience.
Of course having a single drive would be safer than having two or more drives in a striped RAID, but that doesn't make them unsafe.
It would be safer for people to wear a helmet on their daily commute in their cars, but it doesn't make it unsafe to not wear a helmet.
A computer related analogy, it would be much safer for one to buy an iMac than a MBP due to the iMac being stationary and less prone to drops, tripping over cords, or other type of damage that Laptops are subject to, but that doesn't make it unsafe to have a MBP.
If you have everything backed up, like one should especially when using RAID0, then even if there is a failure of one of the drives, it shouldn't be too inconvenient.
If it is a bootable back up, then there would be little downtime.
I have been using SW RAID0 as boot drives for a long time, including SSDs. While I have had HDDs fail in the past, I have never had a SSD in RAID0 fail yet.
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Howdy vertical smile,
RAID 0 doubles your chance of failure, because if anything happens to either drive, you lose all data. This could be anything from a bad sector on a disk, a sudden bump or drop causing the heads to crash (granted this is rare these days), a file getting corrupted, in a software RAID solution, bugs in the driver, all sorts of things *could* happen, and your risk surface is times 2 with two independent disks. These are all normal risks with a spinning disk, its just the risk has a higher chance of happening with 2 or more. That is why I typically recommend you use a RAID 4 or 5. That way you get the performance upgrade due to striping (like RAID 0), and the redundancy of parity. Plus, you can't really say that because you have not had any problems, that nobody has or will. I've lost several RAID arrays over the years, and the software-based ones have been more finicky than the hardware based ones. Heck, I remember when RAID 0 wasn't even considered a real RAID level, and was scoffed at. Then again, I was taught that RAID stood for "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks" as the chief point was to increase storage size, as it was often cheaper to have multiple smaller drives, vices one larger one, but i digress..... LOL.
I still stand by my comment about just going to an SSD, vices doing any sort of RAID. Really the biggest advantage offered by SSDs, are the random read, and simultaneous (IOPS) operations that can be done. This will be much better on a large SSD as opposed to a RAID 0 array.
I agree, that everyone should have a backup, but the reality is, not everyone does. Even if you do have a backup, there is still the downtime related to the time it takes to do a restore. Unless you have "live" backups, you will still lose any data that was created since your most recent backup.
Rich S.
I understand how and why RAID0 doubles the failure rate, but it isn't like single SSD failure rates are already high.Howdy vertical smile,
RAID 0 doubles your chance of failure, because if anything happens to either drive, you lose all data. This could be anything from a bad sector on a disk, a sudden bump or drop causing the heads to crash (granted this is rare these days), a file getting corrupted, in a software RAID solution, bugs in the driver, all sorts of things *could* happen, and your risk surface is times 2 with two independent disks. These are all normal risks with a spinning disk, its just the risk has a higher chance of happening with 2 or more. That is why I typically recommend you use a RAID 4 or 5. That way you get the performance upgrade due to striping (like RAID 0), and the redundancy of parity. Plus, you can't really say that because you have not had any problems, that nobody has or will. I've lost several RAID arrays over the years, and the software-based ones have been more finicky than the hardware based ones. Heck, I remember when RAID 0 wasn't even considered a real RAID level, and was scoffed at. Then again, I was taught that RAID stood for "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks" as the chief point was to increase storage size, as it was often cheaper to have multiple smaller drives, vices one larger one, but i digress..... LOL.
I still stand by my comment about just going to an SSD, vices doing any sort of RAID. Really the biggest advantage offered by SSDs, are the random read, and simultaneous (IOPS) operations that can be done. This will be much better on a large SSD as opposed to a RAID 0 array.
I agree, that everyone should have a backup, but the reality is, not everyone does. Even if you do have a backup, there is still the downtime related to the time it takes to do a restore. Unless you have "live" backups, you will still lose any data that was created since your most recent backup.
Rich S.
Going in to the water at the beach dramatically increases the chance of one being killed by a shark, but it doesn't mean that it will be likely for a swimmer at the beach to even encounter a shark.
I have also had drive failures with RAID0, but only with HDDs. I understand that just because I have not had a failure with the SSDs in RAID doesn't mean that another person won't, but the same can be said about just because you had drive failures with RAID doesn't mean another person will.
The OP is currently using an SSD, and is looking for more speed on their old device. Putting the SSDs in a RAID0 would definitely speed things up. Of course there are downsides and tradeoffs like with everything in life, I just do not think that the double failure rate of something that is already pretty small is a big downside.
It is true that speed wasn't the initial reasons for RAIDs, but to cheaply increase the size of storage. With the cost of storage dramatically reduced, the initial reasons to RAIDs are applicable as much, but the benefit to increased speed still is very much so.
I say do it. I have a 2012 I am thinking of doing it to as well. I have a raid 0 setup on a MB 7,1 and the performance was excellent. If you are technical enough to setup a Raid 0, you probably already have a backup solution or don't care if you lose data.
For the OP's 2012 MBP, I am pretty sure having the two internal SSDs in a RAID0 would be faster than using a single external NVMe over TB.
It would also make it much more portable if the OP needed that.
its been 2yrs now since I've setup my Mid 2012 9,1 Macbook pro with 2 SSD in a RAID0, pretty reliable imho, i do have a clone backup just in case, having Parallels 15 installed surprisingly pretty fast disk write and read performance in RAID0 compared to single SSD.
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Yes it would be faster to use nvme. Huge gains in latency. Trouble is finding one...and they are expensice
Duh. Nice catch.
My advice, do it. You will absolutely see a performance benefit. Just be sure you have a solid cloning software to deploy it. Catalina will not allow you to install via the usual installer. The work around is to clone your current drive onto a pre-formatted raid array. I use SuperDuper, but CCC works well too. But you also need to know, doing this will also prevent you from updating the OS. Again that just means you'll have to use the cloning software again, update accordingly, then clone back to the raid. It is'nt the most elegant solution. But it works! And to those who say it increases your risk of a data loss... yeah no ****. But if you're savy enough to set this up, and invest in the drives, you know the deal. It'll pay off!
I've been running a similar setup on a Mid 2012 13" for two years. I have a 1tb 860 Evo, and a 2tb QVO. I partitioned the QVO into two partitions; 1tb for the Raid 0 array with the Evo, and 1tb for what I call "the update drive". This allows me to quickly manage updates on the regular partition, and clone to the raid array very quickly.
I've been running a similar setup on a Mid 2012 13" for two years. I have a 1tb 860 Evo, and a 2tb QVO. I partitioned the QVO into two partitions; 1tb for the Raid 0 array with the Evo, and 1tb for what I call "the update drive". This allows me to quickly manage updates on the regular partition, and clone to the raid array very quickly.
Hi, i have same the Mac with a similar setup, with a 1tb SSD and 500Gb HDD I want to do a Raid 0 APSF, for that I'm using an external installer with patched sur on it, the only problem I've encountered is that I cannot seem to be able to create a Raid 0 greater than 1tb.
I wish I could used the 2 drives entire capacity. So I was thinking maybe I should do a JBOD instead.
I use my Mac for video and photo editing so the speed of Raid 0 would help a lot with that.
I wish I could used the 2 drives entire capacity. So I was thinking maybe I should do a JBOD instead.
I use my Mac for video and photo editing so the speed of Raid 0 would help a lot with that.
Okay there's a few things you need to know about RAID 0, as well as the limitations of BigSur as it stands today:
In terms of Raid 0...
1. First, anytime you combine spinning drives (HDD's) and SSD's you're asking for trouble. It's not only an unstable way to use raid. But it will actually degrade your performance, when compared to using the SSD on its own. You're better off using them separately.
2. Without getting too deep into how raid 0 arrays work (which I suggest you research in depth), there's some general rules you need to understand. The capacity of the array will always be limited to 2x the capacity of the smallest drive, and performance of the array will always be limited to 2x the speed of the slowest drive. So in your case, you can only hope for a 1Tb array with performance comparable to having two spinning HDD's, which at best will give you 200-300 MB/s. The SSD by itself should far outperform that.
So in summary, stay away from any Raid in your case. Even JBOD. Both will degrade performance. (There is a third option however, a fusion drive. You can construct it manually in recovery mode using terminal. It will look to the system as if you have a 1.5tb drive, and will intelligently move various system files to the SSD and HDD depending on your use case. The issue here is you need to do your research once again, and Big Sur is not kind fusion drives. If you want to look into this route here's a good article on how to do it. AGAIN, proceed with caution... https://www.macworld.com/article/2014011/how-to-make-your-own-fusion-drive.html)
And lastly, if your planning on doing any of this on Big Sur, think again. The old work arounds to get Raid 0 working on Catalina no longer work with Big Sur.
Hope this clarifies things.