So basically I'd be ok with using some Black Caviars in RAID O on my MacPro since I'm using Disc Utility to set them to RAID 0. Right?
Yes, you'd be OK in terms of those disks working, as they're attached to the ICH (I/O Controller Hub) that's soldered to the backplane board, and Disk Utility, which is part of OS X, will handle the RAID functions.
You are running higher risk than a single disk though;
Risk of Total Data Loss for a RAID 0 =
n disks * failure rate of a single disk
Also, will a drive failure happen more often if I use RAID 0? I prefer my drives be set up to look like one drive, its easier to manage/search through finder as well as backing up using CCC. But if the percentage is higher for drive failure in RAID 0 then it may not be a good option.
The drive itself, not so much (they can be under additional risk for other RAID levels). But as you're running more than one disk in the set, your risk for data loss is higher (see formula posted above).
And it's the Risk of Data Loss that's important (idea that the data is worth far more than the disk/s that contain it).
Although some vendors will happily sell you a raid5 using "desktop" disks. Perhaps the raid controller they use is more tolerant of a disk "misbehaving"?
FakeRAID controller based solutions; I hate them with a passion, as software implementations cannot handle parity based arrays properly, and they don't make their customers aware of this.
in anycase, you can use ANY drive to make a software RAID. it is not recommended to use "green" drives in hardware RAID (or in any RAID for that matter) hehe.
The enterprise versions would be fine (RE4-GP). In fact, they're used often for backups or even primary locations that can be met with the reduced throughput (power usage is more important = operational expenses).
My backup system is an external enclosure set to raid 1. Everything on my mac gets backed up once a day to the external drive, which is only plugged in when I do the backup. That gives me two backups of all my files. If one drive fails in my external then I still have the second drive. Any problems with that?
Well, if you backup a user error for example, it will be duplicated automatically to both disks.
If you're after redundancy, you'd be better off using it with the primary array (i.e. use RAID 10, as Disk Utility can handle it). Performance would be the same as a 2x disk stripe set, but have a redundancy of n = 2 before total data loss.
Now if your performance cannot be met by that, then you'd need to be looking at a card of some sort (RAID or non-RAID card) and additional disks (probably an external enclosure as well, though depending on the drive count, it may be possible to keep the drives internal in the system).
so basically they are messing us over
what are the benefits to forcing users to purchase RE over the consumer models, and then changing over the timings?
Well, none of the other disk manufacturers have ever made such a utility available at all. Not even for the enterprise units, so we should be greatful that it lasted as long as it did.
Granted, I know it's not fun that the consumer models are no longer usable, but at least the enterprise disks do have the additional sensors and improved specs to compensate for the additional cost (users are paying for more than just different firmware).
