Mac OS X Server 10.6 - Apple's software mirrored RAID worth it?

Posted by Arko on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Arko
Published on 2010-06-23T09:22:59Z Indexed on 2011/03/07 16:11 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 722

Filed under:

macosx

|

raid

|

software-raid

|

mirror

|

osx-10.6

Hi,

I am installing an Intel Xserve (Quad core Xeon) with Snow Leopard Server (10.6) on two 80Gb 7200rpm SATA HDs.

I created a mirrored RAID set using Disk Utility with those two drives, all went fine.

I was then asking myself if this is really a good idea. I know that an hardware RAID system would be better, but what about this software RAID?

Have you any feedback on this? Will it work fine if one HD breaks down? Does this affect performance?

[UPDATE]

In short: Hardware RAID is better than software RAID which is better than none.

Thank you all for the answers, they were very helpful.

Especially Gordon's script to monitor failures. As Apple's software RAID is pretty silent about a drive failure.

© Server Fault or respective owner

Related posts about macosx

4GB of RAM in MacOSX 10.5, only 3GB in MacOSX 10.6

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Hi, I was using MacOSX 10.5 on my MacBook until today and I had 4GB of memory there. Now I have updated to MacOSX 10.6 and it only displays 3GB. Why is that? How can I fix it? Also, I am a bit wondering why most people (well, most of the Google hits explained the 3GB issue that way -- leaving… >>> More
Upgrading PHP on MacOSX without config_vars.mk ?

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hi everyone, I want to upgrade my php version running on MAMP to 5.3. I've copied the ./configure statement from phpinfo() and downloaded the 5.3 branch source i wish to compile. However, when i try to compile it i get an error about a missing config_vars.mk file from apxs. How can i solve this… >>> More
Compiling Asterisk 1.6.2 on MacOSX Server

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I get this error while trying to compile Asterisk 1.6.2 on Snow Leopard Server : ld: symbol dyld_stub_binding_helper not defined (usually in crt1.o/dylib1.o/bundle1.o) Googling this I’ve found nothing enlightening so far. This is what I am trying: ./configure --without-h323 --without-zaptel… >>> More
Python unicode Decode Error SUDs

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
OK so I have # -*- coding: utf-8 -*- at the top of my script and it worked for being able to pull data from the database that had funny chars(Ñ ,Õ,é,—,–,’,…) in it and store that data into variables...but I have run into other problems, see I pull my data, organize it, and then dump it into a variables… >>> More
Why do I get "unsupported architecture" errors trying to install a Python library in OSX?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I am trying to install a Python library in the Presto package, source http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~sransom/presto/ Using 'gmake fftfit' I get the following error: cd fftfit_src ; f2py-2.7 -c fftfit.pyf *.f running build running config_cc unifing config_cc, config, build_clib, build_ext, build commands… >>> More

Related posts about raid

Booting from integrated RAID controller when another RAID controller is installed in a PCIe slot

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a GA MA785GT UD3H motherboard with Windows Server 2008 R2 installed on a RAID1 using the on-board RAID controller. I have now installed a RocketRaid 2680 controller and set up a RAID5 for all my data to be stored on. Unfortunately I now cannot boot from the RAID1 anymore, the PC is trying… >>> More
Onboard RAID vs Software RAID

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
My motherboard, an Asus M4a79t Deluxe, advertises RAID 0/1/5 capabilities. My limited understanding is that onboard RAID is better than software RAID. Is this necessarily true? Is an onboard RAID controller closer in performance to a software controller or a dedicated hardware controller? >>> More
RAID-1 and regular drive removal (using RAID-1 as a backup measure)

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Is using mdadm's RAID-1 of 2 partitions (one on laptop's internal HDD, one on external HDD) a good idea. I want the system to work as RAID-1 if both drives are present, work as regular volume (degradad RAID-1) if external HDD is unplugged and quickly resync when I plug external HDD again. Questions: Is… >>> More
Explain difference in SQLIO numbers for RAID 0 versus RAID 5 over 6 disks

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
When using the SQLIO benchmark tool on a 4-core Dell server with 6 15k 450GB (fast) drives, RAID 0, we found the max throughput was 2MB per second. But when configured as RAID 5, we get 30 MB per second. It seems that the RAID controller, Dell Perc 5i integrated controller, is maxing out the… >>> More
RAID 5 RECONSTRUCT with RAID Reconstructor

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have Dell Poweredge server 2600 with Raid 5 in 3 hard drive Scsi 36gb each, it was fail to boot sinc the third drive is offline. I attached Sata card adapter to Sata hard drive and install OS SERVER 2003 to it, downloaded drivers for Raid and everything goes fine when I use recovery data software… >>> More