Cheap RAID 1 solution for g4???

[edcrane]

I've been living on the edge for the last year or so with a single 60 gb HD for my g4 workstation (running jaguar). Recently a non-crucial hd died and sent me into a fluster. What I need to do is setup a raid 1 array with 2 medium capacity ata drives. What's the easiest solution? My g4 looks like it only has room for 2 internal hd's which is problematic as I'd like to keep a single hd for the system in addition to the raid array for data.

I'm looking for a cheap, easy to manage ata raid 1 setup that will work with (preferably) both osx and os9. external is an option if I can get something cheap enough.

Suggestions?

 

[rman]

If you don't have to worry about down time. Then it would be cheaper just to do regular back ups of your system.

 

[edcrane]

If you don't have to worry about down time. Then it would be cheaper just to do regular back ups of your system.

unforunately, this isn't an option. I'm regularly backing data up on dvd's, but it's a time consuming process best addressed once or twice a month. what I need to address is the safety of relatively fresh data (~870 MBs of new data per day). raid 1 is good for this fresh data because it doesn't take any additional time or operations.

 

[rman]

What version of OS X are you using? The only thing I have found was on using xserve and OS X server.

 

[edcrane]

What version of OS X are you using? The only thing I have found was on using xserve and OS X server.

jaguar.

I've seen lots of external scsi raid setups but they're far to expensive. I've also seen ata raid cards compatible with osx, but most have been quite pricey (>$180). Right now I'm just looking for a cheap solution.

 

[Emrys]

Before you even start looking at options, you need to make sure you can fit 3 drives in your machine.

You can always use an external firewire drive to boot and run the OS. It might be a little slow, but that is an option.

 

[rman]

Even with the ~870 MBs of new data nightly, an incremental backup is the cheapest solution.

Basically all raid does is help increase the system up time. In that if a disk fails, you switch over to mirrored disk.

Since you don't plan to mirror your system disk, which is the normal case, you are not gaining much by using mirror only on the data disk. It would be better to mirror both disks if you are going to do this.

Just trying to help you think this through, why do you only want to mirror the data disk and not include the system disk?

The reason I ask, because it does not appear that you are creating a fail over system. It looks like you can afford some down time. Most companies that use any type of raid are trying to reduce the mean time between failures (MTBF).

 

[edcrane]

Even with the ~870 MBs of new data nightly, an incremental backup is the cheapest solution.

Basically all raid does is help increase the system up time. In that if a disk fails, you switch over to mirrored disk.

Since you don't plan to mirror your system disk, which is the normal case, you are not gaining much by using mirror only on the data disk. It would be better to mirror both disks if you are going to do this.

Just trying to help you think this through, why do you only want to mirror the data disk and not include the system disk?

The reason I ask, because it does not appear that you are creating a fail over system. It looks like you can afford some down time. Most companies that use any type of raid are trying to reduce the mean time between failures (MTBF).

err... my system volume is worth basically nothing. In contrast, every creative job or photo shoot is worth several hundred dollars. The problem with backing each job up on to a seperate cd (for example) is that the shear volume of cds will make accessing archived data a bit of a *****. The problem with DVDs, is that every time I do a backup, I have to spend time cataloging the contents of the disk and then burning the dvd. In addition, time between backups (even if just 24hrs) allows for costly data to be lost.

More OT, it seems that osx actually has a softraid solution built right into the disk manager. All I need to do is pop an ide controller card in and 2 more hd's and I'm basically set. This is a nice suprise.

 

[rman]

More OT, it seems that osx actually has a softraid solution built right into the disk manager. All I need to do is pop an ide controller card in and 2 more hd's and I'm basically set. This is a nice suprise.

Just trying to get a good picture of what you are trying to do.
What you have fpound is a truely a nice surprise.

You will find after a month or two (~870MB daily) you will need to archive the data that have been created. Because in my travels I have found that a disk is like a jar and the data is like air. Once you open the jar it fill up very quickly.

 

[XmanEDS]

Cheap RAID1 solution for G4

EDCrane, i am already running the setup that you are searching for.

it is the cheapest solution imaginable: the only necessary hardware is the extra hard drive! you are correct that DISK UTILITY will run RAID0 or RAID1 (mirror = what you want) for you in software. my digital audio G4 (466Mhz) is running softRAID1 with two hard drives, each 80GB with 8MB of cache... from two different manufacturers! one is seagate the other is western digital. FIRST YOU MUST MAKE A BACKUP OF ALL YOUR DATA, like onto an external hard drive, even if you just borrow one for a day. creating the raid ERASES all your data !
the softraid requires NO additional hardware. look at your IDE cable in the mac already and you'll see that it has both Master and Slave ports, so you can attach two HDs to that one cable that you already have. you can set your jumpers accordingly, or just go for Cable Select. you can certainly fit two hard drives in there. i recommend continuing with the Cheap solution. i know you asked for RAID1 + 1 (two disks mirroring each other for data, plus a third disk for the system) but the fastest=cheapest solution is to run just two disks in softraid with the system mirrored as well. if it amuses you, after establishing the RAID, you may partition the HD (the single virtual HD) into system vs. data partitions.

all i did to set this up was plug in a second hard drive, back up all the data, create the raid in disk utility, restore the data. voila.

now... how can i create a hardware RAID1 in jaguar for greater speed? heh heh. if you want to talk to me about this write to me at
XmanEDS at mac dot com
oh heck with it i'll just go for RAID0 for best performance.

 

[rman]

XmanEDS, thanks for your suggestion. Now i know what to do if I need that solution.