Guide for RAID-0 on OS X 10.8.5 using tonymacx86 tool set

[neilhart]

Guide for installing a RAID 0 using OS X 10.8.5 and TonyMacX86 software tool set.

Overview - The process requires that you have established a sound working OS X 10.8.5 on a partition. Clone the system onto the RAID 0, then make the RAID bootable. This process requires that you use the terminal application and use the Pacifist.app to extract the boot files from the Chimera package. If you follow the steps as provided you will soon enjoy the performance of a RAID 0.

If you have a stable working installation of OS X 10.8.5 that you are happy with then proceed.

Download Chimera 2.2.1.pkg (or the latest version) from TonyMacX86 Downloads.

Drag the Chimera package to the your desktop (from the Downloads directory).

If you do not already have the Pacifist package, download it from this link:
http://pacifist.en.softonic.com/mac or google for it. Install Pacifist to your Applications directory.

Open/run Pacifist. This is shareware and if you continue to use it you may want to purchase a license and avoid the count down timer.

Click the "Open Package" selection in Pacifist. Navigate to your desktop and select the Chimera package.
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Navigate in the Pacifist window to the "i386" folder, click on it to select it, then click on the Extract To.. button, and select your desktop as the target. Confirm in the dialog that opens - click Extract button. Enter you password to proceed.

Pacifist puts a decompressed copy of the selected "i386" folder on your desktop. Close Pacifist.

Copy and paste the boot, boot0 and boot1h files from the i386 folder to your desktop.

Now we need to create the RAID set in OS X.
As needed shutdown your system and add the drives that you want to have in your RAID set.
Boot and open Disk Utility. Select one of the new drives (hard drive or SSD).
Select "RAID" in the menu bar.
Give your new RAID set a name (I use RAID-0 as a name for my RAID sets).
Use the default Format (Mac OS Extended (Journaled)).
Set the RAID Type to "Striped RAID Set"
The drag the icon of drives that you want in the RAID set from the left column to the center input box.

See the screen capture of my Disk Utilty session, yours should be somewhat similar.
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Click on "Create" button. The system creates the RAID set.

Close Disk Utility.

Clone your working OS X 10.8.5 partition to the new RAID-0 set. I now use !SuperDuper (by Shirt Pocket Software).
See: www.shirt-pocket.com if you need copy of this shareware software. Also, you can use CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner) or even Disk Utility.
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Selecting the source and destination. Start the cloning process and go have a cup of coffee as this does take awhile.
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When SuperDuper completes, you should have a status similar to this.

Close SuperDuper.

Click on you new RAID-0 to open Finder window, copy the /Extra folder and paste it onto the Desktop.

Go into the Utilities folder in the Applications folder and open the Terminal application.

Close any other applications that you might have open.

Size the Terminal window to a tall window to minimize scrolling.

Here is a screen capture of my Terminal session. I will step through this (don't enter the " quotes).
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In the Terminal window;

enter "cd Desktop" and press the enter key

enter "sudo su" and press the enter key

at the prompt enter your pass word

enter "diskutil list" and press the enter key

In my example list, there are four drives listed:
/dev/disk0 is the current boot drive
/dev/disk1 and /dev/disk2 are the two drives that make of the RAID-0 set.
/dev/disk3 is the RAID-0 drive set.

Note some may have many drives attached and the RAID-0 drives could be in other locations in the listing. If this is the case, look for the drives that have a "Apple_Boot Boot OS X" and note the /dev/disk#. And some users may already have pre-existing RAID sets which maybe confusing and in this case you are on your own,

enter "fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk1" and press the enter key

enter "fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk2" and press the enter key

enter "dd if=boot1h of=/dev/rdisk1s3" and press the enter key

enter "dd if=boot1h of=/dev/rdisk2s3" and press the enter key

enter "diskutil mount disk1s3" and press the enter key

enter "cp boot /Volumes/Boot\ OS\ X/" and press the enter key

enter 'cp -R Extra /Volumes/Boot\ OS\ X/" and press the enter key

enter "diskutil unmount disk1s3" and press the enter key

enter "diskutil mount disk2s3" and press the enter key

enter "cp boot /Volumes/Boot\ OS\ X/" and press the enter key

enter 'cp -R Extra /Volumes/Boot\ OS\ X/" and press the enter key

enter "diskutil unmount disk2s3" and press the enter key

Okay... you are done. Close your windows.

Shutdown the system, disconnect the source drive if you want.

You can now boot into your RAID-0 set and check things out.

Of interest my test was with three Seagate 250 GB hard drives, where the first was partitioned into two partitions and the other two drives were established as members of the RAID-0 drive set.

This is the performance of the source drive:
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And here is the performance of the RAID-0:
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*** end of guide ***

Please note that is the simplest OS X software RAID setup that I know of and I use it on many of my hacks. This guide assumes an OS X 10.8.5 clean install and no fancy post install environment customizations. I recommend TonyMacX86 UniBeast 2.1.1, MultiBeast Mountian Lion 5.5.3 and Chimera 2.2.1.

Other versions of Tony's tools will work, but this guide was generated with the versions stated.

I also recommend using a pair of small SATA 3 SSDs as boot times become silly fast and applications snap to the screen. Also, you must keep your system backups current (I keep SuperDuper made clone partitions on a standard hard drive on all of my systems) Technically there is more risk with RAID-0 drive sets so protect your self from having a bad experience.

Good modding,
neil

 

[rosco385]

Thanks for posting this neil. The only difference I can see from the way I've been trying to setup RAID0 is the guide I followed said to paste "rd=uuid boot-uuid=[RAID Identifier] npci=0x-2000" into the Kernel Flags string in org.chameleon.Boot.plist. I'll try it your way tonight and see how I go.

 

[neilhart]

Thanks for posting this neil. The only difference I can see from the way I've been trying to setup RAID0 is the guide I followed said to paste "rd=uuid boot-uuid=[RAID Identifier] npci=0x-2000" into the Kernel Flags string in org.chameleon.Boot.plist. I'll try it your way tonight and see how I go.

Yes several years ago I found that the "rd=uuid..." string was necessary. OS X has evolved and I find that the minimum content of the /Volumes/Boot\ /OS\ X/ folder is the boot file and the /Extra folder. Note the system will load several other files in to "Boot OS X" folder and you should not disturb those files.

And of interest, the original /Extra folder can remain in the root directory, however /Extra that the system uses during boot is the one found in the "Boot OS X" folder. And you can boot from any member of the RAID set.


Good luck with your RAID set.
neil

 

[rosco385]

Just finished installing my new RAID boot drive. Everything worked a treat, and easier than the last guide I followed. Thanks a lot for your help neil.

 

[stradivari2]

Hey guys,

REALLY weird situation...

Following the guide, when I try to boot from the array, I get "can't find mach_kernel". BUT… when I then go to my known-good USB volume (the one from which I cloned to the array) to boot up from it instead, IT THEN BOOTS FROM THE RAID!?

How can this be? What would cause it? And what do I need to change to get it to boot from the array when I select one of the disk members?

In troubleshooting, Google found me a site that advised changing the boot UUID in the com.apple.Boot.plist on the Boot OS X partition "to the RAID identifier used in org.chameleon.Boot.plist. BUT, I didn't use any RAID identifier this time around, as elucidated in Neil's how-to.

Help?

 

[stradivari2]

Weird… I figured it out. There was only one combination of things that fixed it:

In the com.apple.Boot.plist file on the helper partition, the system had filled in the UUID rather than the RAID identifier. I had to change this to the RAID identifier. Then, I had to add the same boot argument to my Chameleon plist. And finally, I had to choose add use kernel cache to yes to my Chameleon plist.

This combination of additions resulted in boot from the RAID volume.

At least I solved it.

But what on earth would cause selection of the USB volume in the boot loader to boot from the array instead???

 

[neilhart]

Weird… I figured it out. There was only one combination of things that fixed it:

In the com.apple.Boot.plist file on the helper partition, the system had filled in the UUID rather than the RAID identifier. I had to change this to the RAID identifier. Then, I had to add the same boot argument to my Chameleon plist. And finally, I had to choose add use kernel cache to yes to my Chameleon plist.

This combination of additions resulted in boot from the RAID volume.

At least I solved it.

But what on earth would cause selection of the USB volume in the boot loader to boot from the array instead???

Yes I do not understand why your results are different then mine. If you want and have the time, you should go back and step through the process again insuring that you have not introduced environment variables other then those produced in MulitBeast. With a clean OS X 10.8.5 and today's version of MultiBeast and Chimera you should see the same out come. There is one test area that I have not covered and that is how this procedure behaves on systems with older CPUs. My testing has been with Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge and Haswell CPUs.

Please share if you find the cause for the problem that you experienced.

Good modding,
neil

 

[bertig]

Dear Friends, thanks for that installation guide. Im trying to get sleep to work with ML on a Raid0 Boot drive. But it seems that ML try's to store the hibernation file on its helper partition - witch is obviosly to small

Is there any workaround for this issue ?

 

[Faster4Run]

Fortunately, I found this article (which remind me that OS X software RAID0 is still usable and effective to easy maintenance of RAID ).

For over clocked i7-4770K (OC 4.4GHz for quad core), I was looking for the how-to-speed-up of my hacintosh SSD. But I do no like to select the use of easy RAID0 configuration of Z87 chipset because of its hard maintenance work.

Today, it is the good time since it has been finished the upgrade to OS X 10.9 and need to make it more powerful. So, I decide to take the action under this guide, and finished the work for establishing bootable RAID0 volume from two legacy 12xGB SSD drives( m4-128GB, i330-120GB).

Result by "Blackmagick Disk Speed Test" application :
Write - 243.0 MB/s
Read - 808.4 MB/s

 

[noisyboy]

Excellent guide, thanks for taking the time.