Is it a good idea to set up a RAID?

[Lotso]

First I know very little about RAID's, I know that it basically distributes the load onto two drives instead of one. That in turn creates two or more points of failure, so if one drive fails it all does.

I was just curious if it would be a good idea to set one up on my system. I have two separate brand hard drives. I also have Windows 7 installed on my system as well.

Would I be able to get Mac OS X Lion and Windows 7 to work with the RAID? How difficult would it be?

 

[Rory]

Look on wikipedia, it has a great explanation of them
Basically it can provide increased or decreased resistance to failure depending on the setup.
e.g, Raid 0 and 1 both have 2 drives, but raid 0 is one volume spanned over 2 drives, so if one failed like you say, its ****ed.
Raid 1 is both drives identical, increases read speed, and provides redundancy against failure, if one fails, then you're still working with one working drive.
0+1 requires 4 drives and provides the best of both worlds, then theres loads more like raid 10, 5 and more, like i said look on wikipedia.

 

[GP-SE]

First I know very little about RAID's, I know that it basically distributes the load onto two drives instead of one. That in turn creates two or more points of failure, so if one drive fails it all does.

I was just curious if it would be a good idea to set one up on my system. I have two separate brand hard drives. I also have Windows 7 installed on my system as well.

Would I be able to get Mac OS X Lion and Windows 7 to work with the RAID? How difficult would it be?

not really worth it, and to have RAID for both Windows and OSX will be hard. For windows you set raid in the bios, for OSX you need AHCI in the bios.

 

[Coupz]

Would it be possible to have like 2xSSDs in Raid 0 for OSX, 2x1TB HDDs in Raid 0 or Raid 1 for Data and another 320GB HDD for windows ?
Is a hackintosh compatible with that much hard drives or more then one raid ?

 

[pahoran]

Would it be possible to have like 2xSSDs in Raid 0 for OSX, 2x1TB HDDs in Raid 0 or Raid 1 for Data and another 320GB HDD for windows ?
Is a hackintosh compatible with that much hard drives or more then one raid ?

I dont have much experience with RAID, but I can say It IS possible. It will take a bit of tweaking thou. First of all you cant use the built in motherboard RAID functions under OS X period. Im sure you can easily set up a raid 1 from bios for your windows system. I suggest doing that first.

Im planning on doing something similar, Ill be having a 128gb ssd for os x boot and apps, and a RAID 0 for my OS X /Users folder aka documents, pictures, etc.
And have separate 40gb ssd for windows with OS and maybe a few games. I wont be using windows alot.

To set up a RAID 0 under OS X ull need to boot to the OS X installation from USB or DVD using iBoot of course, then open up Disk Utility then under "RAID" choose " Stripped ". Of course u gotta format the ssd's / hhds to Mac OS Extended Journaled.
Then once that is done you can go ahead and continue with the OS X set up. The new RAID array should be seen by OS X as one disk.

I recommend this with a fresh Installation of OS X to be easier. If you already have a running system you should use CCC to back up your current OS.
You also need to obviously need to run Multibeast after you have installed Lion/Snow OS in the new raid array.

Im just waiting for my 128gb Crucial M4 SSD to arrive and ill shoot u uo a vid if u need.

P0w

 

[neilhart]

First I know very little about RAID's, I know that it basically distributes the load onto two drives instead of one. That in turn creates two or more points of failure, so if one drive fails it all does.

I was just curious if it would be a good idea to set one up on my system. I have two separate brand hard drives. I also have Windows 7 installed on my system as well.

Would I be able to get Mac OS X Lion and Windows 7 to work with the RAID? How difficult would it be?

"In my opinion" - OS X RAID 0 drive sets are the way to go. I have been running RAID 0 and RAID 10 for some time (three years maybe). I then run Windows as a virtual machine under VMware Fusion. I use Timemachine and Carbon Copy Clones for recovery and backup.

Before the floods in Thailand that have screwed up the cost of hard drives, I was into 7200 RPM Seagate 500 GB 3 1/2 HDDs as they were under $50 USD. Using only new HDDs, I have not had a RAID set fail (yet).

And I really recommend VMware Fusion as the only way to run Windows.

Also I am moving away from 3.5 inch hard drives in favor of 2.5 inch HDDs and SSDs.

neil

 

[Coupz]

Hi.

I dont have much experience with RAID, but I can say It IS possible. It will take a bit of tweaking thou. First of all you cant use the built in motherboard RAID functions under OS X period. Im sure you can easily set up a raid 1 from bios for your windows system. I suggest doing that first.

I know that I can't use the BIOS RAID for hackintosh, thanks
My question was, because I've read this thread ( http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=168&t=36722 )and didn't understand that much (englisch is not my mother language, I'm from Austria). So the tutorial in the link is for RAID configuration under running systems?

Im planning on doing something similar, Ill be having a 128gb ssd for os x boot and apps, and a RAID 0 for my OS X /Users folder aka documents, pictures, etc.
And have separate 40gb ssd for windows with OS and maybe a few games. I wont be using windows alot.

I won't make a RAID for Windows, just a normal HDD for gaming

To set up a RAID 0 under OS X ull need to boot to the OS X installation from USB or DVD using iBoot of course, then open up Disk Utility then under "RAID" choose " Stripped ". Of course u gotta format the ssd's / hhds to Mac OS Extended Journaled.
Then once that is done you can go ahead and continue with the OS X set up. The new RAID array should be seen by OS X as one disk.

I didn't have made my hackintosh yet, but I'm gonna use the UniBeast method: http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2011/10/unibeast-install-mac-os-x-lion-using.html

I recommend this with a fresh Installation of OS X to be easier. If you already have a running system you should use CCC to back up your current OS.
You also need to obviously need to run Multibeast after you have installed Lion/Snow OS in the new raid array.

I don't know if I will start with the SSD RAID when I buy the parts, but if I do my RAID 0 later, I will make a fresh install, don't worry

Im just waiting for my 128gb Crucial M4 SSD to arrive and ill shoot u uo a vid if u need.

Would be perfect!


As I've written above, at the end I'm gonna have 2 seperate RAID configurations (2xSSD RAID 0 for OSX and 2xHDD RAID 1 or 5 for Data and a normal HDD for Windows gaming) and together 5 or more hard drives. So I need a motherboard with at least 5 SATA3 ports, maybe I'm gonna buy a third SSD for the RAID 0, if i have enough money after my build is done

 

[opty]

have a look at the Angrlbird wings from Austria
and a review here http://www.osx86.net/news-announcements/12304-angelbird-wings.html
and here Booting SSD RAID on Hackintosh

they are a little over priced but if they really preform as they claim it might be worth a try.