Lion 10.7.2 RAID-0 with TonyMacX86 tools & Chimera

[neilhart]

Re: Lion 10.7.2 RAID-0 with TonyMacX86 tools & Chimera 1.6.0

very clear and easy to follow instruction. by far the best

i tried to setup a raid 0 on SNOW once before but it was very difficult. will try this soon.

the EXTRA folder that gets copied over with this command "cp R- Extra /Volumes/Boot\ OS\ X/ [Enter]" is the one we edited on the desktop, am i correct?

Thanks

Yes the one on the Desktop. And there was a typo on the command. The correct line is:
cp -R Extra /Volumes/Boot\ OS\ X/ [Enter]

Unfortunately, the version of the boot loader is now very key. For Lion and Chimera use 1.6.0 (and we won't know until the next version if that will be compatible with Lion RAIDs).

And for Snow Leopard I would use Chimera 1.4.n or lower.

This means that the boot drive order is very important if you have both Lion and Snow Leopard RAID sets physically present at boot time.

neil

 

[SickRick]

Re: Lion 10.7.2 RAID-0 with TonyMacX86 tools & Chimera 1.6.0

With a TM backup, you can recreate the logical drive. TM restore would not regenerate the contents of the helper partitions, you would need to do that your self.

I always keep a copy of the RAID version of the Extra file along with the boot files in a local folder in case they are needed.

have fun

neil

So, it would pretty much be:

1 - Boot Rdisk to Lion installer
2 - Use Disktuil to configure the RAID-0 Set
3 - Restore from Time Machine disk, inside installer
4 - Boot Rdisk again, into the TM Restored install
5 - Re-Run your procedure - editing the .plist in the (saved away) Extra folder to identify the new Raid UUID (since each created RAID is going to have a new ID generated). Do the fdisk, DD, copy the extra folder to the helper.
6 - Re-boot back into the restored setup.

That about cover it?

I'll be moving the old 4X2TB RAID-5 from my old (soon to be decommissioned) box over to the new one. Shame to let all those drives, and the 4 additional external ports on the RR2170 go to waste, and there should be enough room on there to back up the 3.5TB TB on the old array (soon to be moved over) plus the boot/system/app drive.

People suffer from the misperception that R5 Arrays don't need to be backed up. BULLCRAP. 2 drives going out, or controller failure could cost you ALL your data.

I can see moving this Velociraptor R-0 over to a couple of SSD's when $$ allows in the future.

Faster is ALWAYS BETTER.

Thanks again...

Rick

 

[neilhart]

Re: Lion 10.7.2 RAID-0 with TonyMacX86 tools & Chimera 1.6.0

With a TM backup, you can recreate the logical drive. TM restore would not regenerate the contents of the helper partitions, you would need to do that your self.

I always keep a copy of the RAID version of the Extra file along with the boot files in a local folder in case they are needed.

have fun

neil

So, it would pretty much be:

1 - Boot Rdisk to Lion installer
2 - Use Disktuil to configure the RAID-0 Set
3 - Restore from Time Machine disk, inside installer
4 - Boot Rdisk again, into the TM Restored install
5 - Re-Run your procedure - editing the .plist in the (saved away) Extra folder to identify the new Raid UUID (since each created RAID is going to have a new ID generated). Do the fdisk, DD, copy the extra folder to the helper.
6 - Re-boot back into the restored setup.

That about cover it?

I'll be moving the old 4X2TB RAID-5 from my old (soon to be decommissioned) box over to the new one. Shame to let all those drives, and the 4 additional external ports on the RR2170 go to waste, and there should be enough room on there to back up the 3.5TB TB on the old array (soon to be moved over) plus the boot/system/app drive.

People suffer from the misperception that R5 Arrays don't need to be backed up. BULLCRAP. 2 drives going out, or controller failure could cost you ALL your data.

I can see moving this Velociraptor R-0 over to a couple of SSD's when $$ allows in the future.

Faster is ALWAYS BETTER.

Thanks again...

Rick

Humm... well your summary of the TM restore process appears to be correct.

Looking at your post, the system storage is huge. How much data do you keep on line? And why?

How about an external storage array on a reasonably fast link and the a wicked fast small compact desktop with RAIDed small SSDs and a medium amount of local data storage on non-RAID HDD?



neil

 

[SickRick]

Re: Lion 10.7.2 RAID-0 with TonyMacX86 tools & Chimera 1.6.0

Humm... well your summary of the TM restore process appears to be correct.

Looking at your post, the system storage is huge. How much data do you keep on line? And why?

How about an external storage array on a reasonably fast link and the a wicked fast small compact desktop with RAIDed small SSDs and a medium amount of local data storage on non-RAID HDD?



neil

How much data? LOL...

A lot.

I do I.T. for a living - Legal/Accounting VAR, all the multi-letter certifications (30 years in the field, self-employed - my first "service certifications" when I worked in retail in '81/82 were for AppleII+, IIe, Mac (original), Lisa, IBM PC & XT). Been on my own since '85.

I'm also a photographer, sound engineer and videographer - so pretty much everything I've ever done (since going all digital in 2000, 1.4TB) is kept online - just don't trust CD-R/DVD-R for archival storage. Have a shelf of used-once hard drives, that contain backups (clones or DMG's). Hell, I still have the backup from my old Windows Server Array (over 3 years decom'd when I built my retiring hack and fell in love with OSX, which was previously "the evil empire" or the "Idiots OS"). All my old Win-Box's got migrated into Parallels, and live on my current R5 (and run faster in VM on a hack, then they do on their own dedicated boxes).

Between (cough cough) "evaluation software", my music collection (acquired over 20 years of "scavenging" on the interweb, and all in my ITunes - close to 1TB - can't wait to see how "Music Match" deals with THAT collection), movies, etc. - all ripped and in ITunes also, accessible on 4 ATV-2's scattered throughout the house - I've currently got about 4.2TB online, and all accessible in a couple of mouse-clicks from any box in the house. Beats having to wade through boxes of discs (which I have also - if you google my nym and alt.binaries.cd.images - you'll see I co-wrote the FAQ for that usenet group).

Just a big kid who likes my toys. Sorry to jack your thread with my long-winded explanation.

Love hackintosh, much as I spend on toys, it's still way cheaper to build a hack, then buy a "genuine" with the kind of specs/performance I get out of my hack builds. Hell, my current 975XBX2 is still a viable box (even though my new build geek-benches almost 2X as fast), it's just running so good at 10.5.8, that I hate to try and upgrade it to Lion and risk screwing it up - hence the new monster box.

Once again - great writeup. When I followed it, letter for letter, after a decents nights sleep (LOL), it came right up. New box is all buttoned up and burned in now. Just gotta clean the crap off my current box and migrate it in tonight - then I go live with it tomorrow...

Thanks again...

Rick

 

[neilhart]

Re: Lion 10.7.2 RAID-0 with TonyMacX86 tools & Chimera 1.6.0

SickRick thank you for the explanation.

I too have much data collected from the dawn of time. A few years ago, I moved to using a LINUX machine as a file server (cloned so I have a recovery). The new stuff is on the OS X hacks and every hack can read/write to the file server drag-n-drop. I installed a 24 port Gigabit D-link switch and I see 95 to 105MBsec transfers to and from the server.

I love OS X and I am fond of LINUX. I only touch MS Windows using VMWare Fusion.


neil

 

[Thrashavich]

Re: Lion 10.7.2 RAID-0 with TonyMacX86 tools & Chimera 1.6.0

Can I just create a raid 0 disk and clone my boot drive to it?

 

[SickRick]

Re: Lion 10.7.2 RAID-0 with TonyMacX86 tools & Chimera 1.6.0

Can I just create a raid 0 disk and clone my boot drive to it?

Gotta clone your boot drive - then load chimera, your /extras folders, etc., using the procedure in post #1 in order to make it bootable.

Took me a few passes, but it works GREAT.

Rick

Copying my old array to new now - will be done by morning (14 hour copy across a GB LAN), then migrate my install and shut the 975XBX2 box down for the first time in 3 years. Shoot - gotta clean my desk area up...

 

[dmhotep]

Re: Lion 10.7.2 RAID-0 with TonyMacX86 tools & Chimera 1.6.0

Great write-up, exactly what I was looking for, just having difficulties. I had a couple spare Vertex SSD's (30GBx2) and wanted to install Lion on them and see how it would play along. I had installed Lion on my 500GB drive using Tony's UniBeast. I followed the directions to the letter, and my screen displays the raid drives, but results in a "Can't find mach_kernel" message. Before I go crazy, wait, too late, will I actually need to install Lion on my 500GB and NOT use UniBeast? I purchased Snow Leopard discs and the Lion download and have only installed using UniBeast onto my 500GB. Thanks!

 

[dmhotep]

Re: Lion 10.7.2 RAID-0 with TonyMacX86 tools & Chimera 1.6.0

Me thinks I know what I did, or more accurately, didn't do: rBoot. I threw rBoot onto a USB, booted using it, and it appeared. FAST. But I wasn't sure, because, after all, I cloned the drive and hadn't pulled the plug from the 500GB drive. So I shut it down and unplugged it, prayed, pulled the USB and wham! booted. I wasn't real clear with the directions until I started from the very start. Thanks again! Maybe I will buy that Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 120...

 

[opty]

Re: Lion 10.7.2 RAID-0 with TonyMacX86 tools & Chimera 1.6.0

neil you are the man, it worked perfect with my pair of ssd crucial M4 and smoking fast RAID 0 setup

the first reboot it crashed on me but it seems to be fine after that.
how reliable is software raid? i do have backups going and most of my data would be on a separate disk anyway.

Thanks