G5 raid

S

snipper

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I'm thinking about buying a set of extra HD's (74 GB Raptor's) and put those via a special bracket in a G5 and use them as a (Apple, software) RAID 1 'striped' to boot from. The 'old' HD I'd like to keep using 'on the side'. Has anyone done this, and if so, did it work smoothly?

Regards,
snipper
 
I know a guy running 2 36gb Raptors in a dual 1.8 with the software RAID enabled, but he trashed the stock drive (not literally, it's going into an external case for backups). He's very, VERY happy with the setup.

I'm kinda hoping the prices drop on them and they release a 150gb range drive soon for under $300. If so, I'll be placing 2 in the new G5 [ if those 3ghz ones ever surface :) ].

The only reason I see there being a problem is how many SATA drive can the stock controller support? 2, 4, etc. If it'll support more than 2 you shouldn't have a problem. Anyone know for sure the #'s supported?
 
I'm pretty sure it supports only 2. It figures, because the G5 is a 'two-seater' ;)

I feel a lot for the set-up you mentioned. Can I write this guy an email, or do you know if he uses the raid to boot from?

BTW What does he use to control the HD's. A PCI card (what kind?) for the raid and the standard controller for the external, 'old' HD? Or does he use an extra card for the external HD?
 
Called him, here's what he said in a shorter version:

He boots off the RAID (striped) drives, which are controlled by the stock controller. His old drive is sitting on a shelf right now waiting for him to find the money (and wife's permission) to buy a SATA PCI card for his other computer. He raided their savings for the computer and she's not very happy with him at the moment...though she never complains about the income they produce, of course <G>.

I guess his idea of 'external case' is another computer (B&W G3).
 
Thanks for the effort! I have no idea, but wouldn't it be more efficient to buy a SATA PCI card that is designed for striped raid? (Provided I have enough money to keep my girlfriend happy, that is ;) )
 
I just read (somewhere) yesterday that you can typically expect around a 40% increase in speed from a 2-disk RAID using Apple's RAID utility. Of course, there's an X% additional risk of failure due to the shared drives.
 
Call it luck, but I've never had serious hard disk problems, in about 11 years of intensive computer use, on half a dozen Macs. I'll take the risk!
 
Probably, but he spent a lot of money in a short time on that computer and his wife was not very happy about it...so I think he decided it would for now.

I'm kinda at odds on that...not sure if I'll go with a better card or not when I do it. Only time will tell I guess.

Did hear an interesting rumor that would be nice...supposedly the lag in updated (larger) Raptors is due to the new ones being 15K RPM.
 
Did hear an interesting rumor that would be nice...supposedly the lag in updated (larger) Raptors is due to the new ones being 15K RPM.
Click to expand...

Eh.. English is not my native language.. Do you mean that the current, 10K rpm Raptors have a longer lag than they shoud, because some of their parts are '15K RPM ready'? Where did you hear this? :) (as in: is there more, like WHEN do they come out?)
 
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