Firewire Storage, Now SATA storage

[Tim Langston]

Hi Mat,

Hey, on the S2S it says….Raid 0 can only be configured using 4 Drives, what happens to the 5th?

Also, I take it you can strip two of these units together, has there been any testing and record of transfer rate for that?

Thanks,
Tim

Tim Langston
Cryin’ Out Loud Productions
Fort Wayne, IN
http://www.colproductions.com

[Harley Michailuck]

[tony salgado] “I can’t see why Harley even mentioned this as a solution because this does not work.”

Okay, here’s how it works…

With the SATA RAID not showing up on the desktop, but still powered on, open Disk Utility. On the left is the list of drives connected to your CPU. You know which drives are in your RAID or I would assume you should. In my case the drives are Seagate 400GB with the disk description of ST3400832AS… 8 of them. Click on the first drive of this type in the list. Now look in the bottom left hand corner of the Disk Utility window and you should see something like this:

Disk Description: ST3400832AS
Connection Bus: Serial ATA Bay
Connection Type: Internal
Connection ID: Device 0, “Channel 4”

All you have to do is make note of the Channel number in the last line, continue clicking on each drive in order in the list of your RAID drives making note of each drive’s Channel number. By deduction if there is no Channel 7, that’s where your problem is. Or, if you only have 4 drives in the RAID and you’re missing Channel 2, that’s where your problem is.

I have the 8 e-SATA cables numbered at both ends corresponding to the Sonnet Tempo 8 e-SATA connectors and the 8 drives in my RAID bay. When and if you have a problem, it’s very easy to replug the connectors at both ends of the missing Channel.

Best,
Harley

Harley Michailuck
Brass Orchid Post fx
Saskatoon, SK Canada

https://www.brassorchid.com

[Mat @ lacie]

Hi Tim,
On S2S, there are 2 ways to stripe the drives.
1. There is an automatic “FAST” mode. This is done with 4 drives. The 5th drive stays idle and can be used as a spare later.
2. You can use the “JBOD” mode. In this mode, the 5 drives mount on your desktop. Then you can stripe all 5 drives with Mac OS X Disk Utility.

You can stripe 2 or more S2S together (on 1 card). Here is what we got with ATTO Benchmark Utility (sample size 80MB – max transfer size 8MB):
– 2x S2S: average read 307MB/s
– 3x S2S: average read 405MB/s
– 4x S2S: average read 462MB/s

Hope this helps.
Mat

[Tony]

Harley,

I use the same technique you mentioned to identify individuals drives as well as my raid. However what Bob Zelin and I were referring to is when one or more of the raid drives are down and you have not identified or marked the drives in advance.

In such a case you will have to go one by one connecting and disconnecting each drive to find the drives which are not mounting.

Identifying the drives and cables in advance is a great procedure to avoid pulling out drives to identify them. On my own FCP system I have identified the individual drives but the G5 I had problems was a rental.

The first time I used the rental G5 with a Sonnet sata card the raid would not mount. The drives and cables were not identified in advance so I had to go drive by drive to find which ones were not mounting.

The final issue I had was when Disk Utility did identify two drives which were stripped as a raid but the raid and drive icons were grayed out disabling me from erasing the drive and starting over. One of the problem drives was connected to the rear corner Sonnet Sata port. After switching the cable to another port on the Sonnet card it still refused to mount.

The drives are now out for service.

Tony Salgado

Tony Salgado

[Ed Dooley]

That’s funny Tony, from reading the posts, no one (except Bob and you, of course, maybe not even Bob), would know that was what you were
referring to. My vote goes to saving the Canuck from eating infested birds. 🙂
My 2 cents on SATA (or my sense on SATA2): I’ve always built my own SCSI and ATA arrays, so the best thing, in my view, happening with SATA2 is
port-multiplication. I know LaCie is doing it, I can’t wait for the single-cable solution for us do-it-yourselfers.
Ed

[tony salgado] “I use the same technique you mentioned to identify individuals drives as well as my raid. However what Bob Zelin and I were referring to is when one or more of the raid drives are down and you have not identified or marked the drives in advance.
“

[Tim Langston]

What about fan noise, how loud are these units when running?

Tim

Tim Langston
Cryin’ Out Loud Productions
Fort Wayne, IN
http://www.colproductions.com

[Tim Langston]

One other question comes to mind, are they true SATA II disks in these units?

Thanks for taking my questions,
Tim

Tim Langston
Cryin’ Out Loud Productions
Fort Wayne, IN
http://www.colproductions.com

[Mat @ lacie]

Hi Tim,
Yes, LaCie S2S is a true SATA II to SATA II solution (SATA II drives and SATA II controller).

Our S1S Array (RAID 5 – for SD uncompressed, not HD) is SATA II to SATA I (SATA II drives to SATA I controller).

For the noise level, I don’t have measured data. Maybe TJ can share some feedback since he is using one S2S in production.

Mat
mgasquy@lacie.com

[Tony]

Ed,

No need for anyone to eat anything as the information conveyed regarding this issue was well worth it.

We may all different methods to describe similar techniques and procedures which result in identical results.

In anycase Harley’s input was quite welcome.

Tony Salgado

Tony Salgado

[David Battistella]

Hope nobody thinks I was being harsh here. I was just acknowledging a fellow Canadian, from down in SASK KATCH EW AN.

hee hee

🙂

David