[Peter Dunphy]

Hi Zane

I actually went to the effort to seek out the old thread as I felt my question was related! I certainly didn’t intend to ‘hijack’ the thread as you stated – I merely wanted to chip in with what I thought could have been a related question for the thread.

In future I’ll be sure to create new threads if I have any new questions of my own.

Apologies for any offence caused!

Peter Dunphy

2 x 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4870, ATTO ExpressSAS R380, Sonnet D800 Raid 5

[Peter Dunphy]

Nice! Very handy indeed.

Peter Dunphy

2 x 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4870, ATTO ExpressSAS R380, Sonnet D800 Raid 5

[Peter Dunphy]

I have Carbon Copy Cloner and Time Machine. I would like to automate the nightly process of cloning individual folders from my RAID 5 onto 2 internal drives on my Mac Pro.

Is there a software program that can do this?

I can happily do it manually but it just would be nice to have that security of knowing the folders were copied automatically were I to forget.

Peter Dunphy

2 x 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4870, ATTO ExpressSAS R380, Sonnet D800 Raid 5

[Peter Dunphy]

I checked the details of recommended 1TB drives (the standard Sonnet “Sonnet has qualified and recommends the following hard drives” blurb) at the time on the online retailers website.

As they don’t stock the D800 anymore, I can’t recall which 1TB drives were mentioned in the Sonnet ‘blurb’ I saw.

They currently stock the Fusion R800. Only one 1TB drive is mentioned as a recommended drive (apparently copied and pasted Sonnet blurb again) – the 1TB Hitachi Ultrastar A7K1000, model #HUA721010KLA330.

This ‘recommended’ 1TB Hitachi drive can be found nowhere on their website – not out of stock or unavailable, it doesn’t exist.

The D800 was not offered by them ‘complete’ for me at the time with 8 recommended hard drives.

I eventually bought my hollow D800 enclosure from this particular retailer as they were the least expensive.

I received a quote from another online retailer at the time for a D800 ‘complete’ with Seagate drives in their quote.

This led me to check the Sonnet website to see if the Seagate drives were compatible because they seemed a pretty reasonable price individually.

I went to the Sonnet website and noticed the Seagate drive was mentioned as being compatible “Seagate Barracuda ES.2, # ST31000340NS(4)” and didn’t see anything there to say that the Seagate drives weren’t up to scratch, apart from the ‘ensure you have firmware SN06’

I thought, happy days, because the price seemed reasonable and the drive was compatible, so armed with that info. (totally unaware that the Seagate drives aren’t as good as the others) I bought the drives separately from another online retailer.

I should have posted my intended D800 and drives specs on here before I made the leap. Kicking myself – I usually do expose my intended purchases for criticism on forums before proceeding!

I thought I’d done my research pretty okay, but it’s not until you share your specs with other users and hear their experiences that you get to know how the equipment really fares!

Oh well, if I win the lottery or scoop another project I’ll check out those Hitachi Drives. I’ll keep you posted on the Seagate firmware SN06 drives nonetheless as I continue to use them in the D800.

Peter Dunphy

2 x 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4870, ATTO ExpressSAS R380, Sonnet D800 Raid 5

[Peter Dunphy]

Hi Jeremy

Yep I bought the drives separately from the unit. Sadly I couldn’t buy either unit or drives directly from Sonnet directly since I’m in the UK so had to settle for a UK reseller – as per Sonnet website “North American customers – United States, Canada, and Mexico – may purchase direct through the Sonnet Online Store.”

I have today sent back my faulty Seagate drive and my D800 has incorporated the new drive without any hitches and it’s purring nicely.

All good. I’ve got my Mac Pro filled with 4 1B internal drives now (2 to backup my Raid contents for now to keep my mind at ease), 1 as boot disk, 1 as boot disk clone…and an external 1TB Mybook for Time Machine.

I will now also, once I receive my replacement Seagate drive, have an extra Seagate drive for the D800 always on standby should the excrement hit the fan ever again!

I feel a lot more relaxed now, and actually thankful for my little ‘scare’. Nothing like learning from experience!

Sonnet CS have been very helpful by the way – they referred to replacing the previously faulty drive (which was now showing as okay), with the new drive without killing the Raid, as a ‘brute force’ method! I actually went ahead and tried this on my own before I’d heard back from them, so it’s always a relief to hear that your actions are on the right track, albeit with brute force!

Peter Dunphy

2 x 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4870, ATTO ExpressSAS R380, Sonnet D800 Raid 5

[Peter Dunphy]

Hi David

Yep they sound great! Definitely ones I’ll keep in mind for expansion. I worked in a call centre for 8 years to my peril but really learned from experience what good Customer Care is all about. The biggest advantage to any company of going out of their way to truly satisfy a customer is the great word of mouth they’ll receive as a result. Unbelievable how there are so many companies out there that haven’t got a handle on this.

Peter Dunphy

2 x 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4870, ATTO ExpressSAS R380, Sonnet D800 Raid 5

[Peter Dunphy]

As an update for anyone who has a Sonnet D800, I ejected the Raid Drive from my Desktop, switched off the D800 enclosure, replaced the dodgy drive with the new drive, switched on the D800 enclosure again, and the Raid briefly became ‘degraded’ (exactly what I wanted) and is now auto-rebuilding to include the new drive.

The original seller of the faulty Seagate drive agreed to send me a new replacement once they receive the faulty one back. They say I’ll have to pay return shipping charges and insurance, but I’m happy to, after the scare I’ve had, and the threat from Seagate to send me a used, factory-repaired drive.

Peter Dunphy

2 x 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4870, ATTO ExpressSAS R380, Sonnet D800 Raid 5

[Peter Dunphy]

Hi David

Thanks for your valuable response as always. I’ve broken the below down with ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’ etc just to make it a little easier on the eye.

If your good self, or anyone else reading this, can offer your thoughts I’d really appreciate it.

a) Due to distrusting my Raid 5 (using 8 1TB drives) after the scare I’ll now briefly describe, I want to be sure I have Raid backup, meaning, I want a complete duplicate of all the files that are on my Raid. This was something I had never even considered until now. Talk about a scare!

Honestly, I felt pains in my chest when the Atto Raid messages popped up all over my screen advising me of hard drive failure. I literally thought, from the number of pop-up boxes (around 6) that they’d all failed. It was like that film ‘War Games’! Thanks to Bob for advising how to enable these warnings – I nearly ended up in a coffin but they were very informative.

Even when I saw that only one had failed, I kept thinking ‘If one more of these goes right now I’ve lost everything’.

When the damaged drive appeared to work again, I immediately included it in the rebuilding of the Raid 5, for the simple fear of – should another drive go down in the meantime – I would have been up the creek without a paddle. At least I’d have the dodgy drive to hold the fort in the meantime.

Now I need to revise my correspondence to Sonnet and ask them how I can possibly switch out that dodgy drive despite the Raid 5 currently running ‘Ok’ with all 8 drives included.

I’m thinking that perhaps I might have to select the particular drive (I took notes of which one – index, serial etc) and select it as ‘degraded’ somehow, before removing it. Not sure but will write to Sonnet – if anyone here (Jeremy or Bob ;o) ) can enlighten me how to do this in the meantime I’d really appreciate it, because I want this drive OUT once my new one arrives Monday morning first thing! :o)

b) For my 50 minute video project which so far accounts for just over 1TB on my Raid 5 of all my Captured Clips, Motion Media etc, my plan is as follows:

* 1TB external MyBook Studio Drive to be used for Time Machine

* Mac Pro internal drives bays:

1. 1TB Boot/System Disk with applications
2. 1TB Storage for Raid 5 backup
3. 1TB Storage for Raid 5 Backup
4. 1TB Clone of Boot/System Disk

The duplication of Raid files could be performed nightly, but since the Raid contents could exceed 1TB and will need to be duplicated to 1TB-size drives, I may have to copy the contents manually.

E.G. I may once nightly, manually copy the bulk of the Capture Scratch folder to one internal 1TB drive, and may copy the remainder of the Capture Scratch folder and all the other FCP Documents folders contents and associated media to the other 1TB drive.

It would be great if this could be performed automatically somehow, but am unsure how a piece of software would know to only copy, say, half the contents of a Capture Scratch folder to one disk, and the other half to another folder?!

Should the Raid 5 contents for my single project somehow exceed 2TB (I doubt it) I could manually copy any overflow to my 1TB Boot/System Disk.

Any overflow beyond that could be copied to my Clone Drive (no longer use it as Clone Drive for the sake of extra storage) or the MyBook (no longer use it as Time Machine for the sake of extra storage)

As a quick aside, thinking a bit more long term for when I intend to edit my independent feature, I might need to get an additional Raid 5 solely devoted to backing up my current Raid 5!?

c) The company who sold me the hard drive are proving very slippery as regards giving me a new replacement – keep referring me to the manufacturer despite having bought the hard drive 09/17/07. They have a detailed returns form on their website which gives an option to request a replacement, but as soon as I’d sent the form, I received an immediate automated email referring me to a link on the website to contact the manufacturer.

From the online retailer’s website who sold me the hard drive “It’s an unfortunate fact of life that no matter how good a manufacturer is they’ll occasionally produce a faulty product. If your product has a fault when you get it or it develops a fault within the first 7 working days after delivery it will be replaced or refunded including delivery….After 7 working days faulty products are processed as per the manufacturers warranty policy and procedure.”

———–
In the meantime, some info. from the FAQ on the Seagate website:

Q. What kind of drive will I receive to replace my returned unit? 
A.  Seagate may replace your product with a product that was previously used, repaired and tested to meet Seagate specifications.
You must pay shipping charges when sending packages to Seagate.

If stock is not available, Seagate will replace your drive with an equivalent or higher-capacity model that meets or exceeds the specifications of your defective drive. If your defective drive is part of a mirrored or RAID system, please contact your Seagate Customer Service Center BEFORE returning the drive to Seagate.
———-

d) David when you kindly recommended your contact at Caldigit I had only just learned what a Raid was, and my first action was to look for UK based Caldigit sellers – because I’m in the UK and was concerned about the differing electrical voltages (I find them confusing), but I couldn’t find any Caldigit Raids on offer to sell in the UK at the time, apart from UK companies renting out Caldigit Raids.

Turns out I was using the wrong search criteria for the Caldigit Raids in the UK as I was a bit confused about what I was looking for. I have since found a company that sells them – I’ll definitely keep them in mind for any future expansion! The way things are going I’d need another Raid 5 to back up my current Raid 5! I think I might have to win the lottery first though!

I’ll be honest again David, that was the first time I’d heard of a Turnkey Raid! Boy is this a fast learning curve for me!

Again, as always, all thoughts deeply appreciated – you’re all such a great help and I really mean that!

Peter Dunphy
Writer/Director

2 x 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4870, ATTO ExpressSAS R380, Sonnet D800 Raid 5

[Peter Dunphy]

I woke up this morning to find the drive was ‘Ok’ again!!!

Have immediately started rebuilding the Raid 5 with that drive.

My new drive will arrive Monday, and I’ll use its packaging to return the previously faulty/dodgy drive to Seagate – or should I keep it? (it’s a new drive but the replacement I would receive from Seagate is not a new drive – ‘factory repaired’, and I would have to incur postage costs)

Peter Dunphy

2 x 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4870, ATTO ExpressSAS R380, Sonnet D800 Raid 5

[Peter Dunphy]

Nice little kick in the behind from Seagate “You must pay postage charges for all shipments from you to Seagate”, to return their failed drive!

The Sonnet website recommended this particular drive, so it would be great if I could just forward Seagate screenshots of the detailed Sonnet D800 drive failure messages to avoid having to return the thing and gather packaging I may no longer have.

They also insist on receiving the original failed drive before they will send out a replacement, which will not be a brand new drive, but a ‘factory-repaired’ similar drive.

Ah well, kicking a man when he’s down… :o)

Peter Dunphy

2 x 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4870, ATTO ExpressSAS R380, Sonnet D800 Raid 5