Apple RAID Card

[djole]

Hello,

Yesterday I got a MacPro early 2008 (2x3.0) that has an Apple Raid Card installed. With it came three HDD's setup as mirrored RAID. Not knowing enough about the RAID, and not having the need for it, I just removed the 3 drives and installed my own 4 drives that had lived in another MacPro. The drive with the OS-X and another drive showed up on the screen, but the other two did not. I put them in different bays and ejected the second working one, but these two never showed up on the screen.

Then I put them in an external dock, and they showed up right away. So something in regard to the RAID card is causing this. Is it the card itself that prevents 4 internal drives from working at the same time?

I'd much rather change the setup than remove the card if that's possible. If not, then how easy is it to remove the card?


Another question, does anyone know if Apple will diagnose a problem on an out-of-warranty desktop for free?

Thanks a lot!

 

[beaker7]

The Apple RAID card is among the worst and least reliable RAID cards ever produced. If you want to mirror the drives you are far better off removing it and using Disk Utility to software RAID them.

 

[djole]

The Apple RAID card is among the worst and least reliable RAID cards ever produced. If you want to mirror the drives you are far better off removing it and using Disk Utility to software RAID them.

Thanks for your response. No, I do not want to mirror my drives. If you read my post you'll see what the problem I'm having is. Thanks

 

[beaker7]

Thanks for your response. No, I do not want to mirror my drives. If you read my post you'll see what the problem I'm having is. Thanks

Well mirror or not, you're better off with the card removed.

If you wish to leave it in for some reason, you'd need to use the RAID utility to disable the old array and set the new disks to pass-through mode if that is an option. Currently it's probably trying to locate the RAID member disks that you yanked out without disabling the volume, and putting your new disks into an array in a degraded state is risking data loss.

And no, Apple will not help you for free on an out of warranty machine.

Good luck.

 

[djole]

Well mirror or not, you're better off with the card removed.

If you wish to leave it in for some reason, you'd need to use the RAID utility to disable the old array and set the new disks to pass-through mode if that is an option. Currently it's probably trying to locate the RAID member disks that you yanked out without disabling the volume, and putting your new disks into an array in a degraded state is risking data loss.

And no, Apple will not help you for free on an out of warranty machine.

Good luck.

Thank you so much. I was going to remove it myself but the card was installed in the top slot where it's pushing against the spring that's holding the CPU in place, so I'm scared that I could damage something. I'll probably end up taking to a shop. Thanks again.