There's drivers from LSI for the 9650 series of RAID controllers, but the lack of EFI is going to be the hurdle I hadn't considered. Oops!
I hadn't checked LSI's Support section recently as they went so long without OS X drivers. I'd the impression they were never going to be created it took so long. I was actually thinking you were going to try and use the BSD versions in (possibly in some hack).
Good to know they finally released drivers.
The system in question is my primary workstation. I work in end-user support and system administration. Downtime is a serious inconvenience for me. I recently had a server eat itself following a kernel and it had been running a software RAID 1 unbeknownst to us because we inherited a server someone else had set up. My system is currently also running a software RAID 1, thus I am a bit paranoid that the system is going to lose power or kernel panic in the middle of a read/write operation. This might be an unfounded fear, but there you have it. Additionally, being able to off load the RAID operations from the main CPU would be great.
OK. A couple of simple questions as to what your overall storage goals/needs are.
- Are you just looking to RAID the OS/applications location?
- What do you have/need for your primary working data (single disk, RAID, ...)?
- What do you have for a backup solution?
As per your fears of a lost write, keep in mind that an OS/applications disk is almost exclusively read only (put your working data on another location). Now for working data (write locations), you need to run a Line Interactive UPS that uses a Pure Sine wave inverter design (Refurbished units can be had for about the same money as stepped inverter models, which do not do well with active PFC based PSU's).
I'm trying to get a feel for what you have, what you may yet need, and if it will fit within the budget listed below (not sure it will, assuming the working data location needs to be tweaked).
For a RAID 1, it's only going to "cost" you ~1% on a single core, so it's best to use OS X and the system resources to operate it (definitely cheaper, as a decent RAID card is still going to be ~$300USD - half of your budget, and you've not bought a single disk yet). BTW, with such a card, you'd need to run enterprise grade disks in RAID for stability reasons (the recovery timings are critical, as the card takes over the functions from the OS, and it's not done the same way).
If you're not running operations at night (need for 24/7 operation), you could just run a single disk for the OS/applications disk and keep another disk on hand for a clone (internal or external). I'm just not sure if you're running 24/7, or will be able to spare the 20 min or so it would take to restore a broken OS/applications disk (assuming you restore from the clone, not just swap it, which is even faster). As per size of the OS/applications disk, most can do with less than 60GB if you really need to use an SSD (it is the fastest tech for random access, but it's also a bit on the pricey side in terms of cost/GB). But if you can suffice with say 40GB, OWC has that size for $100USD last I checked.
- What is your budget? $500-600US
- What kind of throughputs do you actually need? Not entirely sure. Something a bit better than I have now?
- Filesizes? The VMs are single files in the 20-40GB range.
- How do you use the VM (need specs, such as allocation information, .... - can help if you don't know what your throughput need is)? In conjunction with Fusion, I've got one Windows VM set up to run in Unity to provide me with the Windows apps I need. A second Windows VM is used for Active Directory tasks and as a target for RDC sessions. A pair of Linux VMs used for a variety of purposes rounds out the mix.
- Does the array need to be redundant? Redundancy is preferable.
- Are you going to run a level that OS X cannot do (OS X can only do 0/1/10 and JBOD)? RAID 1 is my target, but being able to do 5 or 6 wouldn't be bad.
- How many disks? 2 to 4.
- What is your primary data storage capacity requirement? Storage to cover all the VMs and such? About 120GB. Storage beyond that is being handled by other disks and is in the 600GB range. I'm not sure that most of that data would need to be terribly high-speed.
- Do you need the card (if required) to boot OS X?Yes. This would certainly be preferable.
- Will it be used with more than one OS (natively, not VM)? No. Only Mac OS X gets booted on this machine.
If it helps, this is a Mac Pro 1,1 with dual dual-core 3.0GHz procs.
Budget: Not absolutely sure yet, but I'm thinking it's too low (presuming you need a good UPS and everything else right now - nothing much on hand that can carry over and save on costs), depending on how you answer the questions.
Throughputs: Do you only need this for the OS/applications disk?
RAID level: 5/6/50/60,... will definitely require a card, and that will eat your budget almost entirely on it's own. You'd be lucky to get a disk to go with it.
So depending on how you answer the above questions, the best way to go is likely an SSD for the OS/applications disk (single, not RAID), and a small, inexpensive mechanical to make clones on for recovery purposes if you've ever a problem (corruption, bad disk,...).
Past this, I'll wait for your response, and see where to go from there, as your budget is a significant limiting factor right now (if you're already running a good UPS, this will help, and if a single disk will be sufficient for your working data requirements, that will as well - just need a single disk to back it up).
If reliability is your primary concern I dont think laptop-grade 2.5 mechanical drives are the way to go.
A compatible RAID card (Areca or Atto) and a couple of 2.5 SAS drives would offer good performance and excellent reliability if you want to stay away from SSD's.
If it's reliability rather than speed that's needed, enterprise grade 2.5" disks would be better, and required if it's run on a hardware RAID card such as an Areca. But if the RAID 1 is meant solely for an OS/applications disk, SSD's are good for read reliability (no moving parts, and it doesn't wear the cells). It's writes that mechanical is better suited to than MLC based SSD's (even the newer forms, such as eMLC from Micron).
Areca would be the most cost effective for a card, with ATTO coming in second (sadly, they're more expensive than Areca, nor do they include any internal cables either).
