El Capitan: No RAID GUI?

[JohnDCCIU]

http://www.softraid.com/pages/features/softraid_lite.html

SoftRaid Lite has been released. $49. If anyone has a go at it can they post the pros/cons?

It's basically SoftRAID that only allows RAID 0 and 1, i.e. the same RAID levels as the built-in AppleRAID does. Free support is via an online forum, or you can buy a single support incident for $19 or a year of support for another $49. It also does not have the command line interface or the email notification features of the full SoftRAID.

I'm ok with all of that except for the lack of email notification; I voiced my objections to SoftRAID when I saw that and I'm hoping that they'll reinstate it, or at least make it an add-on option. Without that, it's unusable in my environment and I'll continue on with the combination of AppleRAID and SMARTReporter (which checks AppleRAIDs and reports drive failures via email).

Coincidentally, one of my 10.11 AppleRAID boxes in a RAID1 configuration had a failed drive on Friday, and for the first time I used the diskutil command to rebuild the RAID. Pretty straightforward, but you do have to be comfortable with the command line and the diskutil command and understand how Apple represents volumes and drives.

And as Harry322 said earlier in this thread, some enterprising developer may come up with a GUI for "diskutil appleraid" that replaces the functionality that Apple eliminated from Disk Utility and maybe adds some other features (email notification, SMART checking, etc).

 

[sumo.do]

I'd think that the economics of a relatively "small-batch" software system that involves many low-level drivers, coordinating with Apple Inc, people's critical data, and unique capabilities that are not available anywhere else (i.e. RAID5) would be fairly obvious. There's a lot of effort involved in creating and maintaining this software, and there are relatively few buyers (compared to some of the mass-market stuff that is mentioned).

I'd be surprised if the price is based on small batches and complex software. I don't know a huge amount about the app's internals but it doesn't appear to be hugely complicated compared to some of the apps MagnusVonMagnum mentioned. Look at Parallels alone ($99) compared to SoftRAID ($179).

I would say it is more demand-side greed (on the seller's part) in an environment with minimal sellers (i.e. one seller). I am certain if a second seller (i.e. developer) came along and offered RAID 5 then SoftRAID would drop their price overnight. Look at the Parallels example. Their (Parallels) software is incredibly complex and works at the deep driver, hardware and OS level yet they have competitors so their price is reasonable and competitive.

Don't get me wrong, I think SoftRAID's product is interesting but the app is priced 100% above what it should be. $19.99 - $24.99 for the lite app and $79 - $89 for the full app. That is the price it should be sold for based on other apps on the market.

Have you done any speed tests with SoftRAID? I'd be interested to know if the tech is limiting with speed or not? When I say 'limiting' I mean is it as fast as other RAID setups etc.

 

[JohnDCCIU]

Well, like I said, value is in the eye of the beholder, but I keep seeing comparisons to mass-market software from very large companies that have economies of scale far beyond SoftRAID. Parallels is another example of such a company, so I don't think it's a good comparison.

I do note a similar product in the Windows/Linux space called FlexRaid (their "tRAID" product) that ranges from $99 to $199, depending on the number of disks....and that's for the "Consumer/Small Business (less than 10 employees)" license. For businesses with more than 10 employees it's $300. And this company says that they are a "business front to what otherwise started purely as a technical quest with no commercial motive. Our primary passion and focus is technology, and we are now in a commercial venture solely to fund that passion." They are also in a market where Windows Server offers a similar version of that functionality for free, and same for Linux (where pretty much everything is free). And their price point is about the same or higher than SoftRAID's (they just license it differently, based on number of disks), so IMO that goes a long way toward validating the price that SoftRAID is charging.....for a much smaller market (the Mac market).

Speed-wise, I have a NewerTech MaxPower hardware RAID card hitting a JBOD box with 6 drives via eSATA in an old-style Mac Pro and it does about 200MB/s measured using BlackMagic Disk Speed Test.

A similar old-style Mac Pro running SoftRAID on only 3 similar drives in the internal bays does about 300MB/s.

For comparison, a new-style round Mac Pro with an external RAID6 box from Areca with 8 drives connected via Thunderbolt2 does about 700MB/s.

If NewerTech doesn't get with the program and come out with drivers compatible with 10.11 pretty soon, I'll probably be converting that first machine to SoftRAID and I can do a speed comparison on the same hardware. If I do that, I'll post it.

 

[smayer97]

Yes, SoftRAID recognizes an AppleRAID volume and will convert it to SoftRAID format, no rebuilding necessary.

That is not correct. In the current sold version v5.1, conversion functionality is NOT present. In fact, though their site states it is, the release notes define it is a "Known Bug" that it is missing...strange choice of classification.

In fact, SoftRAID v5.0 was released Sep/Oct 2014. This feature has been missing since then, for the past 1 1/2 years. Their fallback is you can use their older version, v4.5.4, to perform conversions to/from Apple driver to SoftRAID for RAID 0, 1 and non-RAID volumes/disks only. BUT the catch is that this version only runs on Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) to X 10.9 (Mavericks). If you are running X 10.10 (Yosemite) or 10.11 (El Capitan) you are out of luck and must do a delete and rebuild.

There still is no conversion feature to/from RAID 1+0, 4 or 5.

Even during this whole time, their website does not reflect that this functionality is not present, and even with user complaints, have not updated their site to reflect the pending status of this feature, which is misleading at best. Even when questioned for months, their response is simply, it is almost ready.

So keep this in mind.

 

[JohnDCCIU]

That is not correct. In the current sold version v5.1, conversion functionality is NOT present. In fact, though their site states it is, the release notes define it is a "Known Bug" that it is missing...strange choice of classification.

Good point: I hadn't done an in-place conversion from AppleRAID in quite awhile and wasn't aware that they had taken it out but left the feature up there....not cool.

These days I generally just clone the AppleRAID volume over to the new RAID created with SoftRAID anyway, since it leaves the old data/RAID intact just in case. Then after the SoftRAID is up and running for awhile, I reformat the old drives for use elsewhere. Of course, I'm in a business environment where I have lots of drives and external Firewire/TB docks and such, so it's easy to do that.

 

[jameslmoser]

I think the new Disk Utility is a work in progress. I'd be surprised if the RAID interface isn't put back in a subsequent version.

I doubt it. There isn't a single Apple product you can buy that has more than one disk now, so I doubt they care.

I guess they do have the Fusion drive option, which is basically two drives, but they aren't the same type/size which is what you want with RAID 1 or 0.

 

[smayer97]

I think the new Disk Utility is a work in progress. I'd be surprised if the RAID interface isn't put back in a subsequent version.

According to tech support at SoftRAID two weeks ago, they informed me that "DU and RAID were two different people/jobs. Apple RAID has not had an engineer since 2009. Core Storage's engineer has also moved to another team. So there is no one there."

I guess they do have the Fusion drive option, which is basically two drives, but they aren't the same type/size which is what you want with RAID 1 or 0.

Fusion drive uses Core Storage. It it NOT RAID. The closest way to think of it is like concatenated drives (2 or more drives of same or different sizes joined virtually to appear as one volume) with optimization to make the more recently and most often accessed files be re-located onto the fastest drive, i.e., the SSD.

 

[jameslmoser]

According to tech support at SoftRAID two weeks ago, they informed me that "DU and RAID were two different people/jobs. Apple RAID has not had an engineer since 2009. Core Storage's engineer has also moved to another team. So there is no one there."




Fusion drive uses Core Storage. It it NOT RAID. The closest way to think of it is like concatenated drives (2 or more drives of same or different sizes joined virtually to appear as one volume) with optimization to make the more recently and most often accessed files be re-located onto the fastest drive, i.e., the SSD.

By "I doubt they care" I meant Apple in general, not necessary a specific department. Also, I'm well aware of what Fusion is. I mentioned it because you can actually get two drives in a machine if you order a fusion drive. My previous comment was that you can't order an apple computer with more than one disk, I was correcting myself.

 

[smayer97]

By "I doubt they care" I meant Apple in general, not necessary a specific department. Also, I'm well aware of what Fusion is. I mentioned it because you can actually get two drives in a machine if you order a fusion drive. My previous comment was that you can't order an apple computer with more than one disk, I was correcting myself.

Sorry...I was trying to clarify the point by chabig about "I think the new Disk Utility is a work in progress. I'd be surprised if the RAID interface isn't put back in a subsequent version." I made a mistake in my use of the Quotes..I have corrected it now.

And since your reply about Fusion was in response to a comment by chabig about RAID, I was trying to clarify that too. Cheers.

 

[bidwellian]

Would it be possible to copy the disk utility app from an earlier OS like 10.9?

 

[smayer97]

Would it be possible to copy the disk utility app from an earlier OS like 10.9?

There are instructions on how to get the Yosemite version here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-help/180578-restore-yosemite-disk-utility-el-capitan.html

 

[Analog Kid]

According to tech support at SoftRAID two weeks ago, they informed me that "DU and RAID were two different people/jobs. Apple RAID has not had an engineer since 2009. Core Storage's engineer has also moved to another team. So there is no one there."

I get the feeling this is how a lot of Apple works-- they hired some smart people who did some cool stuff, but nobody else cares to maintain it so it rots.

 

[JohnDCCIU]

Good point: I hadn't done an in-place conversion from AppleRAID in quite awhile and wasn't aware that they had taken it out but left the feature up there....not cool.

These days I generally just clone the AppleRAID volume over to the new RAID created with SoftRAID anyway, since it leaves the old data/RAID intact just in case. Then after the SoftRAID is up and running for awhile, I reformat the old drives for use elsewhere. Of course, I'm in a business environment where I have lots of drives and external Firewire/TB docks and such, so it's easy to do that.

FWIW, I just saw that the latest version of SoftRAID (v5.5) reinstated the feature to convert AppleRAID volumes in-place to SoftRAID volumes.

I get the feeling this is how a lot of Apple works-- they hired some smart people who did some cool stuff, but nobody else cares to maintain it so it rots.

I think Apple just decides sometimes that a given feature or offering doesn't have the cost/benefit any more, so they deprecate it and let it fade away....if third-party developers step in to pick it up, then that provides an opportunity for a developer. In my organization, we use AppleRAID + RAIDMonitor for cheap and instant protection against single-drive failure with good notification and so I'll be sorry if it stops working. Currently it's easy to use the command line to set one up, and frankly I had to use the command line sometimes even when the RAID features were in the GUI, because about 10% of the time the GUI didn't work, lol.

I'm still extremely disappointed that SoftRAID doesn't offer email notification in their Lite offering....that will prevent me from using it in my environment and I don't think the full SoftRAID is worth the price for a simple RAID1.

 

[calaverasgrande]

Was just researching a migration to a larger NAS or DAS. Stumbled over this. Wow. What a piece of work!
Apple's desktop division is surely a very small sliver of it's total revenue. But it is moves like this that are head scratchers. What is saved or fixed by eliminating that functionality of Disk Utility?
If the argument is that most Mac users wont be using it since only the older Mac Pro could carry multiple drives, that is kind of silly on several fronts.
First, most current Macs have TB connectivity, which makes external raid arrays super easy and practical.
And if we want to talk about redundancy, open up system report and tell me how many of those physical media attachment options exist on your actual Mac?
Fibre Channel? Parallel SCSI? ATA?

This angers me not just as a user, but if you want to develop for IOS or OSX you are going to be working from a Mac. Apple ought to do better by the capstone of its ecosystem.

 

[smirk]

I may have missed this in the thread, but is there a reason that you all aren't just using the RAID Utility app that comes with OS X?

/System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/RAID Utility.app

 

[Alrescha]

I may have missed this in the thread, but is there a reason that you all aren't just using the RAID Utility app that comes with OS X?

How about because that utility is only for the Mac Pro/Xserve RAID card?

A.

 

[smirk]

How about because that utility is only for the Mac Pro/Xserve RAID card?

That is a great reason. I didn't know that!

 

[maflynn]

I may have missed this in the thread, but is there a reason that you all aren't just using the RAID Utility app that comes with OS X?

/System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/RAID Utility.app

How about because that utility is only for the Mac Pro/Xserve RAID card?

To put it another way, what Mac can run multiple drives internally? Only the Mac Pro (now that apple stopped selling xserve)

Since there iMac, MBP, and Mini have no ability to support RAID internally, why have the app? If you want to run a RAID setup externally, there are a number of DAS and NAS units that will do that for you.

 

[jameslmoser]

To put it another way, what Mac can run multiple drives internally? Only the Mac Pro (now that apple stopped selling xserve)

Since there iMac, MBP, and Mini have no ability to support RAID internally, why have the app? If you want to run a RAID setup externally, there are a number of DAS and NAS units that will do that for you.

The current Mac Pro doesn't have more than one internal drive. However, you can use RAID on external drives, so every machine Apple sells today could have made use of the RAID capabilities in Disk Utility. The fact they left the "Raid Utility.app" but removed the Software RAID functionality from Disk Utility is absurd.

 

[MrNomNoms]

I think Apple just decides sometimes that a given feature or offering doesn't have the cost/benefit any more, so they deprecate it and let it fade away....if third-party developers step in to pick it up, then that provides an opportunity for a developer. In my organization, we use AppleRAID + RAIDMonitor for cheap and instant protection against single-drive failure with good notification and so I'll be sorry if it stops working. Currently it's easy to use the command line to set one up, and frankly I had to use the command line sometimes even when the RAID features were in the GUI, because about 10% of the time the GUI didn't work, lol.

I'm still extremely disappointed that SoftRAID doesn't offer email notification in their Lite offering....that will prevent me from using it in my environment and I don't think the full SoftRAID is worth the price for a simple RAID1.

There is nothing wrong with removing features per se but they need to at least provide some sort of guidance and migration path for their existing customers rather than just pulling something and then go "lol, sucks to be you!" to customers who relied on a particular piece of technology for their work flow. You'd think they would have learned from the whole Final Cut fiasco but it appears that they're doomed to repeat the same mistakes again. Lets also remember one thing - they provide migration in other areas; they got rid of the garbage collection feature in Objective-C 2.0 in favour of ARC and provided a migration path for developers to move their code - how many developers actually used the garbage collection in the limited amount of time it was available? I'd hazard to guess there were more people using AppleRAID than there was taking advantage of the garbage collection functionality.

 

[h9826790]

I may have missed this in the thread, but is there a reason that you all aren't just using the RAID Utility app that comes with OS X?

/System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/RAID Utility.app

That's for hardware RAID, without the RAID PCIe card, this app won't even launch.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

There is nothing wrong with removing features per se but they need to at least provide some sort of guidance and migration path for their existing customers rather than just pulling something and then go "lol, sucks to be you!" to customers who relied on a particular piece of technology for their work flow. You'd think they would have learned from the whole Final Cut fiasco but it appears that they're doomed to repeat the same mistakes again. Lets also remember one thing - they provide migration in other areas; they got rid of the garbage collection feature in Objective-C 2.0 in favour of ARC and provided a migration path for developers to move their code - how many developers actually used the garbage collection in the limited amount of time it was available? I'd hazard to guess there were more people using AppleRAID than there was taking advantage of the garbage collection functionality.

I hate to say it, but Apple's software sucks lately. I've noticed a marked slowdown in OS X with spinning hard disks over the the last two major OS versions (since Mavericks) and I don't just mean for that particular disk, but for the entire system. For example, I was downloading photos from my my digital camera with Image Capture to an external USB3 hard drive. Meanwhile, I tried to start Firefox (from the internal dual-RAID drives) and the damn thing wouldn't start until the camera download finished (i.e. it was starting so damn slow) and this was a on a quad-core Mac and the camera wasn't using the internal hard drive! But my slowdowns are MINOR compared to another family member who bought a Macbook Pro in late 2012. Her MBP is slow as molasses for any kind of multitasking. If Software Update in the App Store is checking for updates, forget about running anything else with any kind of speed what-so-ever. This is not the kind of behavior these computers had in 2012 running Mountain Lion (or Mavericks later on). It's a night and day slowdown and makes them feel more like my old PPC based 2001 PowerMac. Hell, that's doing that computer a dishonor. It ran perfectly fine (with an upgraded 1GHz CPU and 1.5GB of ram up until about 2010 with most programs and was still in use until 2012 when I replaced it with the quad-core Mac Mini Server with 8GB of Ram and RAID drives. I'm sure a solid-state drive would be lovely, but that doesn't mean Apple's OS hasn't dropped the ball. They're still selling machines with spinning hard drives and the performance is 10x worse when multitasking than it SHOULD be (and was under prior OS versions). They've crippled it somehow and they don't seem to care.

Other things are also bad in design. Try the new "Photos" App. It will import iPhoto albums, but they won't show up right under an AppleTV Gen3 device. You have to re-import the original photos (hope you kept them separate). And when you DO import photos into that "Photos" program (nice confusing name they gave it; try looking up help for it on the internet with that name) the program offers NO BUSY INDICATOR WHAT-SO-EVER. It literally sat there with a blank screen and I wondered if it had locked up and then finally some photos started showing up on the screen (not real fast). I might think this was a design oversight or something, but you only have to look at Spotlight to see that giving "busy" feedback is a thing of the past for Apple. Put in a search in Spotlight and if it doesn't come up instantly, you'll wonder if it's doing anything. No wonder people keep trying to press RETURN (not used) when there's indicator that it's trying to/still searching. No indicator what-so-ever until results start showing up and then you're never sure if it's DONE searching since it never tells you with any indicator if it's still searching results.... It's maddening.

Starting with Yosemite, Apple started breaking user interface guidelines all over the place in their quest to make OSX look "new" or "different". How about BETTER rather than GARBAGE?!??!?! I'm not pleased with these types of changes. The OS should not suddenly handle disk activity worse (I'm getting max speeds 1/3 slower even without multitasking than Mavericks using disk tests), older API graphic draws at 1/2 to 1/3 the prior speeds if the Metal API calls aren't used (or your GPU doesn't support them) and interface changes that leave you wondering if the OS is locked up or not!

Apple better start getting their crap together or that spyware called Windows 10 might start looking more attractive even with its flaws.

 

[MrNomNoms]

Apple better start getting their crap together or that spyware called Windows 10 might start looking more attractive even with its flaws.

I'd like to believe that Windows 10 is substantially better but having dealt with a Dell desktop and a Surface Book (in the same price bracket as a MacBook Pro) the situation isn't rosy on the other side either so it is a matter of 'pick your poison'. Although I have flirted with Windows 10 in recent months the marketing buzz by Microsoft has done a great job at hiding long standing Windows issues that are still present whilst giving the appearance that things are actually moving forward in some way. When it comes to OS X it does have its issues but I guess it comes down to what those issues are and whether they over lap with what you wish to accomplish.

 

[JohnDCCIU]

Good news, RAID1 fans! Apple is bringing back the GUI for their built-in RAID functionality in 10.12 "Sierra". That plus a utility like SmartReporter that watches both SMART attributes and the RAID itself (and notifies you if anything goes awry in a variety of ways, including email) is pretty much ideal for extra redundancy for your data.

 

[sumo.do]

Good news, RAID1 fans! Apple is bringing back the GUI for their built-in RAID functionality in 10.12 "Sierra". That plus a utility like SmartReporter that watches both SMART attributes and the RAID itself (and notifies you if anything goes awry in a variety of ways, including email) is pretty much ideal for extra redundancy for your data.

Good Stuff.