Mac Pro RAID Card Help

[iJon]

Hey guys, I'm going to need the assistance and advice of the users here who are a bit more familiar with the Apple RAID card for the Mac Pro.

I have a friend of mine who I have helped set up a monster Mac Pro but this is both of ours first experience with the RAID card. Currently he has 3 drives, 1 boot disk as JBOD and then 2 other drives set up as a RAID1 called Data.

He has started using the volume but he has ran into some problems. He has noticed that when he connects to the RAID volume over the network whether it be Mac or PC that his access is limited to Read only. My first suggestion was that some permission or privilege wasn't set right but we still aren't sure. This isn't his first Mac Pro (he actually has 3) and he is trying to connect to it like he always does with the other machines. He's convinced something is different with the RAID setup cause he never had this issue with his other macs.

I had him check various settings in the Sharing preference pane but still no success. Since he has take the computer home and lives a ways away I don't have the ability to tinker with it in person anymore.

One thing I was curious about is that the RAID setup is still initializing and hasn't finished (almost done). Would the RAID not being fully initialized yet cause read only access through the network?

Any help would much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[nanofrog]

One thing I was curious about is that the RAID setup is still initializing and hasn't finished (almost done). Would the RAID not being fully initialized yet cause read only access through the network?

Very likely.

But I'm also a bit confused... Initialization destroys any existing data on the drives, so it shouldn't have anything on it at this point. Unless the process is Online Migration (where you can change the level of an existing array - data stays in tact, but it's much slower as a result).

Assuming there is data on the drives (say the process still completing is an Online Migration), the described behavior makes sense (volume is already visible to the system, so it locked out writing until completion in order to prevent problems such as file corruption - would get ugly if this saftey weren't present).

 

[iJon]

This is what the users guide says about initializing.

"You can start using the volume as soon as its icon appears in the Finder, but maximum read and write performance isn’t available until the volume is completely initialized. Until then, the volume status icon in RAID Utility is yellow. Initialization time depends on the RAID level of the underlying RAID set. To check progress, click Tasks in the left column of the RAID Utility window."

What perplexes me is that he has read and write access just fine on the actual machine. It's only when accessing it over the network that it's read only.

While this isn't his first Mac Pro, it is the biggest monster he has purchased yet considering it's 12 core, 4 HD's, RAID card, 48GB RAM. He's just got so much going on it's hard to tell if it's something simple as a setting or if the RAID is affecting it. He swears up and down that he has it setup just like the others in terms of sharing.

I told him to let the initialization finish up and we'll proceed after that. I figured I would make a post here and see some other people could come up with.

 

[nanofrog]

This is what the users guide says about initializing.

"You can start using the volume as soon as its icon appears in the Finder, but maximum read and write performance isn’t available until the volume is completely initialized. Until then, the volume status icon in RAID Utility is yellow. Initialization time depends on the RAID level of the underlying RAID set. To check progress, click Tasks in the left column of the RAID Utility window."

What perplexes me is that he has read and write access just fine on the actual machine. It's only when accessing it over the network that it's read only.

While this isn't his first Mac Pro, it is the biggest monster he has purchased yet considering it's 12 core, 4 HD's, RAID card, 48GB RAM. He's just got so much going on it's hard to tell if it's something simple as a setting or if the RAID is affecting it. He swears up and down that he has it setup just like the others in terms of sharing.

I told him to let the initialization finish up and we'll proceed after that. I figured I would make a post here and see some other people could come up with.

I'm no fan of the Apple RAID Pro (slow, expensive, only works with one OS, and has battery issues), and this seems to be more fuel to the fire (good cards wouldn't allow access until initialization is complete). Personally, I stick with Areca or ATTO for RAID cards.

As per the network access limitation, wait for the initialization to complete (just in case this is the issue). If it still only allows read only access, then go back and check the various settings (card, network, and disk). But I'm thinking though he swears the settings are all the same as previous systems (fully functional), somethings not set correctly (since full access is allowed during the initialization process).

Try to get screen shots of all the settings on both the new and an existing system (comparison purposes), and see where that leads...

 

[iJon]

I agree completely. We'll see what happens and I'll keep ya updated.