MP 7,1 Preferred Hardware RAID?

[mattspace]

Consider the Areca thunderbolt raid enclosures. Link

I am using the 6 bay version with a 2019 Mac Pro. Supports all RAID levels in hardware and has an ethernet connection for off line admin or can use installed app. Have SAS drives in RAID 10 which is pretty bulletproof. 2GB memory cache and speed is limited only by hard drive config. Personally have moved away from raid 5/6 due to very lengthy init/rebuild times and if you are not using enterprise/SAS drives chances of getting an error with a rebuild is pretty high trashing your data.

Also very quiet!

Areca is one brand I've been looking at, however finding a retailer with unpopulated systems here seems an exercise in futility.

Can you confirm for me - did the driver require you to change the boot security of your system?

That's something which has thrown a spanner int he works - Terramaster's driver requires security to be turned off. Promise's driver seems all in order, however Promise systems are likewise only available pre-populated.

 

[phrehdd]

Consider the Areca thunderbolt raid enclosures. Link

I am using the 6 bay version with a 2019 Mac Pro. Supports all RAID levels in hardware and has an ethernet connection for off line admin or can use installed app. Have SAS drives in RAID 10 which is pretty bulletproof. 2GB memory cache and speed is limited only by hard drive config. Personally have moved away from raid 5/6 due to very lengthy init/rebuild times and if you are not using enterprise/SAS drives chances of getting an error with a rebuild is pretty high trashing your data.

Also very quiet!

Glad another knows about Areca. Given the price of some business/pro drives, one could do a RAID 10 nicely. Do you have any minor hiccups with your system?

 

[TzunamiOSX]

Areca is one brand I've been looking at, however finding a retailer with unpopulated systems here seems an exercise in futility.

Can you confirm for me - did the driver require you to change the boot security of your system?

That's something which has thrown a spanner int he works - Terramaster's driver requires security to be turned off. Promise's driver seems all in order, however Promise systems are likewise only available pre-populated.

Areca 5040 RAID working here since around 10? years. Areca Driver are verified by Developer

 

[mattspace]

Areca 8040 RAID working here since around 10? years. Areca Driver are verified by Developer

View attachment 2298820

ok, but did you have to change the boot security settings for the driver? My impression is this is about whether the driver is made for the newer driver architecture, or not. As mentioned, Promise’s drivers don’t seem to require it, whereas Terramaster’s do.

 

[TzunamiOSX]

ok, but did you have to change the boot security settings for the driver? My impression is this is about whether the driver is made for the newer driver architecture, or not. As mentioned, Promise’s drivers don’t seem to require it, whereas Terramaster’s do.

I have disabled SIP long time ago, so I can't answer your question, but I think it is not needed

 

[cutterman]

Glad another knows about Areca. Given the price of some business/pro drives, one could do a RAID 10 nicely. Do you have any minor hiccups with your system?

The Areca thunderbolt RAID box has worked flawlessly. Automatically turns on and off with system.

I bought it without drives from pc-pitstop dot com

 

[TzunamiOSX]

Areca 5040 RAID working here since around 10? years. Areca Driver are verified by Developer

View attachment 2298820

 

[TzunamiOSX]

Areca 8040 RAID working here since around 10? years. Areca Driver are verified by Developer

View attachment 2298820

Sorry, it is a 5080^^ but I also have an internal Areca RAID Card

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I think once you need a driver for storage to work, you invite problems. I will never use any such storage solutions.

A lot of misinformation about synology.

I believe there have only been 3 providers that let you have expanding raids with disparate drives. Originally Drobo. Now defunct. Synology SHR/2. And most recently terramaster’s traid.

You can definitely use Time Machine on any of those.

Synology does not force you to use only their proprietary drives. They will just give you a useless “warning” that the drive is not supported, but it will run just fine and do anything with the 3rd party drives. The only exception is using nvme ssds can only be used for cache but not stand alone volumes. And those limitations only apply to machines supporting more than 6 bays (For 2022 or later models, so no such limitation on the 1821+ 8bay unit)

You are correct none of the NAS options support native storage of apples brain damaged photolibrary nor direct app backup. All other file types work fine native, even weird directory types of files. But Time Machine works just fine on synology, and you can put a sparse bundle dmg on the synology and use that as a native container for any Mac files including photolibrary and Mac apps. You can even make some scripts to automount such DMGs.

Ive been using synology for over a decade. It does a lot right. That said I do hate their current direction, but they are probably the best game in town if you value the expanding raid type.

The best hardware by far is by qnap. They don’t have expanding raid but they have u.2 and fiber networking and more amazing options. Unfortunately I need and value the expanding raid ability so I can’t consider them, but they have some truly nice hardware options:

StorageReview.com (@storagereview) on X

A brand new QNAP TS-h1290FX just rolled into the lab. AMD CPU with 8 DIMM slots, 4 PCIe slots and of course, 12x NVMe SSD support. 2x 25GbE on board with a few 2.5GbE ports as well. Starts at $4900, our review is in the works. #qnap #nas #storage @QNAP_nas

x.com

Good luck and let us know what you end up with!

 

[MacInMotion]

I have been using an Areca 5026 for 10 years now, with few problems. It is no longer made by Areca, and they seem to have been badly affected by the Covid pandemic, but vendors assure me they are still a going concern.

AFAIK, and I have looked around a lot and talked to a bunch of vendors, all Thunderbolt RAID 5 drives need drivers installed on Apple Silicon Macs. The Intel macOS came with some drivers pre-installed, including drivers for the Areca, Promise, and some other RAID devices. The Apple Silicon OS does not come with these drivers pre-installed, and requires a special security concession to be made to allow third-party kernel drivers to be installed to support these devices.

The only RAID devices I have found that do not require drivers on Apple Silicon are hardware RAID 0/1, and the only ones of these I've found from a reputable vendor are from OWC. The best of these is the OWC Gemini which has a Thunderbolt 3 port.

For excellent support, both before and after the sale, I highly recommend MacGurus if you want external direct-attached storage beyond some pre-packaged product like the Western Digital Elements.