MP 1,1-5,1 RAID or ZFS with 3 disks?

[TECK]

Hi,

I have 3 disk slots free on my cMP 2010, what choices do I have to build a redundant array of 3 4TB disks? I'm used to ZFS RaidZ1, can I do something similar using Mac's disk default software? RaidZ1 basically allows you to hot swap one disk without using data. The array will be used for storing large temp files, it will not be used for actual storage.

I don't know how reliable is OpenZFS on Mac, so I wanted your opinion on this. Thanks for your suggestions.

 

[jameslmoser]

Hi,

I have 3 disk slots free on my cMP 2010, what choices do I have to build a redundant array of 3 4TB disks? I'm used to ZFS RaidZ1, can I do something similar using Mac's disk default software? RaidZ1 basically allows you to hot swap one disk without using data. The array will be used for storing large temp files, it will not be used for actual storage.

I don't know how reliable is OpenZFS on Mac, so I wanted your opinion on this. Thanks for your suggestions.

There is alwasy SoftRaid. https://www.softraid.com

Just visiting their site, I see they now support windows? So I might actually make use of that on my classic mac pro.

 

[jscipione]

I use a pair of ZFS mirrored disks on my Mac Pro over several versions of macOS and have had no issues so I would say that ZFS is a good choice if you are used to it. APFS still doesn’t support Raid 5 AFAIK so your other option is to make an HFS+ RAID 5 and I can’t recommend doing that but it would be the best option that is supported out of the box.

 

[ssgbryan]

Don't forget that you have 2 additional SATA connections on the logic board.

 

[TECK]

Right now I have one SSD in Slot 1, I want to use the other 3 slots for temp storage. @jscipione are you using the brew installed openzfs with a GUI or just command line?

There is an issue with Catalina:

macOS 10.15 Catalina support ✅ · Issue #721 · openzfsonosx/zfs

It's still early, so I don't expect there to already be support for the new macOS Catalina beta, but surprisingly it worked! I figured I'd open a ticket to help track progress on any bugs. (Also to...

github.com

 

[racer]

I've been using openzfs for years. First on my iMac with external tb and 4X4TB disks and the last 2 years on my 2009 cMP with 4X4TB and lately with a 3X2TB temp scratch disk. The thing is rock solid. In command line mode 90%, last few months have used the gui for easy monitoring.

 

[Macschrauber]

Don't forget that you have 2 additional SATA connections on the logic board.

Thats just for 1.1 to 3.1 with pata optical drives.

If one can live without drives in the odd bay thats true for 4.1 and 5.1

 

[jscipione]

Right now I have one SSD in Slot 1, I want to use the other 3 slots for temp storage. @jscipione are you using the brew installed openzfs with a GUI or just command line?

There is an issue with Catalina:

macOS 10.15 Catalina support ✅ · Issue #721 · openzfsonosx/zfs

It's still early, so I don't expect there to already be support for the new macOS Catalina beta, but surprisingly it worked! I figured I'd open a ticket to help track progress on any bugs. (Also to...

github.com

I use the openzfsonosx.org package and created my storage volumes on the command line. I haven’t upgraded to Catalina and probably never will on my current Mac Pro machine as it is unsupported so I can’t comment on using ZFS on that release or the upcoming Big Sur.

 

[TECK]

I haven’t upgraded to Catalina and probably never will on my current Mac Pro machine as it is unsupported

Use OpenCore