Weird Permission Issues on a Mac Pro w/ RAID 0

[sammyman]

I have a Mac Pro with the following HD's

256 SSD - Boot Disk w/ Applications
128 SSD - Scratch Disk
2 x 2TB Black WD RAID 0 - Wife's Photography, User Data and Library
1 x 4TB Green WD - Music and iPhoto/Home movies

My problem is that I have filled up the wife's photography RAID 0 drive and was hoping to transfer older pictures from Lightroom to an external drive, but I can't. When I try to move pictures I get weird permission errors.

Then I found out it is impossible to fix permission errors on a RAID 0 drive on a mac.

What should I do?

My gameplan is to transfer everything from the 2 x 2tb RAID 0 to an external 4tb drive with Carbon Copy, and then wipe the old drives clean and start fresh. Is there another way?

I also tried Drive Genius 3 with no luck. Disk Utility is worthless.

 

[chrfr]

Then I found out it is impossible to fix permission errors on a RAID 0 drive on a mac.

This is 100% untrue. The operating system sees a RAID 0 volume exactly the same as any other, and there are no inherent limitations in setting permissions. You'll need to provide more information than "weird permission errors" for us to help you.

 

[mikeboss]

the OP is right (depends on the version of OS X used). AFAIR with Mountain Lion I never was able to run "Repair Disk Permissions" on my RAID-0 using Disk Utility. it worked if I did it using the terminal though... I don't remember the command exactly but it was something like diskutil repairPermissions.

 

[IowaLynn]

Repair permissions on a data-only drive? really?

With my old Lion RAID0 of the system (2x SSD) Disk Utiity does not even work!

 

[m4v3r1ck]

My Apple Software RAID0 (2x2TB) can't be repaired too. But because it's a data-only-drive I don't have to.

Perhaps someone CAN explain why a software RAID0 can't be repaired anyway...

Cheers

 

[chrfr]

My Apple Software RAID0 (2x2TB) can't be repaired too. But because it's a data-only-drive I don't have to.

Image

Perhaps someone CAN explain why a software RAID0 can't be repaired anyway...

Cheers

The "Repair Permissions" function in Disk Utility only repairs permissions on OS X system files. "Repair Permissions" does not work on any disk that does not have OS X installed on it. This has nothing to do with whether or not the volume is a RAID 0.

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the OP is right (depends on the version of OS X used). AFAIR with Mountain Lion I never was able to run "Repair Disk Permissions" on my RAID-0 using Disk Utility. it worked if I did it using the terminal though... I don't remember the command exactly but it was something like diskutil repairPermissions.

Again, this is because OS X isn't installed on that array. I have a test system that boots to OS X on a RAID 0, and yes, repair permissions works perfectly fine on that volume.

 

[666sheep]

OP, if you have groups, owners and permissions issues you can use BatChmod to fix them.

 

[m4v3r1ck]

The "Repair Permissions" function in Disk Utility only repairs permissions on OS X system files. "Repair Permissions" does not work on any disk that does not have OS X installed on it. This has nothing to do with whether or not the volume is a RAID 0.
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Again, this is because OS X isn't installed on that array. I have a test system that boots to OS X on a RAID 0, and yes, repair permissions works perfectly fine on that volume.

OP, if you have groups, owners and permissions issues you can use BatChmod to fix them.

THNX both for explaining and solution for repair permissions on a data-ony software RAID0 with BatChmod!

BatChmod download & instructions

@OP What's your backup scheme for data RAID0?

Cheers

 

[mikeboss]

The "Repair Permissions" function in Disk Utility only repairs permissions on OS X system files. "Repair Permissions" does not work on any disk that does not have OS X installed on it. This has nothing to do with whether or not the volume is a RAID 0.

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Again, this is because OS X isn't installed on that array. I have a test system that boots to OS X on a RAID 0, and yes, repair permissions works perfectly fine on that volume.

au contraire: this was on my system drive. the button to repair permissions wasn't greyed out. I could click on it, I just didn't do anything. and, as I wrote already: I was able to repair permissions when using the console. this perfectly worked in 10.6.x and 1.9.x. AFAIR it didn't work (repair permissions using Disk Utility) in 10.8.x. drove me crazy...

 

[IowaLynn]

au contraire: this was on my system drive. the button to repair permissions wasn't greyed out. I could click on it, I just didn't do anything. and, as I wrote already: I was able to repair permissions when using the console. this perfectly worked in 10.6.x and 1.9.x. AFAIR it didn't work (repair permissions using Disk Utility) in 10.8.x. drove me crazy...

I saw reports of this going back to Lion on Apple Community.
And MacRumors forum
Led to tech article https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203614
"Disk Utility may not be able to verify or repair permissions on a software RAID set"

 

[m4v3r1ck]

My other internal RAID0 array which is bootable (Carbon Copy Cloner) can use "repair permissions" on OSX 10.10.1.

So the fact it has OSX installed on it seems to be the factor.

NOTE: this is my quick reboot CCC disk only, so I'm also backing up on an external RAID1 array with CCC and a off-site backup scheme.

Cheers

 

[sammyman]

THNX both for explaining and solution for repair permissions on a data-ony software RAID0 with BatChmod!

Image

BatChmod download & instructions

@OP What's your backup scheme for data RAID0?

Cheers

I'll try BatChmod and report back.

I tried doing it from the terminal with no luck. This is the response I got.

sudo fsck_hfs -f -c 2g /dev/disk4
** /dev/rdisk4 (NO WRITE)
Executing fsck_hfs (version hfs-285).
** Verifying volume when it is mounted with write access.
** Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
The volume name is MASTER
** Checking extents overflow file.
** Checking catalog file.
Incorrect block count for file Cache.db-wal
(It should be 46 instead of 112)
Invalid index key
(4, 153279)
Invalid index key
(4, 152931)
Invalid index key
(4, 181528)
Invalid index key
(4, 193962)
** The volume MASTER was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.

The problems I am having are that I sometimes can't delete files form the trash. Also, I tried moving pictures from Lightroom to an external drive and it gave me more permission errors.

I have this backing up right now to external drives. I used to have a Time machine of this as well, but am rebuilding a new time machine now. I also use Backblaze but have never relied on it. Rebuilding 4TB from an online backup would be a nightmare.

I have my user folder on this drive, pictures, and library folders as well. That's it.

 

[IowaLynn]

I'll try BatChmod and report back.

I tried doing it from the terminal with no luck. This is the response I got.

The problems I am having are that I sometimes can't delete files form the trash. Also, I tried moving pictures from Lightroom to an external drive and it gave me more permission errors.

I have this backing up right now to external drives. I used to have a Time machine of this as well, but am rebuilding a new time machine now. I also use Backblaze but have never relied on it. Rebuilding 4TB from an online backup would be a nightmare.

I have my user folder on this drive, pictures, and library folders as well. That's it.

A chance you have something installed on your system that modifies system.

 

[chrfr]

The problems I am having are that I sometimes can't delete files form the trash. Also, I tried moving pictures from Lightroom to an external drive and it gave me more permission errors.

As the terminal output indicates, this is rather severe directory corruption, which is likely the source of whatever the errors are that you're having. Once you copy everything off the volume, just reformat the drive and copy files back. It's very unlikely that Disk Utility or fsck will be able to repair these errors so formatting is the easiest choice unless you have a copy of DiskWarrior.
You still haven't specifically said what the "permission errors" you're having are. Exactly what are the errors you are having?