RAID Nightmare!

This is a post for those who may be in my their own time of trial with RAID 0....

I was upgrading to a Leopard 10.5.3 -MacPro 8 core 3.0Ghz - FC Studio 2, and updating my RAID (ICYDOCK 4 bay external & NORCO-4629 PCIe SATA II).

First off I had already backed up the RAID (actually I back up everything - sometimes even double backup) - which was good! Very good!

After I had re-initialized my RAID 0, set up with SoftRaid and began copying data back. It quit with an error (-5) partway through and only copied 145 GB of 375 GB. Okay, tried to erase drive and try again, Didn't work. Drive wouldn't erase, it was now "busy." (Busy with what?) Had to do a restart of the MacPro. That wouldn't work, it hung on the empty screen. Waited half and hour and then did a hard shutdown. (my mood: puzzled and slight worried)

For a day and a half I tried many things, set the partition tables on the drives to GUID (were APM). Reinstalled RAID card drivers - it's a NORCO-4629 (which is now past it's prime). Wiped the drive multiple times, tried copying in the Terminal app using "ditto" Nothing worked - it would start copying, then choke. Then the system would be "busy." (my mood: really angry)

Finally I was going to order another RAID card since the NORCO support is weak at best - probably the Sonnet E4P. Then I thought, since I'm screwed already, why not try some things. Hell, I make money consulting at some major companies doing just this. (note: it's amusing when it is your own stuff you have a very different attitude on troubleshooting - much less pro, much more "end user" mindset)

On with the consulting hat... So time to troubleshoot (i.e. experiment) I decided I would eliminate SoftRaid from the equation (as I didn't have the new card yet). De-installed it and it's drivers. Reset the array to Apple Disk utility RAID O. Rebooted. (actually used the shutdown command in terminal since the system was "still busy" or "getting busy" - who knows)

OK. It all comes up nice, it looks good. The ultimate test - copy it all back.

I watched with trepidation as the bar moved slowly - said some prayers... and, well - it worked - NO problem. Ran a test with the AJA utility. It is now faster than it was with SoftRaid. Was averaging 105 MB/s (2 drive array). Now, with Apple RAID it is averaging about 140 MB/s (read & write). Plus I noticed on the graph mode that it is less "choppy" and more consistent on data rate. (my mood: much better once I had had a serious drink! rum and coke - mostly rum)

The problem came down to this: SoftRaid 3.6.6 - which had always worked in the past. And they are a good company. For years they were the best - and hopefully will be again shortly. But they need to get on the stick. They should be on this asap. They should have had 10.5.3 issues resolved before it came out, and have tested it with various cards, even legacy ones. Or maybe it isn't the card. Maybe it is just 10.5.3 and SoftRaid which are unhappy together. The NORCO card is a bit odd.

So there you have it, some troubleshooting that I hope helps others in their time of trial. Also, I'd love to hear what people think is a better 4 port PCIe SATA II card. The most Mac friendly and support laden one. Let us all know.