Can one use G-Tech PCIe RAID controller to run eSATA HDs?
by Tumay Tumer
on
Nov 22, 2008 at 5:58:13 am
I just bought two G-Speed eS units. They will be connected to one G-Tech PCI Express (PCIe) RAID controller using its two slots. I will have two extra slots that are not used. Can I use the extra slots to connect eSATA hard disks such as the new G-Raid3, G-Drive Q or WD 1TB MyBook Studio drives? I would appreciate to know if anyone succeeded in doing this, please. Since the card is a raid controller it may be OK for use with G-Raid3 but I am not sure if G-Drive Q and MyBook will work.
Can anyone please also advise me if there are comprehensive information out there on the web which explains how to install and use G-Speed eS?
Re: Can one use G-Tech PCIe RAID controller to run eSATA HDs? by John Knowles on Nov 22, 2008 at 9:45:20 pm
I don't know about those other models, I can only speak to my personal experience. But YES, I could hook up other eSATA drives to the G-Tech card. I've used it to access LaCie drives and a JBOD enclosure in addition to G-Tech devices. One note: if you plug in another RAID, be sure to use the web GUI to "Unplug" the device after you eject it, otherwise you get the audible alarm.
Re: Can one use G-Tech PCIe RAID controller to run eSATA HDs? by Eduard Chugunov on Nov 24, 2008 at 5:39:40 pm
Yes, you can connect a legacy device to the G-Speed eS as long as the unit has already been formatted outside of the card. If you purchased a G-Drive Q from the store and connected it to the G-Speed eS controller it will mount on the desktop becuase all G-Tech drives are formatted prior to shipping.
One thing to consider, once the legacy device is connected to the G-Speed eS controller, you will need to log in to the GUI to unplug it otherwise, the alarm will sound if the unit is disconnected without first being unmounted from the system and disconnected via the G-Speed eS GUI.
Re: Can one use G-Tech PCIe RAID controller to run eSATA HDs? by Tumay Tumer on Nov 27, 2008 at 7:23:21 am
Thank you all very much for your help and advice.
I am having a problem how to set up my two G-Speed eS drives as two separate RAID 5 systems. It is not covered in the manual. I believe I just set them up separately instead of combining them into one large RAID 5. We will see if it will work.
I am also having trouble understanding the “Unplug” function as written in the manual. It says:
“7.2 Unplug
This will disconnect the Array from the controller. Be sure to unmount all volumes from the system before using this option. ...”
What is confusing me is the “unmount” phrase. There is no description of how to unmount the volumes before selecting “unplug.” Do I need to open the Apple Disk Utility and unmount each volume before I select unplug? I would have thought clicking unplug should be enough to unmount all four drives in each volume in one go. What is the procedure, please?
Also in the initialization section of installation it says
“1 1. ... Click on the button to launch the Apple Disk Utility ...”
It does not say what to do once Disk Utility opens. Do I need to go to the RAID section and set it up as RAID or RAID 5 or do I need to do a simple formatting. If later what option do I select. For example, do I select “Journalling“ or not?
I really do not like the installation manual of G-Speed eS. It does not provide complete information on installation. It leaves one wondering and guessing what to do next. This can lead to disaster if one makes the wrong selection. G-Tech could have easily added a few extra lines to direct their customers in the right direction. They supply an e-manual so saving paper and money is not an issue.
There are more unclear steps and information throughout the manual. I just selected two that seems important and may cause serious problem if not done correctly. I wonder why good companies like G-Tech just fail on delivering quality result on some part of their product.
Re: Can one use G-Tech PCIe RAID controller to run eSATA HDs? by Stephan Walfridsson on Nov 28, 2008 at 1:40:36 pm
I would guess that in order to set them up as separate raids you would have to do them one at a time, Just connect the first one and set that pone up then disconnect it and connect the other one repeating the setup process. But I haven't tried it myself.
[Tumay Tumer]"“7.2 Unplug
This will disconnect the Array from the controller. Be sure to unmount all volumes from the system before using this option. ...” "
Unmount simply means that you need to drag the disk icon to the trashcan so that the system forgets about it, just as you have to do with firewire and usb disks. The difference is that after you have done that you have to go into the web GUI and "unplug" the drives from the controller card before actually unplugging them from the computer.
[Tumay Tumer]"It does not say what to do once Disk Utility opens. Do I need to go to the RAID section and set it up as RAID or RAID 5 or do I need to do a simple formatting. If later what option do I select. For example, do I select “Journalling“ or not?"
What you have created in the raiding process is an unformatted raided diskarray, so now you have to format the drive so that the system can use it. In other words NO don't try to raid it again. Just format it according to your needs. This is different for every user, which is why they can't give exact instructions, however I agree that they could give some suggestions and hints, even though they do say "refer to your system documentation for instructions".
But I can say that you do NOT want journalling enabled if you plan to use it as a media disk, that option is basically for the system disk. You'll probably just want to use "Mac OS extended".
Re: Can one use G-Tech PCIe RAID controller to run eSATA HDs? by Tumay Tumer on Nov 29, 2008 at 2:43:17 am
Dear Stephan:
Excellent information. I wish G-Speed eS manual had these information listed. I would have not lost so much time.
I already assumed what you informed me that they really meant “eject“ not “unmount” in the manual as unmount is not a commonly used term and that I really should not be doing any further RAID setting up and moved ahead to setup the two G-Speed eS drives. After RAID 5 setup for each drive separately (took about 6 hours each), the GUI did not come and ask me to initialize the drives, contrary to the manual. I thought then I have to do it myself and I formatted them as Mac OS extended (Journalled), mistake. I wish manuals give such inside information and tell their customers if you this this will happen, or if you want to use it for such and such application these are the optimum settings. It is hard to me to understand why they withhold information. May G-Tech thinks everyone knows all these fine details.
I moved all my photos into one drive and the videos to the other as they were at 1 TB level, I had to move them to larger storage and G-Speed eS looked as the best solution. Now reading your email I see that may be I need to start over and reformat the drives at Mac OS extended only and then transfer all my data back to these drives. Can you please tell me what “journalled” does and how it affects media data? I am assuming that may be it slows it down because it needs to do journalling.
Now I have to spend more time to do all the data transfer again which took about 7 hours each to transfer. Luckily I did not erase my previous data disks yet.
I have another question, I am planning to buy a third G-Speed eS to use it for the Time Machine Backup on my Mac Pro. In this case do I need to format the eS as “Journalled” or not please?
Everything except the huge time they took to work even with the eSATA interface went relatively smoothly once I was clear what to do. However, one thing is still not working? I cannot send a test email to warn me if any drive fails. This is important. I tried many different possible ways for SMTP settings, my email addresses and names. Nothing works. It always gives and error. G-Tech probably not giving the correct information in their manual on how to setup this feature. Do you know how to make this feature work, please.
Re: Can one use G-Tech PCIe RAID controller to run eSATA HDs? by Stephan Walfridsson on Nov 29, 2008 at 7:22:39 am
Yes there is a slight speed decrease when journaling is turned on which for video editing can be problematic as we like to maintatin the highest read/write performance possible. For photos and other "normal" files it really doesn't matter. For a Timemachine disk I think that I would actually turn journaling on as it is meant to increase data safety. I am no expert in this field, so search the internet and I'm sure you can find some info. If you want to know more about journaling read this: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2355
The good news is that I think you can disable journaling without erasing the data! According to the above support document all you have to do is the following:
To turn journaling on and off using Disk Utility:
Open Disk Utility (located in Applications/Utilities).
Select the volume to enable or disable journaling on.
To enable, click the Enable Journaling button or choose Enable Journaling from the File menu.
To disable journaling, choose Disable Journaling from the File menu.
Note: In Mac OS X 10.4 and later, press Option to make Disable Journaling visible in the File menu.
I haven't used the email feature my self. I checked the manual for the controller card but all it says is:
Enabling E-mail notification:
To configure E-mail notification:
1) Select the “Enable Event Notification” option.
2) Enter the appropriate information for the SMTP server.
3) Click the “Change Setting” button.
Note: Your SMTP server may require user authentication – enter the appropriate
password and username as required.
To add a Recipient:
1. Enter the necessary information for the desired recipient.
2. Click the Add button.
To test E-mail notification:
1) Enter the necessary information for the recipient.
2) Click the Test button.
Re: Can one use G-Tech PCIe RAID controller to run eSATA HDs? by Tumay Tumer on Nov 30, 2008 at 2:28:17 am
Dear Stephan:
I was delighted to hear from you that I can turn journalling on and off in the Disk Utility without reformatting eS. However, when I read all the information from Apple and I tried your instructions I saw that the “Enable Journalling“ in the File menu and inside the Disk Utility were both grayed out and not selectable. I tried to press the option key but it did not help. Looks like I may need to reformat the drive and load up everything again. What do you think?
Concerning the warning email, I did all that is listed in the manual as you have also sent me. I tried every combination I can think of for both the SMTP settings and the user data. I even tried my different email accounts. Nothing works. There may be a secret step or procedure that G-Tech is not telling us in their manual.
Another question please. I saw the verify button in the maintenance and I used it. It took about 10 hours to verify. At the end of the 10 hour long verify there was no message saying how the verify went. It just went back to “normal.” Do you know when verification should be done and how often. There is no explanation at all about verify button in the manual.
I think it is clear that the eS user manual is incomplete and not user friendly. I hope G-Tech comes out with an update on their driver software and also improve their user manual.
Re: Can one use G-Tech PCIe RAID controller to run eSATA HDs? by Stephan Walfridsson on Nov 30, 2008 at 8:53:15 am
I don't know if you got the link to the manual for the controller card, my post was moderated and they removed the link for some reason. But if you read this post: http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/176/856745 you can locate it yourself.
In that manual it says the following:
Verifying an Array
For a RAID 1 or RAID1/0 array, verify process compares the data of one mirror pair
with the other. For RAID 5, verify process calculates RAID5 parity and compares it to
the parity data on the array. Verification checks each sector on a drive. Periodic
verification of an array allows the disk drive firmware to take corrective actions on
problem areas on the disk, minimizing the occurrence of uncorrectable read and write
errors.
To disable journaling you have to (in Disk Utility) select the disk volume first and then hold down the option (alt) key while opening the file menu. Make sure that you select the logical volume that has the correct name rather than the parent volume. I hope this makes sense...
Re: Can one use G-Tech PCIe RAID controller to run eSATA HDs? by Tumay Tumer on Nov 30, 2008 at 10:13:55 am
Dear Stephan:
I searched my eS manual for “verify” and I do not see the information you have. My manual came on the CD with my eS drives. It only says a similar sentence in two different locations in the manual. The sentence goes as “ 7.6 Verify: Verifies the integrity of the RAID set.“ You may have a different manual than I have. Do you know how I can get hold of the manual you have, please?
I wished G-Tech has made a recommendation on how often one should do verification as it is a very long process.
Now it worked. I was selecting the parent volume. The details are so important. Thank you for pointing out this crucial difference.
Re: Can one use G-Tech PCIe RAID controller to run eSATA HDs? by Stephan Walfridsson on Nov 30, 2008 at 11:51:39 am
The manual I am referring to is from the actual manufacturer of the controller card. If you read the post I linked to in my previous post you can find the information about the card there. The download link on that page doesn't seem to work but if you go to the webpage directly you can find the manual there for download.
The reason why I can't be any more specific is that they moderated my last post where I actually included the download link and removed it. I don't know why they did so but that's they way it is.
In that manual you will find a lot more detailed information about the card and the software.
Re: Can one use G-Tech PCIe RAID controller to run eSATA HDs? by Tumay Tumer on Dec 8, 2008 at 10:52:33 am
Dear Stephan:
Sorry for my delay. I was attending the RSNA Conference last week. I am now trying to catch up with my piled up work.
I downloaded the RAID card manual. I have not read it fully yet but it looks that it has much more information than the meager G-Tech eS Manual. From what I see, all the RAID job is done by this card. I think G-Tech should have at least included this manual on their CD because they are in fact selling this card to their customers. I wonder why they are not making this manual available. I wish we can hear from the G-Tech engineer who responded before, why G-Tech is not providing better information to their customers.
I ordered my third eS to be used for the Time Machine. I hope it will work.
Thank you very much. You are very accurate and a great help.
