I'm considering the use of the built-in RAID 1 feature (mirroring) for
data reliabilty under Mac OS X for a FileMaker database.

Does anyone know exactly what happens when one of the drives fails? I
assume that, since it's RAID, the system should keep running
transparently.

So, how do we know the drive has failed? Does the RAID software give a
notification (email, applescript, etc.) that will be noticed if one is
not physically at the computer?

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In article <1fz9ogj.1gpy6h7avkuvN%md03NOSPAM (AT) xochiNOSPAM (DOT) com.invalid>,
md03NOSPAM (AT) xochiNOSPAM (DOT) com.invalid (Mike D) wrote:

I have limited experience with this, so take it as a data point and nothing
more.

we're running the built-in Raid feature (mirroring) on an XServe. Those of
you familiar with the hard drive bays on the XServe know that they just
need a little push and they pop out. Someone bumped a chair into one of the
hard drives and pushed it out. The server continued to run fine on one
drive from that point on (although in a "degraded" state) and it was some
time before we noticed. When we pushed the hard drive back in, we had to go
back to Disk Utility to resync the two drives to re-establish the RAID. If
we had configured Server Monitor to notify us, it could have sent us email
or paged us alerting us to the degraded array (we subsequently set it up to
do that). However, Server Monitor is a OS X Server utility; not sure if
something like it exists for plain ol' OS X. I only noticed when I happened
to see that both little drive access lights weren't blinking in unison like
they usually did.

sam grey <sgrey (AT) invalid (DOT) com> wrote:

Thank you!

It sounds like my concern is valid: that unless running OSX Server with
Server Monitor, one could lose one drive an never know it untill the 2nd
drive failed as well...

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In article
<1fzbiu7.16dsvyh1u4on4qN%md03NOSPAM (AT) xochiNOSPAM (DOT) com.invalid>, Mike D
<md03NOSPAM (AT) xochiNOSPAM (DOT) com.invalid> wrote:

Depending on the failure mode, something like DiskWarrior's SMART
monitor might tell you.

--
Jerry Kindall, Seattle, WA <http://www.jerrykindall.com/>

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In article <1fzd4sm.8kei8511voq6nN%md03NOSPAM (AT) xochiNOSPAM (DOT) com.invalid>,
Mike D <md03NOSPAM (AT) xochiNOSPAM (DOT) com.invalid> wrote:

The command line version of Disk Utility is called "diskutil." You
probably want either the "info" subcommand or "checkRAID" -- I bet the
latter.

--
Jerry Kindall, Seattle, WA <http://www.jerrykindall.com/>

When replying by e-mail, use plain text ONLY to make sure I read it.
Due to spam and viruses, I filter all mail with HTML or attachments.

On Fri, 08 Aug 2003 08:24:06 -0700,
Jerry Kindall (jerrykindall (AT) nospam (DOT) invalid) wrote:
Thanks Jerry! I've been looking for a command-line utility to check
RAID status.

Adding "diskutil checkRAID" to root's crontab works very well!

Beverly
--
Bev A. Kupf
"The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne" -- Chaucer