Step 23: Benchwork



This is What You Have Worked For.

Benchtest. Burn-in your new array. Benchmark it. Love life.

RAID Tutorial by magician. Photos by Frank T.

This is the Payoff

1. Attach the completed RAID to your Mac, remember to install your external terminator, and ensure the drives are set to different SCSI addresses using the external SCSI ID selector on the backplane of the Burly Enclosure. Remember not to use SCSI ID 7, as that is the address used by your SCSI card.

2. Apply power. (Do not yet close the unit. Don't be that confident. It is quite possible that you will need to reposition a wire or something. It happens to us all the time, and again, we are professionals.) Make sure your power LED on the front of the enclosure lights up. As the drives go through their boot diagnostics, watch the drive indicator LEDs. If they flicker, congratulate yourself for connecting the drive LED connectors correctly. If not, note which LED is dysfunctional (unless both are not working) so you can switch the LED wires later.

3. Once your Mac boots, open your drive formatting application (you should be using the most-current version of SoftRAID), and ensure that it sees all installed drives at the correct SCSI addresses. Since you have between six and fourteen addresses to use, depending on the number of devices supported by your SCSI ID selector, you can select any SCSI ID besides ID7. It doesn't really matter how you set your SCSI ID's, as long as you have a working system and can scan the bus to identify which drive is at which address. We sometimes write on the inside covers of our enclosures or on their backplanes with a sharpy felt pen which devices are at which ID's, if the SCSI ID's do not immediately correspond to the numbers designated by the external SCSI ID selectors on the backplane of the enclosure. It aids troubleshooting.

4. If your Mac refuses to boot, shut down, and disconnect the data connector from one of your drives (disconnect the top drive--it's the easiest to reach.) Reboot. If your Mac boots, scan the bus, and see where the working drive is addressed. If it corresponds to the ID selected on the backplane of the enclosure, you're in good shape. Shut down, select another ID, and then reboot. If the number is correct, you know you had a SCSI ID conflict, and simply need to reconnect the other drive at a different SCSI ID. Do so, then get your Mac to boot with both drives firing up.

5. If all drives and SCSI controllers are properly detected, format and stripe your drives. Test the completed RAID volumes. Exult in the gnarly performance of your new Cheetahs or Barracudas.

6. Shut down. If you need to swap LED leads, remove the drives as necessary and do so. Test your drives again, and ensure the LEDs flicker appropriately when the drives are accessed. If you need to reset your drive ID selector, simply flip them so the connectors are now facing the opposite direction, and retest. If your devices show up at the appropriate SCSI ID numbers, congratulate yourself, and get ready for a reward. If they do not, you might want to shoot us an email. Make sure you are using the correct pins!

7. If the drives are behaving appropriately, close up your new Burly Enclosure, declare victory, and crack a brewski. This would be a good time to run TimeDrive, or MacBench, or Hard Disk Toolkit benchtest, while you savor your reward and exult in the raw speed of your drives. Remember to email us and tell us how much you love your new RAID! (Likewise, if you ran into problems at some step, shoot us an email and let us know how we can help).

8. Congratulations! You are now an official geek with a very, very fast RAID! Depending on which RAID software and which Ultra SCSI boards you use, you can rest secure in knowing that you now own one of the fastest RAIDs available anywhere--and you built it!

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These Instructions Work