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Question

Can Mac OS X install/run on a RAID?

Jul 5, 2012 1:35AM PDT

I have a iMac 3.4 GHZ with 16 GB of memory, SSD boot drive and 2TB internal. I want to attach a RAID to it (OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2, eSATA, FireWire 800+USB).

Is it possible to install Mac OS X on a RAID? If so, what Mac OS X version would work best (Snow Leopard? Lion?) and what RAID level would be appropriate (I am debating between level 5 or 10).

I figure if my iMac went down I can plug and play and boot up with the RAID on another computer.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
I used google and
Jul 5, 2012 1:44AM PDT

It appears it can.

As to what RAID level, that depends on what you are looking for. We know that RAID is not going to save our files (some still believe it will!) but only you can pick which one.
Bob

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Answer
It can
Jul 5, 2012 1:26PM PDT

It can do RAID 0 (technically not RAID) and RAID 1 in software, everything else requires dedicated RAID hardware.

I would have to say that you seem to be overthinking this by a significant margin. It's one thing to have a backup drive that's bootable, but making that a RAID would be considerable overkill. If the internal drive(s) go out and you lose access to the OS, then the idea would be more to have something to help you limp along while you get the drive(s) replaced. What you're proposing is serious overkill.

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Answer
OS X from RAID works
Jul 6, 2012 10:28PM PDT

Yes, OS X can boot from RAID 0 or RAID 1. RAID 0 works very well to speed things up, but you loose reliability with having the chance for any of the drives in the array to fail. Back up is important in this case.

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Answer
RAID yes, RAID 5 iMac? No
Jul 6, 2012 10:33PM PDT

I don't think you can setup a RAID 5 with an iMac without some type of external RAID system. You should be able to do RAID 10 with 4 external drives. I have never tried it but you could first make two sets of RAID 0 arrays and then try mirroring them together. For RAID 5/6 you need some type of a controller, such as one of the Highpoint cards, but you need a tower to install the card into. Also, with drives of different speeds, RAID performance can suffer. In your case, I would just suggest booting from the SSDm storing data on the 2TB drive, and using something like CCC to back up everything to the external drive.