I created a mirrored RAID (RAID 1) using 2 Western Digital 2TB external hard drives before, using Disk Utility on a Mac. For this, it should be software RAID. And then I got a WD Thunderbolt Duo 6TB, with two 3TB drives in it. The question is, it seems that I can just create a RAID set inside of Disk Utility, as RAID 1, and then I will have a. To browse the Disk Utility User Guide, click Table of Contents at the top of the page. Disk Utility User Guide. Set up and manage RAID disk sets. Overview of creating disk sets. Unmount a disk set or disk member. Repair a disk in a mirrored disk set. Add a disk to a disk set. If a disk in a disk set on Mac fails or is missing. SoftRAID's software RAID system for Mac protects your files from sudden disk failure, constantly monitors and tests disks for reliability, and to ensure they aren't failing. Software for Mac GoodSync for WD. Install WD Discovery for Mac. WD Drive Utilities for Mac. WD Security for Mac. Product Firmware Product. If your product is not listed above, please visit the product page. Oct 25, 2015 This means that you will need to use other software to create a RAID. Also, Disk Utility no longer monitors the health of your hard drives, nor does it allow you to repair permissions. THE OLD DISK UTILITY. In versions of the Mac OS prior to 10.11, when Disk Utility was started, a RAID option existed in the menu bar at the top.
RAID software is built-in to OS X. It is in Disk Utility. Simply open DU and select one of the mounted drives from the left side list, click on the RAID tab in the DU main window. You can select the type of RAID - striped or mirrored - then add the volumes you want for the array. If you need help select DU Help from DU's Help menu and search for 'raid.' DU can only configure RAID 0, RAID 1, or RAID 0+1 arrays. If you want anything more you either need a hardware RAID controller or third-party RAID software. To learn more see: RAID Basics For basic definitions and discussion of what a RAID is and the different types of RAIDs see RAIDs. Additional discussions plus advantages and disadvantages of RAIDs and different RAID arrays see: RAID Tutorial; RAID Array and Server: Hardware and Service Comparison>. Hardware or Software RAID? RAID Hardware Vs RAID Software - What is your best option? RAID is a method of combining multiple disk drives into a single entity in order to improve the overall performance and reliability of your system. The different options for combining the disks are referred to as RAID levels. There are several different levels of RAID available depending on the needs of your system. One of the options available to you is whether you should use a Hardware RAID solution or a Software RAID solution. RAID Hardware is always a disk controller to which you can cable up the disk drives. RAID Software is a set of kernel modules coupled together with management utilities that implement RAID in Software and require no additional hardware. Pros and cons Software RAID is more flexible than Hardware RAID. Software RAID is also considerably less expensive. On the other hand, a Software RAID system requires more CPU cycles and power to run well than a comparable Hardware RAID System. Also, because Software RAID operates on a partition by partition basis where a number of individual disk partitions are grouped together as opposed to Hardware RAID systems which generally group together entire disk drives, Software RAID tends be slightly more complicated to run. This is because it has more available configurations and options. An added benefit to the slightly more expensive Hardware RAID solution is that many Hardware RAID systems incorporate features that are specialized for optimizing the performance of your system. For more detailed information on the differences between Software RAID and Hardware RAID you may want to read: Hardware RAID vs. Software RAID: Which Implementation is Best for my Application?
RAID 0 is a popular disk setup solution to achieve the fastest possible read and write disk speeds by splitting data between two or more hard drives. The latest version of Mac OS X High Sierra (10.13) does not allow you to simply install to any kind of RAID configuration. This has frustrated a lot of the Mac community. Until Mac OS X High Sierra officially supports RAID configurations, follow the steps below to setup a fully functional RAID 0 configuration.
*You will notbe able to install system updates from the App Store on your live RAID volume. However, see our workaround at the end of guide. *
In order to install the latest version of Mac OS X onto a RAID 0 slice, you must clone a copy of your Mac OS X installation straight to the RAID 0 drives (not a restore, such as Time Machine, which will not work). To accomplish this, you need an external hard drive and a copy of SuperDupersoftware in addition to your RAID 0 drives. We will use the same Mac machine (that will use RAID 0) to perform all the steps below. This method uses hardware RAID and is not a software RAID.
Note: We strongly recommend taking a full backup (Time Machine) to another drive just in case when performing these steps! Save yourself from an accident!
Use SuperDuper to clone your existing copy of Mac OS to the external drive.If you want to a fresh copy of Mac OS High Sierra instead, clone a copy of a fresh install of High Sierra to the external drive using SuperDuper.
Note: Be sure to complete your SuperDuper clones on the same type of Mac you will install the RAID 0 configuration on. This is important because your Mac OS High Sierra clone will have drivers and system files specific to that machines hardware.
Next, boot from the cloned external drive we created. Plug in the drive and hold down the option key and choose the external drive install media.
Now that we booted up from our external hard drive, we can manage our Mac’s internal hard drives and create our RAID 0 array. Remember to only create a RAID 0 array with the same model and capacity size drives.
Open Disk Utility in Applications -> Utilities and create your RAID 0 array shown below.
Go to File -> RAID Assistant
Download Mac Disk Utility
Select Striped (RAID 0)
Select your 2 internal hard drives to create the RAID array from
Name your single RAID drive. For Chunksize, choose a lower size if you will be using the RAID for regular needs (email/browsing/word processing.) For video editing, choose a higher chunk size.
Success screen appears
Open SuperDuper and copy the external drive to your new RAID 0 drive.
Raid Mac Disk Utility
The copy will complete successfully. Finally, go to System Preferences -> Startup Disk and select your new drive and restart. The first restart may take a little time as your boot files load for the first time.
You can confirm your successful RAID 0 in Disk Utility.
If system updates are available in the app store they will appear, but do not attempt to install them. Your computer will fail installing them and you will likely damage your OS installation! App Store Application updates will install OK. See below workaround.
Install Mac OS 10.13 System Updates on RAID drive
Time Machine backup your current RAID Mac OS System.
Boot to recovery mode. Destroy your RAID drive configuration and reate 2 separate Mac OS Journaled disks.
Time machine recover to one of the two disks, boot up, and install updates from App Store.
After updates are installed, create a new Time Machine Backup.
Use SuperDuper to create a clone of your Mac OS with installed updates.
Finally, boot from a different Mac OS High Sierra install disk. Create your RAID configuration and restore (using Disk Utility) or copy (Using SuperDuper) back to your RAID drive configuration.
Now you have the latest Mac OS X system updates installed on your RAID O configuration drive again. The entire process took us under 1 hour using SSD drives and USB 3.0.