Softraid disk failures

Performance is limited by hardware. Intel SSD's in RAID 0 should give much better performance.

How are they connected? If thunderbolt, I would expect 600MB/s reads/writes.

Non RAID volumes work fine with SoftRAID. I personally have all my non RAID volumes at home as SoftRAID volumes. There is a problem with Disk Utility, where it can crash when trying to initialize SoftRAID formatted disks, but that is Disk Utility, a bug that Apple has not bothered to fix. But you can convert disks to Apple format, to avoid this.

I do not know what you refer to as "damaged" disks. SoftRAID is only a disk driver and cannot damage anything. If you certify a disk, that is an intensive process that reads/writes to the entire disk. If a disk cannot pass this test, then it can fail. Or if a disk cannot manage the random IO test, it will fail.

Do not perform a random I/O test on disks without adequate cooling, such as USB enclosure disks.

The certify process does not use the SoftRAID driver. It is all scripts we wrote using the OS to perform the work. Yes, a certify is an intensive task for a disk, but if they cannot pass a certify, they should not be used in our opinion.

We test with Thumbdrives all the time. But we never use off brand Thumbdrives. Good quatlity thumbdrives work fine and we use them for testing.

If you are using USB, avoid it. Especially cheaper USB enclosures, which are poorly made and often cannot handle the more intense I/O activity that SoftRAID can throw at them.
Hope this helps.

Thanks for your reply
1. Raid 0 speed
I have two SSD disks inside Mac mini server 2011 machine. So the ssd disks are internal. I changed them to
Softraid disks. The read is around 850 MB/s but the write is around 120 MB/s. It is interesting when I touch the alt button the screen shows two Raid 0 disks instead of one. When I choose one of them the booting is quick. On the other hand if I choose the other the booting after a while freezes. I have not updated the Intel firmware on the old ssd drive but nevertheless the overall write speed RAID 0 should not as low as 120 MB/s. I have made a fresh Sierra install and I have erased by disks by Disk Utility by the second severe erase method. It took some time to erase them.
2. Damaged USB stick and external HDD non Raid disks
Currently my USB stick and HDD freezes. I cannot change them back into Apple disks, I cannot erase them with Apple Disk Utility or with Softraid. I tried to correct the situation with Diskwarrior but with no avail. When I have tried these steps with Softraid, your app even suggested my internal RAID 0 is degrading ... I think it was such a false alarm after two restarts this problem was gone. What should I do ?
3. Certified disk
You have not underfoot it correctly I certified this HDD in Softraid. Eventhough it was certified it started to have such problems. I don't know why – maybe because of the tremendous pressure done by disk testing ?
4. Firewire 800 enclosures and original HDD disk
I am using exclusively external quality enclosures. I cannot erase the whole disk either by Softraid or by disk utility.
5. Usb stick
I was using 16 gb Kingston DataTraveler 3.0 Media . I cannot erase the whole thumb drive either by Softraid or by disk utility.
Thanks

Ad Firewire Enclosure
This is my external enclosure
https://www.pretec.cz/?lng=en&t=3&v=83
During the test and when using with Softraid it was very hot.

Yes and the thumb drive was very hot too ...

This enclosure is not suitable for more than very casual use of a disk.

It can probably certify a disk, but random access testing can damage the drive.

get good enclosures that allow for drives to cool!

Do not use the random access part of the test on any disk that is not fan cooled. It can destroy a disk, as the I/O activity is very intense and heat will build up. Same applies to Thumbdrives. Do a two pass certify to refresh the media, and disable the random access test.

1. Raid 0 speed
SoftRAID does not affect write speeds. A RAID 0 will get close to double the performance on each disk. Your enclosure may be bad, something is wrong, this is not a SoftRAID issue.

SoftRAID is a better tool to zero media, or use a 2 pass certify on SSD's. If you erase them with Disk Utility and the last pass is not zero, then they may get very slow. Use SoftRAID. If they are not well cooled, do not use the random access test.

2. Damaged USB stick and external HDD non Raid disks
SoftRAID lets you convert any disk (with a non RAID volume) back to Apple format. Or you can "zero disk" (100 sectors is enough), then use them with Disk Utility.

3. Certified disk
If you have disks in enclosures that do not cool and do the random access test, yes your disks can have problems.
A Certify is a stressful, but simple test for a disk.

4. Firewire 800 enclosures and original HDD disk
Zero disk with SoftRAID. That is all you need to do to "wipe" it.

Same precaution applies with regards to heat. The enclosure you sent a link to cannot handle a random access test.

5. Usb stick

Same as above. Kingstons' are good Thumbdrives. We use exclusively Kingston Thumbdrives in house and they work very well. We never do the random access test, however. I suspect that is what you did.

Thanks for a reply
1. Raid 0 write speed
Please read my question carefully. Disks are not external there are two internal SSDs. I have zeroed them before using. Maybe I should get a new firmware but the speed is so slow I doubt this is the problem . Maybe somebody from the forum has similar experience and would let me know.

2. Damaged USB stick and external HDD non Raid disks
No I cannot change them into Apple drives again. I tried it without no avail. Softraid says disks are busy even though all other apps are closed.

3. Certified disk
Yes I agree the certification probably damaged the disks. There should be warning that the test might damage the disk in the Softraid menu and you need enclosures with cooling. Nothing about this is also written in Quickstart guide.

4. Firewire 800 and original disk
Yes I zeroed it.

5. Usb stick
Yes I agree the certification probably damaged the disks. There should be warning that the test might damage the disk in the Softraid menu and you need enclosures with cooling. Nothing about this is also written in Quickstart guide.

6. Clone
Can I clone the raid 0 to s single disk by Carbon Copy Cloner ? I tried it with RAID 0 and it was not working.
very well.

Thanks

Thanks for a reply
1. Raid 0 write speed
Do a 2 pass Certify on the disks. No random test. This will "refresh" the SSD's. If you are still getting slow writes, then the SSD's have a problem.

2. Damaged USB stick and external HDD non Raid disks
If there is a volume on the USB stick, first unmount it, then zero disk with SoftRAID.

3. Certified disk
I will recommend we add this to our documentation, thanks.

4. Firewire 800 and original disk
Yes I zeroed it.
- does this mean it is OK now? when you zero it with SoftRAID, Disk Utility will see it as a "new" or unformatted disk.

6. Clone
Can I clone the raid 0 to s single disk by Carbon Copy Cloner ? I tried it with RAID 0 and it was not working.
- Carbon Copy Cloner works with any volume to any volume. As long as the destination is large enough to accept the data. CCC does not care what kind of volume is on either side of the copy process, it just clones the data over. There are no bugs in cloning SoftRAID disks that we have seen.

 

Thanks for all your replies
1. Raid 0 write speed
Do a 2 pass Certify on the disks. No random test. This will "refresh" the SSD's. If you are still getting slow writes, then the SSD's have a problem.

I have been making this Certify test on the disks. Softraid found two errors (writing pattern) on one disk. Should I replace this disk ? Is this the reason for slow write speeds in Raid 0. What do you thing ?

2. Damaged USB stick and external HDD non Raid disks
If there is a volume on the USB stick, first unmount it, then zero disk with SoftRAID.

No, there is no volume on USB stick. I cannot zero it with Soft raid. Softraid says this disk is being used by another application. No app has been opened.

3. Certified disk
I will recommend we add this to our documentation, thanks.

4. Firewire 800 and original disk
Yes I zeroed it.
- does this mean it is OK now? when you zero it with SoftRAID, Disk Utility will see it as a "new" or unformatted disk.

I have to deal with this later.

6. Clone
Can I clone the raid 0 to s single disk by Carbon Copy Cloner ? I tried it with RAID 0 and it was not working.
- Carbon Copy Cloner works with any volume to any volume. As long as the destination is large enough to accept the data. CCC does not care what kind of volume is on either side of the copy process, it just clones the data over. There are no bugs in cloning SoftRAID disks that we have seen.

Sorry for misunderstanding I meant the bootable clone was not working properly. RAid 0 to bootable clone done by Carbon Copy Cloner. Does it work.

Thank you

1. If you are getting ANY certify errors, then your hardware is unreliable. Either the drive is not able to reliably read, or its enclosure/cables are unreliable.

2. Connect the USB drive to a different system. Run SoftRAID on it and "uninstall driver".
Then see if Disk Utility can work with it. If it cannot, it is a problem with the drive.

6. CCC is able to make bootable volumes. You need to clone from the same OS X flavor, then try "rebuild boot cache" after the clone is completed.