Samsung 830 on iMac Unmounts Raid Volume

sandifop

Junior Member
Apr 27, 2013
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On my 2011 iMac 21" I have a Samsung 830 256 running Mac OS 10.8.3 off the Thunderbolt bus. My data volume is an eSATA RAID0, also off the TB bus, with symlinks to Apps, Docs, Movies, etc. The eSATA is provided by a new LaCie hub and the array is in LaCie 2bigs.

Once a day the array will unmount with pretty devastating results, since most of my home folders are on it. I would suspect the array but for the following.

I've stress tested the eSATA array from my internal drive, which has a boot partition (Mac OS 10.8.[redacted]) and also symlinks home folders to the eSATA array, for days without issue.

Is there something unique about the 830 that make running an array flakey?

Thanks for your thoughts.
 

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
167
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There's nothing about the 830 in particular that would cause it to misbehave in a RAID array. Though not common, now and then you'll see them paired up for RAID-0, usually internally on a high-end PC.

That said, I can't comment on the controller you're using; the may not be fully compatible with. Does LaCie have any kind of validated drive list?
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
23,825
1,396
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Sounds like an incompatibility between the Thunderbolt controllers or something.

BTW, not TB, but I had a Firewire optical drive that would cause my internal hard drive bootup to Mac OS X to take minutes longer than usual.

P.S. RAID 0 for a data drive? Brave.
 

sandifop

Junior Member
Apr 27, 2013
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LaCie, from conversations with their tier 2 support, only supports their drives in original configurations. My SSD is on its own TB bridge (Seagate). I find it interesting the only time the array is dropped is when I have booted from the SSD AND logged on as a user using symlinks to the array. When I log on as sys admin (no symlinks) the data array has no issues.

Eug: I'm not brave. This system is only used for beta testing, video editing, watching an occasional missed network broadcast on hulu and as a surfing platform. Also, it is backed up hourly on site and has a CrashPlan back-up (in case my head gets too far into an edit and I forget to manually save and back-up). Honestly, I've had greater issues with RAID1 mirroring bad data to my back-up than striped volumes. If the LaCie had parity checking or JBOD support I'd use a different scheme.

I know I am juggling nitro. This question, however, was more about understanding why the SSD seems to have an issue with symlink'd data arrays. I'll likely build a fusion volume next month to increase the pain.
 

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
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Perhaps it's not the SSD? Perhaps it's because you're booting off of a TB drive, and then using yet another TB drive at the same time?

I hate to say it, but TB hasn't been painless.
 

sandifop

Junior Member
Apr 27, 2013
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Thanks guys. I'll just put it down as sci-fi and use the SSD as a fast transfer puck for shoots.
 

sandifop

Junior Member
Apr 27, 2013
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Eug, I try to avoid parallels but yours seems to be holding true. Except I believe TI was a better partner than Intel.
 

sandifop

Junior Member
Apr 27, 2013
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The SSD cannot get enough power and is taking out the Lacie hub when it goes down. This is what an engineer told me but I do not know if it is, in fact, the cause. Sounds right.
 

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
Moderator
Sep 15, 2004
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The SSD cannot get enough power and is taking out the Lacie hub when it goes down. This is what an engineer told me but I do not know if it is, in fact, the cause. Sounds right.

It appears that it tops out at 550mA, but I would imagine that the enclosure would account for that. Any chance it has an additional power connector?
 

lokiju

Lifer
May 29, 2003
18,526
5
0
I have the 830 but installed in internally on my same exact model iMac size and year wise.

One thing you can try is booting into windows and running the Samsung software to see if there's any firmware updates for it that might help.

Also, not sure if there's any sleep/suspend functions for connected devices that would normally not be an issue for not OS drives but of course is for the OS drive.