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News Archive for Wednesday January 20, 2010 Goto Current News Page
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| Anyone else using two Seritek/5PM Enclosures with a single RocketRaid card? |
| Update - Jan 25th: Firmtek sent a follow-up:
"Dear Mike, The SeriTek/5PM user who posted the question below has resolved the issue (RT 4624).
FirmTek tested multiple SeriTek/5PM enclosures with the RR 2314 and found that they were all able to mount. In this case, the customer found that running Disk Warrior corrected his issue. He is now using both SeriTek/5PM units with each configured as a RAID 5.
I hope this information is helpful.
Thank you, Michael
FirmTek"
(original post from Jan 20th follows)
I've never owned a RR card (any model) or this Enclosure but posting this reader problem report below in case anyone has a suggestion/tip.
"We are still Leopard only but I am hoping you can assist with this problem, as I've not been able to get help from Highpoint. We have one Firmtek Seritek/5PM Five-Bay Port Multiplier w/ five 1 TB Seagate Barracudas as RAID 5 - driven by a Highpoint RocketRAID 2314 card in a Mac Pro O/S 10.5x for a Final Cut Pro suite. All was well until I installed another, slotted in five 1.5 TB Barracudas, plugged it into the 2314 port multiplier card and powered everything up. Now, the dialog box on the Mac states the original Firmtek RAID cannot be mounted - asking me to ignore, erase, etc.(the new one had a bad drive - replacement on the way) today). The web management software for the card sees the drives. Disk Utility sees the drives.
I did ask for help from Firmtek and their reply is below. I believe another external enclosure can be attached independently of the original and have both mount on the desktop and both work together. But the question is - I still have my data on the original enclosure so what steps to take to be able to mount?
(reply from Firmtek support)
"The HighPoint RR2314 should allow multiple RAID configurations. I have not seen this type of HighPoint error. However, I am willing to look at the Apple System Profiler data and see if I have any ideas on the issue. It may be that using the Web manager for some HDDs and Disk Utility for others is the issue. Since the controller determines how the hard disks mount this may be a RR 2314 driver issue."
(I didn't see any updates to their enclosure's bridge board/firmware but did see a note on their Seritek/5PM Enclosure page:
"The SeriTek/5PM may need to be turned off during disk configuration changes with some hard disk models."
But since they didn't mention it in their reply I assume it's not related nor a fix.-Mike)
Mike, I did have both Seritek enclosures off. We corresponded a few times and here is their comment as of 5
minutes ago.
-Kirk R.
(Firmtek's latest reply)
"The issue you are experiencing has nothing to do with the SeriTek/5PM. If the enclosure turns on it is working. Mounting hard disks on the desktop is the sole responsibility of the controller. If you were using the SeriTek/2ME4-E this issue would not exist. However, the HighPoint RR 2314 web manager is more complicated
which can cause issues to show up that will not appear with a Disk Utility based card like the SeriTek/2ME4-E.
I am guessing you are asking FirmTek for help with the RR 2314 as HighPoint is not available?
This is what I would do.
1. Install a fresh copy of Mac OS X on a spare erased hard disk. (This would provide a fresh install where we do not need to be concerned about a 3rd party conflicts causing the issue.
2. Disconnect all FireWire and USB devices except the mouse and keyboard.
3. Restart the computer with the fresh install as the boot disk.
4. Install the attached RR 2314 v2.2.2 driver. Restart the computer.
5. Attach the SeriTek/5PM that is having issues. Do the hard disks mount after 30 seconds? If not, restart the computer with the 5PM on. Do the hard disks mount now? If automatic rebuild is not turned on in the HighPoint web manager a restart is usually required to mount a RR 2314 RAID on the Mac Pro.
6. If the volume does not mount, my guess is that either the RAID directory is corrupted or hard disk failure is the cause.
It is important to understand that RAID 5 can fail just like a RAID 0. In both cases users need a backup copy of any important data. RAID 5 may be able to recover with a new disk but that is not always the case. Unfortunately, too many users do not understand that RAID 5 can fail.
I hope this information is helpful.
-Michael (FirmTek)"
(Just guessing but I wonder if clearing the system cache would matter. I've also seen cases of /volume info corruption causing problems with ext drives mounting.)
(per later update repairing the boot drive did solve it) |
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| USB High-Power Wireless N Adapter for Macs |
| Late posting this, from a reader mail. (There's been other hi-power wireless, antennas, etc. over the years - this is just the most recent mail I've gotten on one.)
"
Subject: Long Range "N" Wireless for Mac
This has been making the rounds at a few tech blogs this week: http://www.bearextender.com/
Bottom line if you have dodgy connections with Airport this device might just be the cure - ugly in my opinion but I'd use it of it was the only thing that worked...
Cheers, Don"
They note "BearExtender's 0.7 Watt (700mW) maximum power Wi-Fi radio is over 10 times as powerful as the internal AirPort card that shipped in your Mac (32mW)". Not sure what chipset this is based on, but it requires a driver install (and doesn't support 64-bit leopard) - I suspect it's RAlink chip based as they've had OS X 10.3.x and later drivers for years now. Also per the specs it's 2.4GHz only, supports WEP, WPA, WPA2 Personal and WPS encryption (WPA2 Enterprise not supported). The BearExtender page also notes:
Not Compatible (with)
- First generation iBook "Clamshell"
- XServe (Early 2008) with Snow Leopard
- XServe (Early 2009) with Snow Leopard
- Mac Pro (Early 2008) with Snow Leopard
- Mac Pro (Early 2009) with Snow Leopard
Their how it works page has more info on install/setup. Price listed is $44.97 but as of this morning (Jan 20th) it's temporarily out of stock. (30 day MBG less shipping/return shipping costs.) |
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