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SoftRAID 2.2.2 Read Me
What's new? For seven years, SoftRAID has been the premier disk driver available for Mac OS. We hope to build on our installed base, add features, and make SoftRAID more widely available. We are in the process of developing a Mac OS X version of SoftRAID, super fast Mirror rebuilds, more RAID levels, improvements to the SoftRAID interface and better remote monitoring capabilities will be incorporated into SoftRAID in the future. Also, we are now numbering subversions into the SoftRAID application name. In the past, for instance, SoftRAID 2.1 could also be 2.1.2, and the only way to tell the difference is by doing a get info on the application. We will now be marking the SoftRAID application by including its exact version, starting with SoftRAID 2.1.5. Warning about using Mac OS 9.0.4 or Mac OS 9.1 What has Changed in SoftRAID 2.2.2? Updated in 2.2.2: SoftRAID 2.2.2 performs Mirror Rebuild and Convert To Stripe operations up to 10 times faster than previous versions. The speed of these operations is now limited only by the speed of the disk drives and SCSI cards involved. SoftRAID 2.2.2 allows the user to cancel a Mirror Rebuild or Convert To Stripe operation by choosing "Cancel Rebuild" or "Cancel Convert To Stripe" in the "Volume" menu. The SoftRAID driver is now fully compatible with all digital video capture and effects boards. This includes all Targa series boards from Pinnacle and the Digital Voodoo board from Digital Effects. A bug has been fixed which in rare circumstances would cause the SoftRAID driver to hang during Mirror Rebuild and Convert To Stripe operations. Updated in 2.2.1: SoftRAID 2.2.1 now correctly renegotiates sync and wide transfer modes when a PowerMac G4 is brought out of sleep. Updated in 2.2: SoftRAID 2.2 is fully compatible with Mac OS 9.0.4 and Mac OS 9.1. Earlier versions of SoftRAID do not mount volumes correctly when running Mac OS 9.0.4 or Mac OS 9.1. The SoftRAID driver now spins down the hard disks in response to a Macintosh sleeping. Updated in 2.1.6: The SoftRAID application and driver now support up to 255 SCSI IDs for each bus (limited by the number of IDs the bus supports). The driver code is now 8% smaller and 2 - 5% faster. The driver now uses Ordered Command Queuing if a target has any outstanding writes already queued. Tag Command Queuing is now disabled if all three driver acceleration options are off. This provides a means of disabling tag command queuing for those target devices or SCSI buses which don't implement Tag Command Queuing correctly (see the section entitled: "Using SoftRAID with Hardware RAID Controllers" below). SoftRAID now supports SCSI buses which load their drivers from an Extension in the "Extensions" folder. A bug was fixed which would occasionally cause the application to display the incorrect volume name during a Convert to Stripe operation. Updated in 2.1.5: Several user interface bugs in the application have been fixed. Support for the virtual memory driver Gestalt call has been added to the driver. A bug has been fixed which in rare circumstances would cause the SoftRAID driver to hang. Updated in 2.1: SoftRAID can create more volumes (up to 40 striped volumes). Better support for LVD (Ultra2 SCSI). Improved Mirror recovery if a drive fails. Minor improvements to the New Volume dialog box. The System Heap size is increased to 512Kb from 256Kb. A limit was removed which limited the size of an FSRead and FSWrite call to 16MB. Updated in 2.0: HFS+ Checkbox. Mount and unmount during a stripe in place hangs. Arrow keys work in the New volume dialog box. Fix to allow volume creation under Mac OS 8.5. Creating Mac OS Extended Volumes Creating New Volumes (Mirror, Stripe or Standard) To determine whether to mirror or stripe a volume, consider the following: Mirror time-critical valuable data; data you need to access frequently which must be available at a moment's notice. Stripe volumes are used with high performance applications, such as Digital Video and Photoshop. SoftRAID supports three volume types: mirrored, striped, or standard Mac HFS(+). Volumes are created by selecting New from the Volumes menu, or by dragging one or more disks to the Volumes column of the SoftRAID main window. If you have an existing volume you want to mirror, see: "Creating a Mirrored Volume from an Existing Volume." If you have an existing volume you want to stripe, see: "Creating a Striped Volume from an Existing Volume." To create a new volume: Launch SoftRAID and verify that at least two available disks appear in the Disks column (or one disk for a standard volume). If a question mark appears on the disk icon or an "invalid partition map" message appears, you must install the SoftRAID driver or initialize the disk before continuing, or do both. Drag one or more disks to the Volumes column. The Create New Volume dialog box appears Select the appropriate type from the Volume Type pop-up menu. Select two disks (or free space), if not already selected. To see partition information, click the outline triangle. Type the new volume name in the Volume Name text box. Enter the size in the Volume Size text box or click Maximum Available. NOTE: This is the size of the desktop volume. The mirroring partition is designated with an M. If you mirror non-identical disks, select the slower disk to be the mirrored partition. For a striped volume, the optimal Stripe Unit Size is 128 blocks. Click OK or Cancel. Creating a Mirrored Volume from an Existing Volume NOTE: To create a mirrored volume from an existing standard volume, that volume must be temporarily unmounted. This means the current start-up volume and the volume used to run the SoftRAID application will not be available to use the Convert-to-Mirror process. The Convert to Mirror process is not intended to be accomplished "as fast as possible". There are many safety checks built into this process. The Convert to Mirror process can therefore take many hours to complete. A rule of thumb is 100 MB/Min for fast drives. Use the volume as normal during the conversion process. To create a mirror of an existing volume: Launch SoftRAID and select the volume you want to mirror. Select Convert to Mirror from the Volume menu. The Select Mirror Disk dialog box appears showing a list of available disks, their partitions, and their free space areas. Select a disk (or free area) for the mirror and click OK. Choose a mirror build rate by sliding the two bars up or down. The slide bars determine how fast the mirror is built. NOTE: Clicking the outline triangle shows a list of free areas that can be used for the mirrored volume. The mirrored disk must contain a contiguous free area at least as large as the partition on the primary disk. Two "apparently identical" disks may have slightly different capacities, and if the mirrored drive has less total capacity (or free space) than the existing volume, SoftRAID will not let you convert the volume to a mirrored one. You will need to backup, create a new mirrored volume, and restore. Creating a Striped Volume from an Existing Volume SoftRAID's ability to create both mirror and stripe volumes from existing HFS volumes is one of SoftRAID's most powerful features. For example, if you have a 1GB volume filled with data residing on a disk mounted inside your computer, you can install a second disk of equal or larger size and build a striped volume that incorporates the existing volume. Your data is duplicated from the original, "HFS" partition to a "striped" volume in process called Stripe-in-Place. When the Stripe-in-Place process is complete, the striped volume contains all the original data striped across two disks. The Stripe-in-Place process is a background task which allows the user to operate the system with a minimal slowdown in performance. A rule of thumb is about 100MB/min for fast drives. Use the volume as normal during the conversion process, which may take several hours. To take advantage of Stripe-in-Place you must have a new disk with free space of equal or greater capacity than the volume you wish to convert to a stripe volume. To create a stripe volume using Stripe-in-place: Launch SoftRAID and select the volume you want stripe. Select Convert to Stripe from the Volume menu. The Select Stripe Disk dialog box appears showing a list of available disks, their partitions, and their free space areas. Select a disk (or free area) for the stripe and click OK. Adjust the build rate by sliding the two bars up to increase build speed. Click Stripe. NOTE: Clicking the outline triangle shows a list of free areas that can be used for the striped volume. The striping disk must contain a contiguous free area at least as large as the partition on the primary disk. The striped volume is created and can be used immediately. You can quit the SoftRAID program at any time and the striped volume continues to build in the background. Should any problems occur during the build process, see the SoftRAID Guide help file for more instructions. Installing Mac OS 8.0 & later Otherwise, a warning message will appear before the MacOS 8 installer begins the installation, after it has tested the volume. You will be told one or more times that the Installer could not update the driver. If this happens, click on the "Ignore Warning" button and proceed with the installation. Starting Up from SoftRAID Formatted Volumes Using Striped Volumes SoftRAID and Drive Setup Mac OS 8.0 Icon Problems Registration via e-mail Targa 2000 PCI Video Card Notes on using SoftRAID with Hardware RAID Controllers: Commands which use Tag Command Queuing may be executed out of order in a manner which results in data corruption. In addition, the CMD controller may fail to complete Synchronize Cache commands when Tag Command Queuing is enabled. These problems have been observed while trying to initialize large volumes (greater than 100 Gigabytes) using Mac OS 8.6. The following steps should be taken to ensure that acceleration is disabled in SoftRAID when using a hardware RAID subsystem based on a CMD controller based . Launch the SoftRAID application. Initialize each of the LUNs in the hardware RAID controller. (Don't create any volumes on the LUNs yet.) Click on one of the LUNs you just initialized and choose Install Driver. Check to see that all three of the Acceleration check boxes are unselected. Reboot your Mac. Launch the SoftRAID application a second time. Now it is safe to create volumes and start using your hardware RAID subsystem.
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