Apple RAID 1.5 is a SoftRAID Solution developed by Conley Corporation and bundled with all configurations of the Apple Workgroup Server 7350 and 9650 as an Apple labeled product. It is the next version of Apple RAID following the 1.1.1 version shipping with previous Apple Workgroup Servers.
Changes In Apple RAID 1.5 (from Apple RAID 1.1.1)
User Interface Refinements
- Resizable main window
- Moveable Create New Volume window
- Better expanded drive view in Create New Volume window
- HFS default on single drag
- Excess white space removed on dialog sequences
- Extraneous initialization dialog removed
- Quick initialization added
- Info button added (can display card vendor name and drive inquiry string)
- Cache mode page settings dialog
- Apple RAID 1.5 lists buses as "0,1,2..."; Apple RAID 1.2 lists buses as "A, B, C...",
- On-line help (Apple Guide)
- Single button dialogs changed from "Cancel" to "OK"
- Drive free space in the main window now indicates total free space and largest available space
- Apple RAID 1.5 driver loads volumes in partition map order; first one created is the first one mounted (1.2 loads in inverse order)
Other Improvements
- Native driver (the fastest driver, as measured by driver latency, RAID or otherwise, on PowerMac)
- VM safe driver
- Disk Write-Back Cache support
- Eight terabyte support
- Up to 16 drives per stripe
- Up to 32 partitions per drive
- Serial SCSI support (up to 128 devices per bus, SSA IDs)
- Auto-start support (if drive is waiting for startup command)
- Staggered auto-start of every eight devices (faster boot time with many devices)
- Multiple lun support
- Network notification / pager support. (not in the Apple RAID version that will ship)
- Can take over FWB, Remus and CharisMac RAID or non-RAID volumes
- Can shrink volumes if needed to install SoftRAID driver
- RAID driver can be installed without requiring low-level disk format. Three options are available: 1) Full low-level format; 2) Quick initialize (first 100 blocks); 3) Take over existing partitions
- Support of all third party PCI SCSI cards, including Ultra Fast and Wide SCSI
- Creates RAID arrays on any combination of SCSI bus/SCSI ID
- Exclusive Mirror synchronization bit check
- Clear out-of-synch re-synchs mirrored volumes manually as an alternative to rebuilding