Read the original post about my RAID configuration here
After using the drive in the above configuration for a few months, there are some problems I’ve noticed with it.
Upon normal operation, the sequence of events is as follows:
First, I plug in my eSATA card with no devices attached. Wait for the little icon to appear in the menu bar. I then attach the drive, and the lights on the eSATA card are solid, letting me know that it is waking up the drive. This usually takes a little while, as each of the 4 HDs have to spin up individually. When this is complete, the status lights on the eSATA card begin to flicker and the drive is mounted. When I am finished using the drive, eject from Finder and wait for it to eject before unplugging from eSATA card. Then select the expansion card icon in the menu bar and select “Turn off card”, which then allows me to eject the eSATA card. If I just pull the card out without first shutting it off I get a kernel panic.
I have experienced two problems with this configuration, both of which I’ve figured out how to get around.
The first occurs much more frequently, and is more likely to be a problem with the eSATA card/drivers. If my computer has been put to sleep, and then woken up, there is a very good chance that the drive wont work. I plug in the eSATA card, then plug in the drive as described above. The lights on the eSATA card come on, and the drive is woken up, but then does not mount and does not show up in disk utility. A restart fixes this issue.
The second problem has only occurred once, and I finally figured out how to get around it. This issue, I believe, is an issue with the LaCie device itself. On all modern LaCie disks, there is a power switch with settings “On, Auto, Off”. “On” turns the drive on, and “Auto” turns the drive off until it is plugged into a machine. The problem that I was having is, the drive was staying on, even when it was in “Auto” mode. If I flicked the switch to “Off”, then back to “Auto”, the drive would come on, even if it was not plugged in to a computer. When plugging it into the eSATA card, the activity lights would not come on at all, and the disks would not spin up (although all four lights in the back were solid blue). After hours of frustration and restarting, I finally just unplugged the power to the LaCie device, plugged it back in, and that seemed to do the trick. Changing it from “Off” to “Auto” now did not turn on the drive, and it turned on when I plugged it in to the computer as expected.
I imagine any system like this is going to have its quirks. Overall I’m satisfied, especially because when I get the drive mounted it is wicked fast.
