RAID Panther/Tiger caution on G5 towers...formatting

MacDoc · Jun 8th, 2005, 10:46 PM

Hmmm some more odd issues surfacing with Tiger.

a) If you are looking at continuing to use Panther on one of the "now shipping" model G5 Towers the standard Panther installers don't appear to boot or install properly.
Only the Tiger installers. ...

Now this sucks as in some cases apps are not ready to work with Tiger and Panther is the preferred OS.
We did not run into this until just recently as we still had stock of the PCiX boxes.
They are dwindling rapidly and we brought in a couple of the current models.

We knew there was a problem with the iMac G5s in this regard but did not think it applied to the towers.

........we'll keep you posted on THIS aspect as we explore further.

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BTW the new packaging the current model G5 towers is vertical and WAAAAAY easier on the back

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Now for the RAID

The RAID setup is different from Panther to Tiger but we did not know quite how different.
This is the second part of this caution.

IF you configure your RAID in Tiger then try to go back to Panther the RAID is not seen by a Panther installer or hard drive.

This makes consulting a tad tricky and one certainly has to think carefully about which OS.
Now the RAID situation applies to ALL G5 towers - go to a Tiger based RAID and it's invisible in Panther.

A RAID set up IN Panther is seen by Tiger and Panther and can boot Tiger or Panther.

A RAID set up in Tiger is NOT seen by Panther and can ONLY boot and be seen with Tiger.

We're still trying to ascertain what this means regarding Firewire drives - if they are formatted in Tiger they may not come up in Panther but it may be restricted to the RAID.

All accurate reports on this aspect are welcome as it could cause quite a bit of grief especially is the Firewire drive aspect occurs where systems running Panther maybe cannot see drives formatted in Tiger.

I'll try and do some more testing tonight with various combinations.

This was completely unexpected.

ArtistSeries · Jun 8th, 2005, 10:48 PM

Does this have anything to do with formatting case sensitive HSF?

MacDoc · Jun 8th, 2005, 10:57 PM

I don't know - I want to know more about the long list of options in the formatting in the Disc utility - I asked GordGuide but no feedback.
The RAIDs and journaling I'm okay with but some of the other options I'm not.
Time to do some digging here.

Apple has obviously been changing the "under the hood" aspects.

Somebody emailed me the other day saying their Firewire all of a sudden showed up as Fat32 -

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After doing some reading the the case sensitive formatting issue has to be chosen specifically, is recommended against as Adobe and some other apps will not work with it.
The RAID issue between Panther and Tiger is something else.
BTW an annoying change is that the default RAID is mirrored not striped.

Couple of nasty words floating around the office from staff that didn't realize it in setting up machines.

I'm going to strip my RAID and reformat with Tiger and maybe that will help the Spotlight hiccup.