User Guide & Owners Manual
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Table of Contents 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 1.1.1 Mac Requirements 1.1.2 PC Requirements 1.1.3 Supported Hard Drives 1.2 PACKAGE CONTENTS 1.3 ABOUT THIS MANUAL 1.4 REAR VIEW & CABLE CONNECTIONS 1.5 FRONT VIEW & LED INDICATORS 1.5.1 LED Indicators 1.6 RAID MODES 1.6.1 Combine 1.6.2 Disk Striping (RAID 0) 1.6.3 Disk Mirroring (RAID 1) 1.6.4 Disk Mirroring with Striping (RAID 10) 1.6.6 Disk Striping with Dedicated Parity (RAID 3) 1.6.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 1 - Introduction 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 System Requirements 1.1.1 Mac Requirements Dependent on the interface card you purchase to use with this solution. Please check the specifications of the controller card to determine system requirements. 1.1.2 PC Requirements Dependent on the interface card you purchase to use with this solution. Please check the specifications of the controller card to determine system requirements. 1.1.3 Supported Drives •Up to 4 3.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 1 - Introduction 1.4 Rear View & Cable Connections Power Input Voltage Switch External mini-SAS Port Cable Connections: 1. Plug the power cable into the wall and into the OWC Mercury Rack Pro. 2. Verify that the voltage switch is set properly for your country. 3. Connect your external mini-SAS cable to your external mini-SAS controller card. (neither are included) 1.5 Front View & LED Indicators 1.5.1 LED Indicators Each drive by has a multicolor LED indicator.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro SAS Chapter 1 - Introduction 1.6 RAID Modes The OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS does not have any RAID functions built in; however most RAID cards you will choose to use with the OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS will. These definitions of different RAID modes are provided to help you decide which mode is best for you to use. 1.6.1 Combine The drives show up as one large single volume. The total size will depend on the drives installed, you can use drives of different capacities.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 1 - Introduction 1.6.4 Disk Mirroring with Striping (RAID 10) (also known as RAID 1+0) The drives show up as one volume, but only 50% of the total capacity can be used, depending on the drive with the smallest capacity. RAID 10 creates an exact copy (or “mirror”) of a set of data but also uses a RAID 0 Stripe for speed. When one hard drive fails, it can be replaced and the data rebuilt automatically. Storage Capacity Data Safety Performance 1.6.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 2 - System Setup 2 SYSTEM SETUP 2.1 Drive Installation NOTE: If you purchased a preconfigured solution with drives, they will be numbered for proper installation in individual drive bays. Please match the drive bay numbers to the hard drives and their trays. To install your own drive mechanisms: 1. Open the front door on the OWC Mercury Rack Pro. 2. Install the hard drive as shown to the left, with the SATA connector facing away from you. 3.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 2 - System Setup 2.2 Replacing Drives If one of the drives fail, the corresponding activity LED will light up solid red If only one drive is defective and your controller card’s RAID mode is set to RAID 1, RAID 3, RAID 5, or RAID 10, the data can still be accessed, but we strongly suggest that you replace the faulty drive mechanism immediately to assure continued backup and data safety.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 2 - System Setup 2.3 Connections to Computer External mini-SAS Port Power Input Voltage Switch 1. Plug the power cable into the wall and into the OWC Mercury Rack Pro. 2. Verify the voltage switch is set properly for the country you reside in. 3. Connect the mini-SAS port to your controller card. If sold as a preconfigured solution, your OWC Mercury Rack Pro is preset as a RAID 5, using the “Mac OS Extended” format and is ready to use.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 2 - System Setup 2.4 Converting to Desktop Unit The OWC Mercury Rack Pro can be converted from a rack mounting enclosure to a desktop unit by removing the rack pulls from the sides of the enclosure, and attaching the included rubber feet to the enclosure. To remove the rack pulls, simply remove the 4 Phillips screws on the side of the rack and the rack pull will come off.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 3 - Formatting 3 FORMATTING 3.1 Formatting your OWC Mercury Rack Pro on a Macintosh with Mac OS X IMPORTANT NOTE: This procedure will erase all data on your hard disk drives in the OWC Mercury Rack Pro. Back up any important data before proceeding! ➀ Click on the “Initialize” button. ➁ Select the device with no volumes attached to it; in this picture, that would be the 4 TB OWC device. Click on the picture of the drive icon next to the text.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 3 - Formatting ➂ Once you’ve selected the OWC device, you will notice the above change in the Disk Utility application. Click on the “Partition” tab in this picture. ➃ You then need to choose how many partitions you wish your OWC Mercury Rack Pro to have. For ease of use we’re selecting one partition here but of course you could select more if you wish to have multiple volumes created. Simply use the pulldown menu under Volume Scheme to create more partitions.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 3 - Formatting ➄ Choose a name for the volume. You will need to repeat this step for each volume if you selected multiple partitions. Click Apply to finish. ➅ After a few moments, partitioning will complete and the OWC Mercury Rack Pro volume will mount on your desktop.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 3 - Formatting 3.2 Removing the GUID Partition Scheme Only for XP, 2000, ME and earlier. (XP 64-BIT, Vista & Windows 7 can continue to the next section) If you purchased a preconfigured solution from OWC, it comes preformatted using the Mac OS HFS+ file system on a GUID drive partition. Unfortunately, this is not readable by Windows without special software.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 3 - Formatting 3.3 Formatting your OWC Mercury Rack Pro on Windows 2000 and later Instructions for other operating systems can be found at http://www.macsales.com/format. ➀ With the drive connected to the computer and powered on, right click on the “My Computer” icon and select “Manage” from the menu. The “Initialize and Convert Disk Wizard” window should appear. If the Wizard does not appear, expand the Storage menu by clicking on the plus (+) sign.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS ➃ Your drive will appear similar to how Disk 1 does below. Notice that the space on the lower right reads as “Unallocated.” Right click in this space and choose “New Partition.” ➄ The “New Partition Wizard” will launch. Click “Next” to continue. ➅ Specify your partition type as “Primary,” and click “Next.” ➆ The wizard will display the maximum partition size for your drive. It is strongly recommended that you do not change the default value.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 3 - Formatting ➇ If you like, you can specify the drive letter designation for your new drive. Otherwise, one will automatically be assigned. Click “Next.” ➈ Before you can use the drive, it must be formatted. On most systems running Windows 2000 or later, it is advisable to specify the file system as NTFS. Leave the Allocation unit size as “Default,” and feel free to give the drive whatever name you prefer. Be sure to check the box “Perform a quick format”.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS ➀➀ Once you have finished with the formatting wizard, you will see that your new drive (represented as “Disk E” in this case) will display a message of “Formatting.” This should only take a couple of minutes if you chose the quick format option. ➀➁ After a mo- ment or two, the drive’s status will change from “Formatting” to “Healthy.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 3 - Formatting ➀➂ At this point, you may close the Computer Management window. Your drive is ready to use and can be found in “My Computer.” Using your new Storage Solution on both Macs and PCs? MacDrive takes the guesswork out of sharing files. Whether you are transferring files between home and the office, a class room lab and your dorm room or even on the same computer, MacDrive makes it painless. In fact, you’ll hardly know MacDrive is working.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 4 -Troubleshooting & Tips 4 TROUBLESHOOTING & TIPS 4.1 Troubleshooting Some of the most simple problems can be traced to power, or connectivity issues. Begin your troubleshooting by verifying that power is plugged into the external storage solution, and if connected to a power strip. Make sure that the power is turned on at the switch on the strip. Then, simply verify that your cables (both ends!) are properly plugged into the computer and storage soltion.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 5 - Appendix 5 APPENDIX 5.1 FAQ Q: How do I format my storage solution? A: OWC has detailed instructions online for most popular operating systems, located at: http://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/formatting.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 6 - Customer Service 6 CUSTOMER SERVICE 6.1 Before Contacting Customer Service •Read this manual and review Chapter 4: Troubleshooting & Tips. •Visit our tech center for more support suggestions, including FAQs. http://eshop.macsales.
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