OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS User manual

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)
1.6.6 Disk Striping with Distributed Parity (RAID 5)
1.6.7 Clear RAID Mode
2 SYSTEM SETUP
5 APPENDIX
6 CUSTOMER SERVICE
6.1 BEFORE CONTACTING CUSTOMER SERVICE
6.2 CUSTOMER SERVICE HOURS OF OPERATION
2.1 HARD DRIVE INSTALLTION
2.2 REPLACING HARD DRIVES
2.3 CONNECTIONS TO COMPUTER
2.4 CONVERTING TO DESKTOP UNIT
3 FORMATTING
3.1 MACINTOSH FORMATTING
3.2 REMOVING AN EXISTING GUID PARTITION (PRECONFIGURED SOLUTIONS)
3.3 WINDOWS FORMATTING
4 TROUBLESHOOTING & TIPS
4.1 TROUBLESHOOTING
4.2 USAGE TIPS
5.1 FAQ
5.2 ABOUT DATA BACKUP

1.1 System Requirements
1.1.1 Mac Requirements
Dependent on the interface card you purchase to use with this solution. Please check
the specications 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 specications of the controller card to determine system requirements.
1.1.3 Supported Drives
•Up to 4 3.5” SATA or SAS drives (1.5Gb/s, 3.0Gb/s, or 6.0Gb/s)
•40GB - 3.0TB per HDD
•Drives of identical capacity / model are required for RAID congurations
1.2 Package Contents
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 1 - Introduction
1 INTRODUCTION
Item
➀Power cable
➁Rack Mounting Handles
➂ Desktop Mounting Feet
➃ Screws for Rack / Desktop Conversion
➄ Software CD Bundle (solutions only)
➅ User Guide & Owner’s Manual
1.3 About This Manual
Firmware, images, and descriptions may vary slightly between this manual and the
unit shipped. Functions and features may change depending on the rmware version.
Please visit the product webpage for the most recent specications.
➂
➃
➀
➁
➅
➄

OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 1 - Introduction
1.5.1 LED Indicators
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)
1.4 Rear View & Cable Connections
1.5 Front View & LED Indicators
Each drive by has a multicolor LED indicator.
Power:
• O = Power o
• Blue = Power on (all 4 drive bays)
Access:
• Flashing Red = Drive being accessed
Rebuild:
• Blinking red = Rebuilding RAID array
• Solid Red = Faulty drive
Power On/O button
is inside the front door on the left side.

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 denitions of dierent 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 dierent capacities. Combining is an array (not RAID)
that is written sequentially to, across the hard drives. By itself, it does not provide any
performance or redundancy benets.
1.6.2 Disk Striping (RAID 0)
The drives show up as one large (single) volume. It is highly recommended to use
identical hard drives for this RAID method. However, you can utilize drives of dierent
capacity, but realize that the RAID size will be based on the smallest capacity total of
the drives used in the RAID set.
Used when speed is the primary objective but RAID Level 0 (also called “striping”) is
not redundant. This array splits each piece of data across the drives in segments. Since
data is written without parity data-checking, it allows for the fastest data transfer rates,
but if one drive fails, the whole array can become corrupted.
1.6.3 Disk Mirroring (RAID 1, only 2 drives installed)
The drives show up as one volume, but only 50% of the total capacity can be used. It
is highly recommended to use identical hard drives for this RAID method. However,
while you can utilize drives of dierent capacity, the RAID size will be based on the
smallest capacity total of the drives used in the RAID set. RAID 1 creates an exact copy
(or “mirror”) of a set of data on the second drive. This is useful when reliability and
backup are more important than capacity. When one drive fails, it can be replaced and
the data rebuilt.
Storage Capacity Data Safety Performance
Storage Capacity Data Safety Performance
Storage Capacity Data Safety Performance

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.
1.6.5 Disk Striping with dedicated parity (RAID 3)
The drives show up as one volume, but the total capacity, depending on the drive with
the smallest capacity, is the combined size minus the size of one drive. RAID 3 uses
byte level striping with parity data located on 1 disk. Very fast performance can be
achieved with RAID 3.
1.6.6 Disk Striping with distributed parity (RAID 5)
The drives show up as one volume, but the total capacity, depending on the drive with
the smallest capacity, is the combined size minus the size of one drive. RAID 5 uses
block level striping with parity data distributed across all member disks and therefore
provides the perfect balance between high performance and data integrity. When one
hard drive fails, it can be replaced and the data rebuilt automatically.
1.6.7 Clear RAID Mode (also known as Independent)
Each drive will appear as a single volume. If you wish to use a mixed variety of capacity
and model hard drives, this is the mode to use.
NOTE:
Hard drives of identical model are required for all RAID types.
Storage Capacity Data Safety Performance
Storage Capacity Data Safety Performance
Storage Capacity Data Safety Performance

OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 2 - System Setup
2.1 Drive Installation
NOTE: If you purchased a precongured 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. Slide the drive all the way into
the drive bay. It will t ush with
the aluminum frame.
4. Repeat the previous steps for each hard drive you are installing.
NOTE: Be careful to not damage any components, and do not force the drives into
place. If they don’t slide in easily, make sure there are no obstructions.
IMPORTANT:
In most cases, is not possible to add more drives to an existing RAID array or change
the RAID conguration without reformatting. This will depend on your controller card
and the operating system that you are using. Some cards support OLE and ORLM on
the Windows platform. Check your controller card manual for more information.
2 SYSTEM SETUP

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 defec-
tive 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 immedi-
ately to assure continued
backup and data safety. To
remove the hard drive from the enclosure, simply use the ip lever located above the
hard drive to eject the drive mechanism.
If more than one drive fails at the same time, or if one drive fails and your controller
card’s RAID mode is not set to a mode with redundancy, data will be lost.
1. Check the Drive LED and replace the faulty drive. The red LED indicates the defective
hard drive. Depending on the controller card you are using, the power may need to be
turned o - check your controller card manual to conrm this. You may be able to leave
the RAID powered on.
2. After replacing the defective drive, power on the OWC Mercury Rack Pro (if neces-
sary).
3. Using the RAID controller card managment software, follow the instructions there or
within the RAID controller card manual to proceed with the rebuild process. Depend-
ing on the card you are using, this may be automatic.
NOTE: Combined drives or independent drives can have the data from the good drives
recovered in most cases.

2.3 Connections to Computer
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 precongured solution, your OWC Mercury Rack Pro is preset as a RAID 5,
using the “Mac OS Extended” format and is ready to use. If you want to change this
conguration, please follow the instructions in Chapter 3 to do so.
A few precautions and notes when using your external storage device:
• Do not expose the product to water or humid conditions.
• Do not cover the enclosure’s ventilation holes.
• Before connecting the device to your computer, install the hard drives.
• For the safe removal of your drive and to assure that no data is lost, always eject or
unmount the drive from your operating system before powering o.
• In order for the computer to access volumes larger than 2TB, both the hard-
ware and Operating System need to support large volumes (e.g.: Windows Vista
32bit/64bit or Mac OS X 10.4 and above).
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 2 - System Setup
Power Input
Voltage Switch
External mini-SAS Port

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 o.
Once you have removed the rack pulls, turn the OWC Mercury Rack Pro over and at-
tach the 4 rubber feet using a Phillips scredriver to the bottom of the enclsure.
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 2 - System Setup

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
Click on the “Initialize” button.
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.
➀
➁
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!

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.
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.
➂
➃
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 3 - Formatting

Choose a name for the volume. You will need to repeat this step for each
volume if you selected multiple partitions. Click Apply to nish.
➄
➅
After a few moments, partitioning will complete and the OWC Mercury
Rack Pro volume will mount on your desktop. You can quit Disk Utility,
you’re all set!
OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 3 - Formatting

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)
➆ Type exit and hit enter.
➇ Close the command prompt window. You may now proceed with formatting the
drive.
WARNING: The clean command will destroy ALL data on the disk you run it on!!!
Be sure there is nothing you need to keep on your drive before running any of these commands.
If you purchased a precongured solution from OWC, it comes preformatted using
the Mac OS HFS+ le system on a GUID drive partition. Unfortunately, this is not
readable by Windows without special software. If you wish to use your storage solu-
tion on a computer running Windows, you will need to repartition and reformat
using the following instructions.
➀ Go to the DOS command prompt by select-
ing “Run” from the Start Menu.
➁ Type in cmd in text box, and hit the“OK” but-
ton.
➂ Type diskpart and hit enter.
➃ Type list disk and hit enter.
➄ Type select disk xreplacing xwith the number of the disk you want to reformat.
(Typically, you will see an asterisk (*) under “GPT” for the disk requiring formatting.)
➅ Type clean and hit enter.

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. Then, right
click next to the disk number of the drive that you
have just connected and click Initialize to bring up the Wizard.
➁ In the next window, there
should be only one drive listed.
That will be the drive that you
connected via eSATA, FireWire
or USB. Make sure the box next
to the drive name is checked
and click “Next.”
➂ The Wizard will perform its
tasks, and you will get the follow-
ing screen. You may click “Finish.”

OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 3 - Formatting
➃ Your drive will
appear similar to how
Disk 1 does below.
Notice that the space
on the lower right
reads as “Unallo-
cated.” 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. Click “Next”

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 format-
ted. On most systems
running Windows 2000
or later, it is advisable to
specify the le 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”.
If you do not, it will likely
take several hours for your drive to format. Click “Next.”
➉ At the end of the
Wizard, you will see a
summary of the informa-
tion that you specied
during the previous
steps. Click “Finish.”

OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 3 - Formatting
➀➀ Once you have
nished with the
formatting wizard,
you will see that your
new drive (repre-
sented as “Disk E” in
this case) will display
a message of “For-
matting.” This should
only take a couple of
minutes if you chose
the quick format op-
tion.
➀➁ After a mo-
ment or two, the
drive’s status will
change from “For-
matting” to “Healthy.”

OWC Mercury Rack Pro mini-SAS Chapter 3 - Formatting
Using your new Storage Solution on both Macs and PCs?
MacDrive takes the guesswork out of sharing les. Whether you are trans-
ferring les between home and the oce, 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. Once installed MacDrive
will automatically give you access to any Mac disk you pop into your com-
puter. MacDrive even puts an “apple”
icon on the Mac disk, just to keep
things clear.
You can access les on the Mac disk
just like you would with a Windows
formatted disk. Open les from the
disk or from within a program. Mac
les automatically get the right icons
and le name extensions under both
Windows and Mac OS. Works great
with software from Microsoft, Adobe,
Quark, FileMaker, Avid, Digidesign,
Corel, NewTek and more.
You can nd MacDrive 8 at:
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/macdrive
➀➂ At this point, you may close the Computer Management window.
Your drive is ready to use and can be found in “My Computer.”