With most of Apple’s sales being laptops these days, I’m guessing I’m in the minority installing Lion onto a RAID volume (in this case a RAID 0 SSD and a RAID 10 for the server). The much discussed command-r to enter an invisible partition designed for system recovery will not create itself if you’re installing onto a RAID volume.
This is probably not a huge issue as most users competent enough to set up a RAID should have no issue with manual diagnosis of system issues, however it’s something worth knowing if you do run a RAID and you’re about to upgrade to lion.
One other potential issue that is perhaps likely to affect more proficient users is the lack of FileVault (encrypted volume support) under a RAID setup.
UPDATE: Lion server seems to be a very buggy upgrade. There are lots of reports of the upgrade failing and then making a mess of things. This happened to me too even through it is essentially just a simple file server. I’d suggest a clean install when possible.
UPDATE: Apple has released a recovery tool creator here. This will recreate the same partition as the invisible one normally created on a non-raid volume. Unfortunately however, you need to do this on a machine that already has a recovery partition on it. It is still likely a better solution to create a full bootable Lion drive on either an external hard disk, DVD or USB drive. Guides for doing this can be found in lots of places, here are a couple. Link 1, link 2, link 3.
Hey, I am sitting on my MacPro with a RAID 10 confirguration. I have 4 drives, two striped together and then mirrored. I am holding on the upgrade to Lion to see if someone can tell me how to reconfig my RAID to support those features you mentioned. Any ideas?
I’ve got a Hackintosh that I’m about to upgrade to a Raid 10 (mirror then stripe) array, and this is disappointing news. Not only does it seem more difficult to install the upgrade, we also miss out on the vastly-improved FileVault, as well as the built-in restore.
I’d love to see a followup on more of your experiences post-Lion. Thanks!
that before. So wonderful to find another person with genuine thoughts on this subject.
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