Comments on: Mac Mini Server RAID1 Configuration

By: Dissolve

Dissolve — Mon, 16 May 2011 15:20:23 +0000

i got this working. booting from the install disk I ran
# diskutil list
this showed me disk1s2 was my drive with data and disk0s2 was the blank drive
#diskutil appleRAID enable mirror disk1s2
#diskutil list
run this again to see what the name of the raid is, in my case it was “disk9″
#diskutil appleRAID add member disk0s2 disk9
note that the command is “member” not “mirror” again
now restart and boot normally. It may take some time, but it should recognize your raid as having a failed drive. Now just select ‘rebuild raid’ and it will take care of the rest for you.. it is running now making a copy of the good disk to the backup

By: MacBart

MacBart — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 19:50:15 +0000

Could it be the “Error -9960″ is caused by the fact that you started up (booted) from the first disk? Possibly you will avoid it when you start up from external Drive, DVD or USB-stick.

By: MacWin

MacWin — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 19:21:26 +0000

Im getting “Error -9960″. is there a better way of doing this without damaging anything in the process.

I’ll appreciate any assistance .
Thank you.

By: WaxTrax!

WaxTrax! — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 12:21:08 +0000

Just wanted to drop a note that I got this to work for me on Snow Leopard 10.6.6 using the combination of everyone’s comments here. The first two Snow Leopard commands worked for me, but I was getting the same error 9960 on the third command. It turns out, after running the first two commands, everything is set up so that you can finish the work in the Disk Utility GUI app. Instead of running the third command, I added the second disk to the RAID mirror set in the Disk Utility GUI and it rebuilt the mirror just fine. But, on a 1.5 TB disk, it took about six hours to do it, LOL

By: dcnp

dcnp — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:55:27 +0000

@->Mahdi Hedhli
I should clarify the fact that I initially ran the first two lines of your recommended commands while I was logged on as the standard administrator (used to setup OS X). However, when I first received that error…I thought it may have something to do with user privileges. So I logged on as root and re-attempted…same error received.

By: dcnp

dcnp — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:33:29 +0000

@->Mahdi Hedhli
I ran through the commands you recommended on a Mac Mini (OS X v10.6.5). The first two lines seemed to work fine. However, when I run the last line (diskutil appleRAID add mirror disk1s2 disk2), the system returns the following messages:
Started RAID operation on disk2 Macintosh HD2
Error -9960: Could not modify RAID

The second line you recommended clearly made a change to my disk setup. As, when I started, I had “disk0″ and “disk1″. However, after I ran the second line I now have “disk2″ showing in the diskutil list.

So, I’m halfway through the procedure and I’m stuck with “Error -9960″. Is there some non-destructive way to get around the “Error -9960″? Or, can I non-destructively undo what I did on the second line?

I’ll appreciate any assistance you can offer.
Thank you.

By: Mahdi Hedhli

Mahdi Hedhli — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 02:41:49 +0000

Be big boys and girls and use the terminal… here is a non destructive method of mirroring:

diskutil list

diskutil appleRAID enable mirror disk0s2

diskutil appleRAID add mirror disk1s2 disk2
(Go get some coffee… this will take hours)
where disk2 is the new RAID volume you created… you’l see it if you run diskutil list again.

By: shwing

shwing — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 21:14:02 +0000

this tuto is good, I don’t have an external DVD drive, but unfortunately no firewire cable any more…
But it’s what I was looking for.
Thank you.

By: admin

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:46:53 +0000

I do so many of these I ended up buying a USB super drive which does make things easier.

By: augmentedfourth

augmentedfourth — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:51:43 +0000

The external USB DVD drive is the best option! You can boot from the install DVD, then run Disk Utility to create the RAID1 set without even worrying about finding another Mac (or a Firewire cable).