On my ancient Pegasus2 R6 system, one of the disks has developed a red light.
I have completely forgot everything about system maintenance on this program.
I have just reinstalled the Promise Utility program (4.06.0000.04 (C04). But that seems to just run a program called Instruments. I vaguelly recollect a function to check the disk status on ths program.
How do I fix the red light issue?
If I go to terminal and type promiseutil I get the program. Type help and I get the list of commands
about:
-------------------------------------------------------------
Promise Utility
Version: 4.06.0000.04 Build Date: Mar 28, 2022
Copyright 2021-2022 Promise Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Ah wait, lets go to the older iMac. Yep. it is correctly installed there. Utility shows drive two has an issue.
Only 3 disks are in the array. LD 0. has a MAJOR error 0x00090004. Dec 27. Logical drive has been set to critical. Drives 1, 2, & 3. Drieve 2 has a red X. Looks like 323 Minor 'bad sector' found on Disk warnings.
Used promiseutil phydrv -a online -p 2 to force drive back online
Used promiseutil array -a accept -d 0 to force array back online
Looks like it is working again. Now what...
Started a Redundancy check. Then Media Patrol. Then Spare check.
And we had to fix it again... Bah.That is three months.
Hi Nicholas,
normally, if a specific disk keeps developing bad sectors, it is best to replace it with a new one.
Best first step now though is to create a service report log file in the Promise Utility > Subsystem Information section.
You will need to unlock the utility in the bottom left corner.
Zip the file and then attach it here.
Also, be very careful with forcing a disk online.
If any data was written to the logical drive while it was in critical state then you will most likely end up with corrupted files or even a damaged filesystem for which we have no solution other then to try to recover data with a 3rd party (paid) program like Disk Warrior or Disk Drill.
Thanks.
So the system is setup with 1 array on 3 disks containing a logical drive of 6TB and then 3 individually formatted disks.
Both disks #2 & #3 have some bad sectors and need to be replaced, disk #2 seems to be worse than #3. (84 vs 12 disk errors)
I would advise to replace disk #2 first and start a rebuild on the new disk.
Once complete you can replace disk #3 and rebuild again.
You can use one of the 3 individually formatted disks in slots 4-6 if you are not actively using those but then you need to change the settings of that disk in the physical drive overview from 'passthru' to 'unconfigured' first.
I think I got the Promise Pegasus 2 in Deember 2019. (from Controller Info). The six discs are all original.
I retired 'last year' (July 2024).
After 911 (Sep 11, 2001), Katrina (Aug 29, 2005); Isaac *(Aug 29 2012) & Ida* **(Aug 29, 2021) and
before Francine *(Sep 11 2024)
* Isaac, Ida and Francine all flooded the house.
** Ida was a three/one disaster deal. Include Wuhan Whoopsie & Nicholas (Sep 11, 2021)
(yes, we evacuated to the one place on the planet that got hit by a hurricane, and they named it after me!)
I received a Mac Studio 2023 (M2/Tahoe 26.3) for retirement to replace my iMac (27" 2015/Monterey 12.7.6)
After one failure (reported here), I reduced the Array to 3 discs to prevent, 'loosing it all' on a disc failure.
Disc 4 has the timeline backup for the iMac.
Disc 5 has the timeline backup for the Studio.
Disc 6 is general use.
Haven't really been using the array much yet.
Discs are TOSHIBA DT01 SATA HDD. Looks like they have Power On Hours (POH) of 20,000 hours life. A design life of 5 years. MTTF is 300,000.hours.
If that start time is correct, the discs are all at 6.2 years with about 55,000 hours.
Due to all the distractions, I never really used the drive for its intended video editing purposes.
Looks like Pegasus 2 has been dicontinued for 5 years now.
To use it with the Mac Studio, we needed a Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 converter, and to install the DEXT software.
Apparently I cannot daisy chain over to the old iMac, as then it takes control and the Disc Utility program only works on that disc. (Interestingly, if the iMac is primary, then the TimeMachine discs 4 and 5 cannot even be viewed on the MacStudio)
Given its age, I should probably just give up on the Arrays and set all the discs to passthru. Then find an appropriate use for each disc. Perhas run it as a Network Attached Storage (NAS) using the old iMac.
According to the SMART log all disks have about 62000 power on hours.
For desktop drives like the Toshiba DT01 the MTTF is indeed 300,000 hours but the life expectancy is 5 years or 20,000 POH.
As mentioned, both disks 2 & 3 have physical errors, so personally I would not use these anymore, whether in an array or as passthru disks. The risk of catastrophic failure and thus data loss on these is simply too big.
The other disks have no reported SMART errors so these should still be ok for now.
So my recommendation would be to either set only disk #1 as extra passthru disk or, alternatively, get a new set of enterprise disks and create an array with those.
Toshiba enterprise disks have rated MTTF of around 2 million hours, these are what we have equipped our newer ranges Pegasus3 and Pegasus32 with for the past years.
So I think the steps are:
0: Remove all files first.
Delete Disc Array
1: Go to Disc Array
2: Delete Disc Array
3: CONFIRM
Update Physical Drives
1: Set each of the three drives to PassThru.
{...}
Settings
First tab Configuration Status to "Pass Thru"
Power Cycle Promise Pegasus
Turn of Pegasus 2
wait 10 seconds (or more)
Reboot Pegasus 2
New Drives should appear.
What is the cost to update the Housing from Pegasus 2 to xxxx for a Mac Studio M2 2023?
No? Start Disk Utility
Partition
Click + to partition.
Name disc
Format: APFS (SSDs?) or Mac OS Extended (HHD). Mac OS Extended Case sensitive Journaled
Partition
What is the cost to update the Housing from Pegasus 2 to xxxx for a Mac Studio M2 2023?
o It is definitely not in the budget for this year, but probably time to start looking.
o I suppose that would be a speed improvement.
(Thunderbolt4. is 40 Gb/s or 5 GB/s)
(Thunderbolt2 is 20 Gb/s or 2.5 GB/s)
So theoretically a doubling of speed should I ever get into large enough files.
o Probably worth it if I get at least a couple of replacement discs.
If I have to ask, I definitely can't afford this !
Pegasus32 R6 24TB (6x4TB) $2,299
Pegasus32 R4 16TB (4x4TB) $1,499
Pegasus M4. 8TB $3,429
Pegasus5. M8
Pegasus5. R12 $8,719
Yes, those steps are mostly correct.
- backup files on array/logical drive if necessary
- open utility and unlock it
- go to Disk Array, delete disk array and confirm
- check Physical Drive overview (disks 1-3 should be marked unconfigured)
- change setting of each disk to PassThru and save
- if a popup appears, click initialize (or open disk utility)
- right-click the individual disks and choose erase
- name the disk and format in Mac OS Extended (for HDDs) or APFS (for SSDs)
There is no need to power cycle the Pegasus device or wait 10 seconds, the disks will appear on your desktop once formatting is done.
You can check our online shop (only for US residents) or sites like ebay for pre-owned Pegasus 3 or 32 devices which are Thunderbolt3 at 40Gbs.
You might even find them in a local computer hardware store.
In theory you can use any brand/type of SATA HDD as replacement in the Pegasus devices since we do not have any hardware or software limitations for these, however we recommend to use those we tested and are mentioned in the compatibility list.
This list can be downloaded from the product support pages in the download center.
