CRU RTX800-TR User Manual

Protecting Your
Digital Assets

™

CRU RTX® 800-TR User Manual

Features

• SupportsJBODandRAIDlevels0,1,4,5,6,and10inhardware,witheasyconguration
usingATTOTechnology’sRAIDmanagementsoftware.

• CRUTrayFree™baysmakeaddingdriveseffortless: simply open a drive bay door,
slide the drive in, and close the door.No screws, no trays, no tools. The rugged
TrayFreebaysareratedforovertensofthousandsofinsertions.

• Provides up to 32TB of storage for video editing, visualization, simulation, high­capacitystorage,orbackupsoflargeamountsofdata.

• DualThunderboltinterfacesallowthefastestconnectiontoyourMacorPChost,at
ratesupto10Gbpsinbothdirectionsandatthesametime.Thiskindofperformance
cantransferorbackup1TBofcontentinapproximately20minutes.

A9-800-0003 Revision 1.0

CRU Mark

Table of Contents

1. Pre-Installation Steps

1. Pre-Installation Steps 2

1.1 Box Contents 2

1.2 Identifying Parts of your RTX800-TR 2

1.3 Warnings and Notices 2

2. Introduction to RAID 3

2.1 Summary of RAID Levels 3

3. Installation Steps 3

3.1 Hard Drive Installation 3

3.2 Operating Your RTX Enclosure 3

3.2.1 Installing Thunderbolt Drivers 4

3.2.2 Install ATTO CongTool 4

3.2.3 Conguring RAID 4

4. Customizing a RAID Setup 5

5. Conguring Drive Redundancy 5

5.1 Create a Hot Spare Pool 5

5.2 Enable Auto-Rebuild 6

6. Change RAID Group Properties 6

7. Recovering From A Failed Hard Drive or RAID
Group

7.1 Rebuilding the RAID Group 7

7.1.1 Automatic Replacement 7

7.1.2 Manual Replacement 7

7.1.3 Recovery from Replacement of a Wrong
Drive

7.2 Data Recovery 7

8. RAID Notications 8

8.1 Conguring Visual, Audible, and System

Log Alerts

8.2 Conguring E-Mail Notications 8

8.3 Retrieving System Logs 9

9. Usage with Mac and Windows Operating
Systems

9.1 Usage with Mac OS X 9

9.1.1 Formatting the RAID Group 9

9.1.2 Mounting and Unmounting Volumes 9

9.2 Usage with Windows Operating Systems 9

9.2.1 Formatting the RAID Group 9

9.2.2 Mounting and Unmounting Volumes 10

10. RAID is Not A Backup 10

11. Technical Specications 11

1.1 Box Contents
The following list contains the items that are included

in the complete conguration for this device. Please

contact CRU if any items are missing or damaged:

Accessories Quantity

RTX800-TR Enclosure 1

Thunderbolt Cable 1

Power Cord 1

Quick Start Guide 1

1.2 Identifying Parts of your RTX800-TR

Drive Power

and Activity LEDs

6

TrayFree Bay

Ejection Handle

7

8

Thunderbolt

Ports

9

Cooling Fans

Power

Switch

Power Port

1.3 Warnings and Notices

Please read the following before beginning installation.

General Care

• Proper grounding is strongly recommended to

prevent electrical damage to the enclosure or
other connected devices, including the computer

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host. Avoid all dramatic movement, tapping on the
unit, and vibration.

• Before starting any type of hardware installation,
please ensure that all power switches have been turned
off and all power cords have been disconnected to
prevent personal injury and damage to the hardware.

• To avoid overheating, the RTX enclosure should be
operated in a well-ventilated area.

• Remove the drives before transporting the RTX
enclosure to prevent damage to the drive interfaces.

RAID

• Use only hard drives that are in perfect condition.
Avoid using drives that have ever developed bad
sectors during previous use. This could lead to
possible device failure or loss of data.

• The RTX enclosure supports SATA hard drives
of various specications and different capacities.

However, we recommend using drives of the same
brand and type across all bays for optimal performance.
If drives of different capacities are used in a RAID,
the capacity of the smallest drive will determine how
much of each drive is used. The additional capacity on
the larger drives will not be used by the RAID.

• RAID level 0 will allow you to use the full combined
capacity of the drives and offers the best data transfer
speeds. However, RAID 0 offers no protection for the
data. If one drive fails in a RAID 0, the data on all of
the drives is irretrievably lost. Before creating a RAID,
investigate the various RAID types and choose the
one that is best for your needs.

RAID
Level

Known as “Just a Bunch Of Disks”.

JBOD

ATTO

DVRAID

* The RAID level becomes available as a menu option when exactly these numbers of hard drives
are installed inside of the RTX enclosure.

**If both drives in either the RAID 0 or RAID 1 set fail, then the entire RAID will fail. If
only one drive in each of the RAID 0 and RAID 1 sets fail, then the RAID is preserved.

This is not a type of RAID as each
disk is created with its own inde­pendent volume. There is no data
protection.

Also known as striping. Data dis-

0

tributed across all drives in the ar­ray. There is no data protection.

Also known as mirroring. All data
replicated on two separate disks.

1

Due to the 100% duplication, only
half the total disk capacity is avail­able for data storage.

Parity information is dedicated to a

single disk while data information

4

is subdivided across the remaining
disks. Can withstand the failure of
one drive.

Data and parity information is sub­divided and distributed across all
disks. Can withstand the failure of

5

one drive. The total capacity of all
but one of the drives is available for
data storage.

Extends RAID 5 by adding an ad­ditional block of parity information

6

that is subdivided across all disks,
and provides protection against
data loss during a RAID rebuild.

Also known as Block-Interleaved

Parity. Data is striped across two

10

separate disks and mirrored to an­other disk pair.

Parity redundancy optimized for

high data transfer rates.

Description

Required

No. of

Drives*

1

2 or 4

2 1 drive

3 1 drive

3 1 drive

4 2 drives

4 1 drive**

6 1 drive

Fault

Tolerance

No data
protection

No data
protection

• Always back up data before switching RAID types.

Switching RAID types will destroy current
data. You must reformat your drives afterwards.

2 Introduction to RAID

A RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is an array of
multiple hard drives that are combined in a way that provides
faster performance and/or data safety. Your RTX enclosure is
capable of creating and managing several different varieties

3 Installation Steps

3.1 Hard Drive Installation
a. Pull the ejection handle on the TrayFree bay to open

the bay door.

b. Insert a bare SATA hard drive into the bay. Make sure it

is label-side up with the SATA connection on the drive

inserted rst.

of RAID. You may choose your preferred RAID level based on
factors such as disk capacity, desired data safety, and desired

c. Shut the bay door.

performance.

Sticker Card

2.1 Summary of RAID Levels

Use the stickers on the provided sticker card to label each
drive. This will prevent the drives from getting mixed up

The RTX enclosure supports RAID Levels JBOD, 0, 1, 4, 5, 6,

when they are removed from the bays.

10, and a custom RAID mode called ATTO DVRAID™. RAID

Level 5 is most commonly used by those seeking an optimal

balance of speed and data safety, however ATTO DVRAID

is optimized for applications such as video production that

3.2 Operating Your RTX Enclosure
a. Install your hard drives into the RTX enclosure (see

Section 1.1).

require a high data transfer rate.

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b. Connect the RTX enclosure to a power outlet with the

included power cord.

plugged into. If the RTX enclosure is plugged into the
computer you are currently using, select localhost.

c. Connect the RTX enclosure to your computer using the

included Thunderbolt cable.

d. Flip the power switch on the rear of the unit to turn on

the RTX enclosure.

3.2.1 Installing Thunderbolt Drivers

a. Download the appropriate Thunderstream SC 3808E

driver for your operating system from the RTX800-TR
product page: www.cru-inc.com/products/RTX800-

TR.php.

b. On Windows machines, open the ZIP le and run the

included .EXE le. Press the Unzip button and then
follow the prompts to install the driver.

On Mac machines, the folder will automatically unzip.

Open the folder and double click on the .dmg le. A new
folder will open. Double click on the .pkg le and follow

the prompts to install the driver. A computer restart will
be required.

c. A login window will pop up. Provide the username

and password for the computer the RTX is connected
to and press OK. The device listing for that computer
will appear.

d. Click on ThunderStream SC 3808E.

e. A new set of tabs will appear in the right panel. Click

on the RAID tab. If this is the rst time setting up
a RAID on these hard drives, the RAID wizard will
automatically open. If it does not start automatically,
select the RAID Management menu item at the
top of the screen and select New Group… from the
menu.

3.2.2 Install ATTO CongTool

a. Download the version of ATTO CongTool appropriate

for your operating system from the RTX800-TR
product page: www.cru-inc.com/products/RTX800-

TR.php.

b. On Windows machines, open the .exe le and click

the Unzip button. The setup les will unzip. Press
OK. Navigate to the folder you unzipped it to (the

default path is “C:\ATTO\CongTool”) and open the
CongTool_411.exe le there.

For Mac, open the CongTool_4xx le inside of
the .dmg le you downloaded.

c. Follow the onscreen instructions. On the “Choose

Install Set” screen, select Full Installation and
then click the Next button. Continue to follow the
onscreen instructions.

3.2.3 Conguring RAID

a. Open ATTO CongTool.

b. From the Device Listing panel on the left, expand

the list and select the computer that your RTX is

f. Select Setup DVRAID to automatically set up a

RAID. To customize your RAID setup with a standard

RAID mode, see Section 4 . DVRAID provides parity

redundancy for your data and is optimized for the
high data transfer rates that are required in digital
video editing. The wizard will automatically set

up DVRAID using all the storage inside of the RTX

enclosure.

Your RTX enclosure is almost ready to use! Now that
you have created a RAID, the volume(s) will need to be
formatted before being used.

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