Glyph GT 062E User Manual

GT 062E™ Manual

Tabletop FireWire 800, USB 2.0 and eSATA enclosure

with RAID 1, RAID 0 and Spanning modes

610030-1.08 GT 062E Manual.pdf
August 23, 2011

Proprietary Notice and Disclaimer

Unless noted otherwise, this document and the information herein disclosed are proprietary to Glyph Technologies, 3736 Kellogg
Road, Cortland NY 13045 (“GLYPH”). Any person or entity to whom this document is furnished or having possession thereof, by
acceptance, assumes custody thereof and agrees that the document is given in condence and will not be copied or reproduced
in whole or in part, nor used or revealed to any person in any manner except to meet the purposes for which it was delivered.
Additional rights and obligations regarding this document and its contents may be dened by a separate written agreement with
GLYPH, and if so, such separate written agreement shall be controlling.

The information in this document is subject to change without notice, and should not be construed as a commitment by GLYPH.
Although GLYPH will make every eort to inform users of substantive errors, GLYPH disclaims all liability for any loss or damage
resulting from the use of this manual or any software described herein, including without limitation contingent, special, or inci­dental liability.

© 2002-2008 Glyph Technologies. All rights reserved. Specications are subject to change without notice. Glyph and the Glyph
logo are registered trademarks of Glyph Technologies. All other brands and product names mentioned are trademarks of their
respective holders.

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Contacting Glyph

Please use the following contact information to contact Glyph and its distributors.
Glyph USA oers phone support Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 PM Eastern Time.

Note: DO NOT ship any return goods to the mailing addresses below unless you have a valid RMA number.
All goods will be refused delivery unless a valid RMA number is displayed on the outside of the package.

United States of America

Glyph Technologies
3736 Kellogg Rd.
Cortland, NY 13045
USA
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
www.glyphtech.com

Sales Contact
[e-mail]

Technical Support:
[e-mail]

Unpacking Your GT 062E

Your Glyph GT 062E and accessories are packaged in a sturdy shipping container. Please inspect the con­tainer for evidence of shipping damage and mishandling. If the container is damaged, le a report with the
carrier or dealer immediately. Do not attempt to unpack and operate your GT 062E until the carrier or dealer
conrms the damage. If the container is in good condition, proceed with unpacking the GT 062E. Verify
that all of the items described in the next section are present and in good condition. If any of the items you
expect to nd in your container is missing or damaged, contact the dealer before proceeding any further.

In any case, do keep the shipping container and all packing materials in a safe place.

The GT 062E package includes:

GT 062E External Hard Drive
Glyph Manager software installer CD
9-Pin FireWire 800 Cable
USB 2.0 Cable (A to Mini-B)
IEC Power Cable

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About the GT 062E and Drive Modes

The GT 062E enclosure contains two hard disk drives, which function as one single volume. Through the use
of the Glyph Manager software utility, it supports three drive modes: RAID 1 (mirroring), RAID 0 (striping),
and Spanning. Each drive mode has its own advantages, depending upon the application.

RAID 1 (mirroring) oers data redundancy and real-time backup by writing the same data to the
two hard drives at the same time. Should a drive failure happen, data is still available on the remain­ing drive. In RAID 1 mode, the two drives are seen by the computer as one volume, but with half the
capacity. For example, a 1TB GT 062E will be seen as a 500GB drive. Reading and writing occurs on
both drives simultaneously so that each of the drives contains exactly the same data, mirroring each
other. If either of the drives should fail the other is there to seamlessly continue to provide operation.

RAID 0 (striping) increases the performance of the drive system by spreading the data across two
drives. RAID 0 is a proven technology for editing video, working with huge graphics les, sound
libraries, and streaming instruments that play hundreds of samples simultaneously. RAID 0 is the de­fault shipping drive mode. In RAID 0 (striping) mode, the two drives are seen by the computer as one
large drive, and reading and writing occurs on both drives simultaneously. It is designed to increase
the performance and data throughput of the drive system. The GT 062E’s built-in RAID controller
splits each piece of data across both of the drives in segments and distributes the I/O burden. Since
data is written without any form of parity data-checking, it allows for the fastest data transfer of all
other RAID levels. However, if one drive becomes damaged, the data on both drives can become cor­rupted. RAID 0 is not redundant or fault tolerant like RAID levels 1, 3, and 5, but the trade o is that
it’s the fastest of all RAID levels. MAKE SURE TO BACKUP YOUR DATA OFTEN!

In Spanning mode, the two drives are seen as one large drive and data is written sequentially across
them. When the rst drive lls to the limit, data is then written to the second drive. This mode is use­ful for applications requiring large volumes, but not requiring the speed of RAID 0. Spanning does
not provide any performance or redundancy benets.

Using the GT 062E with Pro Tools® Software

The 3TB and 4TB GT 062E models only support Pro Tools® when they are congured in RAID 1 mode. This is
because RAID 1 shows to the operating system as half the total capacity (1.5TB for the 3TB, and 2TB for the
4TB). Currently, Pro Tools is limited to volumes that are 2TB or less in size. If you attempt to record or play­back from any locations on the disk above 2TB, Pro Tools will give errors. If you set your GT 062E to Spanning
or RAID 0 mode, it will work until it is lled to 2TB, then it will give errors. This is currently an open issue that
we expect will be resolved in future releases of Pro Tools.

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Using the GT 062E with Windows 2000 / XP

Older versions of Windows, such as 2000 and XP 32-bit, use Master Boot Record which doesn’t support vol­umes larger than 2TB. When the total capacity of the RAID is 2TB or higher, you must format the array using
GPT in Windows. GPT format is only supported by Windows XP 64-bit Edition, Windows 2003 Server, Win­dows Vista, Windows 7, and Mac OS X. GPT format will not work with XP 32-bit or older Windows operating
systems. If you want to use Windows 2000 and/or XP 32-bit, you’ll need to run the GT 062E in RAID 1 mode
because RAID 1 creates a usable volume that is half the total capacity (1.5TB for the 3TB, and 2TB for the
4TB).

GT 062E Ports

The fastest interface on the GT 062E is eSATA and there is one eSATA port on the rear panel. In RAID 0 mode,
the GT 062E can sustain over 200MB/sec (read speed) when connected via eSATA to a fast eSATA card such as
a Sonnet E4P card. FireWire 800 is the next fastest and there are two FW800 ports on the rear panel. Ocial­ly, these IEEE 1394b ports run at up to 800Mbits/sec. If using FW800, one of these ports should be connected
to your computer, and the other should be connected to other downstream FireWire devices. It doesn’t mat­ter which port you connect to the computer, they are functionally identical. If your computer has a FireWire
400 port only, you can use a FW400 to FW800 adapter cable, which is available from Glyph. If your computer
doesn’t have any FireWire ports you can either purchase an eSATA or FireWire adapter card (recommended),
or use the USB 2.0 port on the back of the GT 062E.

Front panel LED

The GT 062E front panel has a single bi-color LED. The LED will display solid blue when power is on. The LED
will ash blue when there is disk activity. The LED will ash or display a solid red color when error conditions
exits with the drives inside the array. Those error conditions are discussed in greater detail below.

NOTE: It is normal for the LED to ash red when the unit is powered on. Since the drives inside the GT 062E
take a few seconds to spin up, they are “oine” for a moment when the controller looks for them, and the red
warning LED comes on. When they fully spin up the controller sees that everything is normal, and turns the
red LED o.

Setting up the GT 062E

NOTE: It is advisable that the Glyph Manager software be installed prior to following the instructions below.

1. Position the GT 062E by placing the unit on a at, level surface, or install the unit into a rack with one of
Glyph’s rack kits. Caution: Speakers are magnetic devices; they can harm your data if they’re too close to your
hard drives or tapes.

2. Connect the power cable. Make sure that the power is o on all of your computer equipment and the GT
062E. Connect the power cable to the back of the GT 062E. Plug the three-prong plug into an appropriate
power receptacle, preferably with surge and spike protection.

3. Connect the FireWire 800, USB, or eSATA cable. Plug one end of the cable into your computer’s port, and
the other into the back of the GT 062E. Both FireWire 800 ports are functionally identical, so it doesn’t matter
which one you use.

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4. Power up the GT 062E and power up your computer.

5. If you’re using Mac OS X, the icon should mount on your desktop. If you’re using Windows, please follow
the formatting instructions for Windows later in this manual.

Understanding Glyph Manager Software

NOTE: For information on installing Glyph Manager, see installation instructions later in this manual

The Glyph GT 062E ships with Glyph Manager 4 software, a utility for Mac OS X and Windows. When a GT
062E is connected to the computer either by USB, eSATA, or FireWire 800, information about the drives con­tained within the GT 062E will be displayed. Glyph Manager essentially does two things:

1. Congures the GT 062E in one of the three drive modes: RAID 1, RAID 0, and Spanning

2. Constantly monitors the health of the drives and fan, and displays the health status. When a prob­lem is detected, Glyph Manager alerts the user by animating in the Mac OS X dock or displaying an error
balloon from the Windows System Tray. Data can then be backed up before any is lost due to drive failure.

NOTE: Glyph Manager requires special congurations to communicate with the GT 062E over eSATA. Below are
the two conditions in which Glyph Manager will function over eSATA:

1. On Mac laptops running OS X when connected to the FirmTek SeriTek/2SM2-E ExpressCard Adapter

2. On Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 machines with motherboards that include onboard eSATA

The Glyph Manager screen display:

When installed in the MAC OS X, the left hand pane of the Glyph Manager screen displays general informa­tion regarding all Glyph enclosures that can be monitored (GT 062, GT 062E). Each will be displayed with a
status state, Model and Serial number. The status of all the enclosure states will be displayed in the System
Status box below. The right hand pane will display information specic to whichever of the enclosure units
is highlighted.

In both Windows and Mac OS X, Glyph Manager monitors several functional parameters of your Glyph GT
062E drive arrays including Serial number, Volume name, connection type, conguration, selected con­guration, fan speed, enclosure and individual drive temperatures, array and drive health. Additionally, in
Windows, Glyph Manager monitors the Quick Removal Policy. For how to change this policy, please see
the article “Windows Write Performance” on the Glyph web site (http://www.glyphtech.com/docs/630012_
WinXP_Vista_write_performance.pdf).

NOTE: Glyph Manager does not, however, format your GT 062E. After conguring your GT 062E in one of the three
drive modes, you must take further steps to format your GT 062E and prepare it for use. These steps are explained
in the next sections.

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Array Information:

Displayed are the Serial number of the selected enclosure, the volume name (once the drive has been parti­tioned) and the connection type.

Conguration and Selected Conguration:

Normally the Conguration and Selected Conguration should match. “Conguration” is the current disk ar­ray conguration, as it was last set. “Selected conguration” is the new conguration that it’s being changed
to, which is set using the Change Conguration utility. These would be mismatched if you are in the process
of changing from one drive mode to another, such as changing from RAID 0 to RAID 1. If these are mis­matched, you can set them to match in one of 2 ways:

1. Answer yes to initialize the disk question when Glyph Manager rst detects the newly selected ar­ray. This changes to the “Selected conguration”.

2. Use Glyph Manager to change “Selected conguration” to match “Conguration”. This keeps the
current conguration.

Fan Speed:

The Glyph Manager software controls the enclosure’s internal fan rpm, and it is normal for it to vary. It is pos­sible at times for the software to turn the fan o, so a speed of 0 is also a normal condition. The fan speed
display is used in helping to diagnose problems relating to excessive temperatures.

Temperature:

Individual drive temperatures are monitored, as well as the temperature of the “bridge” (the internal circuits).
Drive temperatures over 68 C is detrimental to continued proper operation of the drives.

Status:

Indicates array functionality. A properly functioning array condition is “Fully operational”. Other states are:
“Initialized”, “Degraded operation” and “Halted”. “Degraded operation” means that a drive has failed. Due to
the redundant nature of a RAID 1 array no data has been lost and operation can continue. However, the fail­ure of another drive will result in data loss. The failed drive should be replaced as soon as possible. “Halted”
means that the RAID array cannot continue operation due to drive failure and that data has been lost. A
drive failure is catastrophic when the array is congured as either Spanning or RAID 0. A loss of a single drive
will result in the loss of all data.

LED behavior relating to Glyph Manager:

Any error that results in the system state “Halted” generates a solid red LED on the front panel of the drive.
All other errors - including RAID state mismatch - result in the blinking red LED. All errors will animate the
Glyph ball in the dock under OS X or generate an error balloon under Windows.

NOTE: It is normal for the LED to ash red when the unit is powered on. Since the drives inside the GT 062E
take a few seconds to spin up, they are “oine” for a moment when the controller looks for them, and the red
warning LED comes on. When they fully spin up the controller sees that everything is normal, and turns the
red LED o.

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