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Best Mac eSATA card for Red Station?

Christopher Barrett

Christopher Barrett

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Until now I've just been runnin my stations through Firewire. But with SSD mags nearing delivery I'd like to bump up the speed. Is there a Red certified eSATA card I should drop in my Mac Pro? Should I look for 6gbps over 3gbps? Any thoughts appreciated.

Happy Bunny/Jesus Day, yo...
 
Go for ATTO, CalDigit or Sonnet.

The ATTO H680 is excellent, it has two quad-channel mini-SAS connectors on it that can each support 4 separate devices or channels via a mini-SAS to eSATA fan-out cable, it's 6Gbps per channel. They have the 3Gbps per channel version as well, the H380, but it does not support PCIe 2.0 and it's about the same price, often more expensive. Get the newer H680, especially if you have an '09 or newer Mac Pro that can offer PCIe 2.0 in your X4 slots.

CalDigit has a new combo card that offers two 6Gbps eSATA ports as well as two USB 3.0 ports. They also have the FASTA-4X card, which is simple and reliable and gives four eSATA 3Gbps ports. I have a couple of those and they are inexpensive and reliable.

The Sonnet E4P is also a simple and reliable 3Gbps solution with four eSATA ports.

AFAIK, the current REDSTATION modules as well as the RED SSDs are all 3Gbps. However, 6Gbps is still desirable for connecting other external storage and devices. The ATTO H680 is my top choice as you can also connect SAS devices to it, such as an LTO tape drive. mini-SAS to eSATA fan-out cables usually run about $50 for the good ones. I'm using the one from HighPoint. Just be aware that the fan-out cable is short, only about 2ft of cable for each device. You can get eSATA couplers and add on, but I don't recommend. I have a few and do it here and there, never had any issues <knock wood>, but I also don't do it unless I have no other choice.

Second choice would probably be a toss-up between the two CalDigit cards.
 
+1 for the ATTO 680. Very forward compatible, though not the cheapest solution if you only want esata.

I've that card for my GSpeed RAIDs, and use a 4-port esata card from Lacie for basic esata I/O. Works great
 
I have a question regarding esata cards as well. My company just purchased some LaCie esata cards that clearly say compatible with Mac...at least, Mac OS. This led us to believe they would work no problem, but they don't even fit in the chassis! Needless to say, this was a disappointment as we bought quite a few. Anybody have any experience with this? Is there something I/we don't know about these? Any comments or solutions are greatly appreciated.

BTW, we ended up just using the free ones that come in the number of tower raids we bought, but we could still utilize the others if they could work.
 
Er... If the cards don't physically fit in the tower. Then I would say you guys are trying to place PCI-X cards into PCIe slots or vice versa... Can't tell for sure, but it seems someone bought the wrong cards. PCI-X would be for the older Mac G4 and some G5 (pre-PCIe, pre-Quad) models.


As for where to buy the eSATA fan-out cable. Most bigger vendors in north america carry them:
http://www.provantage.com/highpoint-technologies-ext-ms-1mes~7HPTI01L.htm

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812238006
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Go for ATTO, CalDigit or Sonnet.

The ATTO H680 is excellent, it has two quad-channel mini-SAS connectors on it that can each support 4 separate devices or channels via a mini-SAS to eSATA fan-out cable, it's 6Gbps per channel. They have the 3Gbps per channel version as well, the H380, but it does not support PCIe 2.0 and it's about the same price, often more expensive. Get the newer H680, especially if you have an '09 or newer Mac Pro that can offer PCIe 2.0 in your X4 slots.
Click to expand...

Hi Jeff,
I have the ATTO R680 and have been not having any luck configuring it to use the eSata fan out cable. There isnt anything in the manual discussing it, and when I wrote ATTO tech support, they said the R680 doesn't support a eSata fanouts.

Have you done this? If so, do you by chance remember what the settings were in the configuration tool? I've got one channel already setup feeding my SAS Raid, its the second channel I'm trying to get the fan out cable to work so I can access my GRaid drives with it.

CHeers,
Paul
 
Hi Jeff,
thanks for yuor posts, I learn something new everyday... I've got a couple of question, do you think an ATTO H680 works fine in a early '08 MacPro? I can only put it in the upper slot. Do you have any advise for a rack mountable SAS Raid capable of RAID 6 and enough strong for on set use?
Thanks in advance.

Carlo
 
Paul Nordin said:
I have the ATTO R680 and have been not having any luck configuring it to use the eSata fan out cable. There isnt anything in the manual discussing it, and when I wrote ATTO tech support, they said the R680 doesn't support a eSata fanouts.

Have you done this? If so, do you by chance remember what the settings were in the configuration tool? I've got one channel already setup feeding my SAS Raid, its the second channel I'm trying to get the fan out cable to work so I can access my GRaid drives with it.
l
Click to expand...

You'll need the H680 to be able to use the fanout. So you'll need 2 cards to do what you want to do - the R680 for your RAID, and another eSATA card (H680 or similar) for eSATA. If your RAID supports dual channel in, Id just stick both ports of the R680 into it. Or you can add a second RAID.

Ironically, the R680 does support a fanout cable, but it doesnt let you mount the drives as normal drives. Ive configured RAIDs using the R680 and fanout cables, but it was a custom build and configured them for RAID use. So the drive shows up as an available drive in the configuration utility, but you'd need to assign it to a RAID, which means the drive cant be ported to another non-R680 device.
 
Also check out the Highpoint RocketRaid adapters. They're cheap, very dependable and have served me very well so far. I own a 2642 and a 2720 and am very satisfied.
 
Thanks for all the great info. Another question for the MacBook Pro. What 3/4 card should I get that is compatible with the Red Station?
Thanks
Mike
 
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