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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Controller card for RAID...

E

Ev Shipard

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I have a Maxdigital Mini EVO SAS but no controller card- to be used with a MacPro. Is anyone using this setup and what card would be best? Ive read ATTO cards work well but not sure which one in the lineup.
cheers,
 
Ev Shipard said:
Has anyone used Newer Technology MAXPower RAID mini-SAS 6G 2e. I can get these locally and was wondering why they were 1/3-1/2 the price of the ATTO?
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For me it would be: not much of a track record since it hasn't been on the market very long (I think less than 1-2 years), doesn't do RAID 6 (which I am partial to, but I guess not a deal breaker for most), double the throughput, better management via application (Newer Tech uses a web interface), supports 256 attached devices instead of 128.
 
We use LSI on Windows and Areca on Mac. Both are solid.
 
will the ATTO R680 work in a pci 4x mac pro slot. I know the requirement says 8x but this is to cover two ports. if you only ran one of the ports say for an LTO6 device will it work in the 4x slot
 
Yes, it will just throttle the speed. I believe, if it negotiates correctly (PCI version), it should be half the bandwidth, roughly.
 
Thanks guys.
Looking inside I only have a x4 and RAID/4 slot. I'm guessing the top RAID/4 slot is the one to use but obviously it wont use the controller card to its full potential. I have found an r680 locally but at 1200AUD its a far cry from the Newer Technology MAXPower card.
 
The ATTO R680 is X4 for data and X8 for power. It works just fine in a Mac Pro X4 slot as they are all X16 electro-mechanically...

Windows isn't as picky so you have more options. On the Mac, the only two SAS hosts I would recommend are ATTO and ARECA. ATTO is the only option on the Mac if you're seriously wanting to run LTO tape systems as well, besides ATTO brings cuter girls to NAB. Another bonus of both ATTO and ARECA, they are both bootable on the Mac.
 
joe hedge said:
4 lanes is 2GB/s...what drives are you going to use that need more than that?
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Just to correct - 4x lane is 1 GB/s, as each 1x represents 256 MB/s
Still, 1 GB/s is more then sufficient for 99% folks out there...

PS: Jeff is right (both about the cards and the girls...)

:sifone: Peter
 
Peter, actually PCIe v2 (which these ATTO x6xx series are) operates at 500MB/s per lane, so the 2GB ceiling bandwidth is actually correct. 1X was 250MB/s under PCIe v1.x. :)

PCIe V3 host adapters with 12Gbps/channel SAS should arrive late this year or Q1 next year.
 
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