MAC PRO Config Suggestion ?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Interesting, because all indications seemed to point to the RAID card for the 2009 MP being different and not using an iPass cable at all...

Actually I'm just operating off of info from an Apple service tech I know. I'll find out for myself soon anyway, I'm planning to buy another Mac Pro in the next couple months.

Possibly as soon as next week though if I need to. I just had one crash on me.. First Mac tower I've had fail since the days of the Power Mac G3. Looks like it needs a new logic board and/or video card, but I left it in the hands of the "Geniuses" at the Apple Store since it's under warranty. :angry: I'm not usually a fan of extended warranties on consumer products, but I would highly recommend the AppleCare on the Mac Pro and Macbook Pro. You will probably only need it on one out of ever 5 systems or so, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper than paying Apple prices for Apple parts.

Thanks a lot.:beer:

No problem.

Can I Pm you if I have more questions about the RED Workflow?

Probably best to post direct to the forums. You will get more answers quicker that way. Also depends on which workflow you're talking about. If you're talking about Final Cut, there's several more on here that are more knowledgeable than I. I'm much more of a CS4 guy lately.

 

[Nick Gallegos]

Possibly as soon as next week though if I need to. I just had one crash on me.. First Mac tower I've had fail since the days of the Power Mac G3. Looks like it needs a new logic board and/or video card, but I left it in the hands of the "Geniuses" at the Apple Store since it's under warranty. I'm not usually a fan of extended warranties on consumer products, but I would highly recommend the AppleCare on the Mac Pro and Macbook Pro. You will probably only need it on one out of ever 5 systems or so, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper than paying Apple prices for Apple parts.

Very true. I'm not a huge fan of extended warranties, either but Apple repairs are silly expensive. Around $800 for a MP logic board of any generation, not including the labor to install it... So I tend to buy AppleCare on all my Macs.

But yeah, I'd be very interested to know the actual answer on whether the 2009 MPs use the same RAID card (with an iPass cable) or not. Not that I'm really in the market for one yet anyway. At this time, I can't really justify the 2009 prices. My 8-core Harpertown is still very adequate.

 

[Loren White]

Im also about to buy a MacPro.. so what your saying is I cant run an internal RAID without the crappy Apple Raid card? Looks like I'll have an external RAID with the ATTO card then.

Any suggestions on building a cheap 1TB-2TB 500MB/s external RAID?



Also, the nVidia GTX 285 is being released soon, and there is also the nVidia 4800 Quadro.. are these cards creating huge performance differences in Color?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

But yeah, I'd be very interested to know the actual answer on whether the 2009 MPs use the same RAID card (with an iPass cable) or not. Not that I'm really in the market for one yet anyway. At this time, I can't really justify the 2009 prices. My 8-core Harpertown is still very adequate.

Got the clarification for you right here. Turns out the new Mac Pro does indeed have new RAID card. Essentially it's the same as the prior model, but does all communication with the onboard SAS/SATA HBA via the PCIe bus. So IT DOES NOT USE AN IPASS CABLE.

The same tech I talked to before about it directed me to this apple page. Apparently I misunderstood him, or partly so. I guess they have run across some Nehalem Mac Pros where they've been modded to bypass the onboard drive connectors and connect an iPASS cable. I guess it's pretty simple to do, but it's not something that is really possible to do without voiding the AppleCare. But people are doing it as one solution to build a decent RAID out of the internal bays.

There are other options, some are non-destructive. I personally like the idea of using 4 x 2.5" drives internally (possibly SSDs) and put them into a RAID-5 as the system volume. The smaller drive size would make them easy to work necessary cabling around. Also some 3.5" HDDs are shorter than others. May be able to get away with some models flipping them around to orient them with connectors away from the drive backplane and run your cables direct to the RAID controller. Or like I said before, buy alternative drive sleds. Looks like transintl.com has some, I'd modify them to allow the clearance I needed to hook up my cables. Save the Apple sleds for system resale or if I need to have the system repaired under warranty.

 

[Nick Gallegos]

Okay, so I'm not crazy. All of the really big Apple hardware gurus (Macrumors, etc.) seemed to indicate that it was a completely different RAID card that talked the internal drive headers over PCIe.

Loren:

There are a lot of ways to build fast RAID systems, some more expensive than others -

1. Internal RAID using a RAID card and modified drive sleds, as Jeff mentioned. This is often the cheapest way. Trans International also makes a sled that converts the second optical drive bay to accommodate a 5th internal hard drive: http://www.transintl.com/store/procaddy.cfm?RequestTimeOut=500

2. External RAID using a RAID card and a port multiplying eSATA enclosure. This is middle of the road, price-wise, but more flexible because you're not limited by a cramped computer case. Several manufacturers make good 5-8 bay enclosures suitable for this application.

3. External RAID using an external enclosure with a built-in RAID controller. These enclosures are pricey, so it's often the most expensive option. There's also a lot of prebuilt units of this type (CalDigit HDPro and others). Basically, you're trading off price for the convenience of not having to configure a separate RAID card. These types of systems do have strong applications in other environments though, like out in the field, where you'll likely have a laptop and thus no other way to add hardware RAID.

Also, keep in mind that in order to achieve 500+ MB/s, you'll need at least 4-5 drives in the array. So on a 2TB array, this would be built with several smaller (like 500GB) drives.