Neeed Helllp!!! about MacPro Raid Card

[Robert Monaghan]

IMO, trying to cram a 6-drive RAID-5 inside a Mac Pro while still booting from an external unit just seems kinda strange. I'd just build myself a 6 or 8 drive external RAID-5. Won't cost any more in the end, maybe a bit more for the enclosure, but that's it.

The heat would be tremendous for sure.
Incidently, the reason 6 is suggested, (3 drives per controller, actually) is the typical number of drives to provide maximum bandwidth. Any more drives per controller isn't going to provide any additional speed. for SATA2, each drive sustains about 80 - 90 megs/sec. So if the controller can sustain 250 to 280 Megs/sec then you only need 3 drives. Most cards have 2 separate controllers, by the way. A fourth drive per controller is suggested if you want to do RAID5.

FYI
bob..
www.gluetools.com

 

[Jon McCoy]

Any *real-life* benchmarks on drive models/makes?

Looking at specs and the usual benchmarks, the best I can seem to find, in order:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ~ 750GB
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ~ 1TB
Western Digital Caviar RE2 ~ 750GB

I can't find anything on the new Barracuda ES.2 (750GB or 1TB) drives - they're enterprise spec, so could be loud and a high-power load. They seem at first glance, to have the specs of the other Barracudas, but with the option of SATA or SAS.

I plumped for the Apple RAID card for now - with the intention of getting the new Caldigit card (the 16-drive one) when it's out. Failing that, there's always Fibre Channel (again, Caldigit's new NAB-announced solution could be a winner).