Simon Blackledge
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You might want to do a speed test in XP.
When running ntfs for mac I got pretty much the same read/write in both os's
Unsure if macdrive will give you the same.
Si
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RAID Controller Advice
- Thread starter zak forrest
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You might want to do a speed test in XP.
When running ntfs for mac I got pretty much the same read/write in both os's
Unsure if macdrive will give you the same.
Si
Rainer Fritz
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get this one: http://www.tomorrowland.com/guides/mac-pro-optical-drive-install-part-1/
and this one: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=523782
it is a manual with pictures how to set up the optical bay for drive extension as sata cabling in mac pro.
http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_id=158
here you get a ready kit.... and for sure some other usefull stuff
regards
rainer
and this one: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=523782
it is a manual with pictures how to set up the optical bay for drive extension as sata cabling in mac pro.
http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_id=158
here you get a ready kit.... and for sure some other usefull stuff
regards
rainer
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Jeff Kilgroe
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In a proper RAID-5 configuration with 4 or more drives, parity information is split across all the drives, so it's not technically just 3 operational to one spare. In a RAID-5 with 6 or more drives, two drives can fail and you should still be able to recover your data. For RAID systems with 7 or more drives, it's time to consider RAID-6. Which is essentially the same as RAID-5, but also reserves one drive for a hot spare.
Yes! However, this is entirely controller dependent and you will need to check with them about the 3510 card to make sure it does support this. A fully compliant SAS implementation is downward compatible to SATA and allows for intermixing devices. However, some controllers do not support this, or they have restrictions on mixing by ports or groups of ports. This is one reason I prefer the ATTO cards, they have full SAS / SATA interconnectivity. I believe most, if not all, the HighPoint SAS controllers have this ability too. After all, Highpoint sells an external cable with a mini-SAS connector on one end and it fans out to 4 eSATA connectors.
I have an ATTO H680 in my new Mac Pro and it has two external mini-SAS connectors. One connector goes from the card to my HP LTO-4 drive, which has a SAS interface. On the other port, I use that Highpoint SAS to eSATA fan cable I mentioned above. It works great, other than it only being 1 meter long, but there are extensions, provided you don't get carried away.
Rainer Fritz
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thx jeff a lot.... so the ability to connect the LTO drive via SAS external would be nice, so we need no extra controller.... ok.... so the config for the new machine gets very close.... the redapple box... doin 4k realtime to every format and backups and archives.... lovin so such compact systems....
DAVID McNAMARA
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What are the specs on this raid? cant find any specs on the site?
Stephen Lovett
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Hi,
The essential point here is completely valid.
My DIT Macpro, has a built in raid6 volume and a built in Raid 5 volume because I'm unwilling to bet on even raid six without a get out of jail free card.
I see a lot of "pretty close" information when speaking about data management and raid arrays on the board, and I try not to be a pedant.
This one is rather an important distinction IMHO, so I thought I'd clarify it a bit.
Historically it has been my practice to set up raid 5 with a hot spare. That was before raid 6 capable cards became more available and cost effective.
Raid 6 is a different animal with an important distinction. Raid 6 does not reserve a drive in any manner, it simply replicates the parity data a second time across the drives, meaning that you have two sets of parity data, and the additional drive requirement is simply to provide the space in aggregate for that second set of data.
So why is this important? If you have a raid five array with a hot spare, and a correctly configured controller, when you loose a drive the hot spare will be called into service, and the raid volume will begin to rebuild. If you lose a second drive before the rebuild is done, game over.
This can take quite a while, hours generally, days is some cases.
In a raid 6 if you lose a drive, you still all the have parity data. So if you loose a second drive during a rebuild, you are OK. For a raid six to fail you'd need two drives to fail essentially concurrently, and then loose another drive before the rebuild completes.
Given you're burning an additional drive anyway with a raid 5 and hot spare, there really isn't a good reason not to go to raid six if your card supports it.
Raid six is a bit slower, but likely not enough that it negates it's advantages, and further there is no reason you can't have a raid 6 with a hot spare.
Hope that helps,
Steve
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Hi,
The essential point here is completely valid.
My DIT Macpro, has a built in raid6 volume and a built in Raid 5 volume because I'm unwilling to bet on even raid six without a get out of jail free card.
I see a lot of "pretty close" information when speaking about data management and raid arrays on the board, and I try not to be a pedant.
This one is rather an important distinction IMHO, so I thought I'd clarify it a bit.
Historically it has been my practice to set up raid 5 with a hot spare. That was before raid 6 capable cards became more available and cost effective.
Raid 6 is a different animal with an important distinction. Raid 6 does not reserve a drive in any manner, it simply replicates the parity data a second time across the drives, meaning that you have two sets of parity data, and the additional drive requirement is simply to provide the space in aggregate for that second set of data.
So why is this important? If you have a raid five array with a hot spare, and a correctly configured controller, when you loose a drive the hot spare will be called into service, and the raid volume will begin to rebuild. If you lose a second drive before the rebuild is done, game over.
This can take quite a while, hours generally, days is some cases.
In a raid 6 if you lose a drive, you still all the have parity data. So if you loose a second drive during a rebuild, you are OK. For a raid six to fail you'd need two drives to fail essentially concurrently, and then loose another drive before the rebuild completes.
Given you're burning an additional drive anyway with a raid 5 and hot spare, there really isn't a good reason not to go to raid six if your card supports it.
Raid six is a bit slower, but likely not enough that it negates it's advantages, and further there is no reason you can't have a raid 6 with a hot spare.
Hope that helps,
Steve
Eric S.
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Thanks for the clarification Steve!
shocklight
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A couple of points:
1. The Atto R348's processor (and therefore I am assuming the r380) is the older IOP 348 running at 800 Mhz. The Areca 1680 series sports the newer dual core 1200 Mhz processor. As does the $300 dollar 4320. There's no questioning Atto's support though.
2. The Atto R3xx series does not have a fan on the processor. That is a problem imo.
3. Don't know if it's been said, but the early '08 mac pro's can sport a decent internal raid. Unhook the sas cable from the logic board and plug it into your controller's internal SFF-8087 (unless you have the uberlong caldigit card you'll need an extender. Enter the MaxConnect SAS/ SATA Link). Then connect a sas to sata expander to the logic board and store your os drive (+1 room for one more if you like) in your free optical drive. 4 disk raid + bootcampable boot drive (+ internal time machine drive). (The cheaper and faster intel ssd's were introduced today. An excellent solution as they produce no heat or noise in that bay which doesn't have a fan)
Edit: I've never fooled with the 2 ODD sata ports on the logic board. But they're there for what it's worth.
1. The Atto R348's processor (and therefore I am assuming the r380) is the older IOP 348 running at 800 Mhz. The Areca 1680 series sports the newer dual core 1200 Mhz processor. As does the $300 dollar 4320. There's no questioning Atto's support though.
2. The Atto R3xx series does not have a fan on the processor. That is a problem imo.
3. Don't know if it's been said, but the early '08 mac pro's can sport a decent internal raid. Unhook the sas cable from the logic board and plug it into your controller's internal SFF-8087 (unless you have the uberlong caldigit card you'll need an extender. Enter the MaxConnect SAS/ SATA Link). Then connect a sas to sata expander to the logic board and store your os drive (+1 room for one more if you like) in your free optical drive. 4 disk raid + bootcampable boot drive (+ internal time machine drive). (The cheaper and faster intel ssd's were introduced today. An excellent solution as they produce no heat or noise in that bay which doesn't have a fan)
Edit: I've never fooled with the 2 ODD sata ports on the logic board. But they're there for what it's worth.
Rainer Fritz
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Jeff if I take the Highpoint 3510 with the single mini SAS port, can I plug in the cable to the drives which is at the moment on the logical board connected? This Apple wiring makes me crazy.
thx
rainer
thx
rainer
Helmut Kobler
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My vote is for the ATTO R380. It has two miniSas ports---I run an 8 drive Sonnet Raid off one port, and an HP Ultrium 1840 LTO4 drive off the other port. It's like two cards in one, saving a precious card slot in my Mac Pro.
And even though I'm running the raid off of one port instead of two, I still get read/write speeds off the raid of 500MB/sec, and maximum throughput when copying from the Raid to the LTO4 drive.
And even though I'm running the raid off of one port instead of two, I still get read/write speeds off the raid of 500MB/sec, and maximum throughput when copying from the Raid to the LTO4 drive.
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Jeff Kilgroe
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The Apple iPass cable is an internal mini-SAS SFF-8087 connector, you should be able to disconnect it from the logic board and connect it to the connector on the Highpoint card. However, I don't believe that the 3510 RAID controller is bootable on a Mac. There is also no way on a Mac to access the BIOS configuration utility for the card. So, even if the card is bootable, you would have to first boot from an external firewire or other OSX volume that has driver support for the card, use the HighPoint web utility to configure your RAID volumes, then put OSX onto the new RAID.
Miguel "Macgregor" De Olaso
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So on 2008 Mac pros, i just can install a couple more sata drives if i just remove the 2nd optical drive bay? That easy?
Miguel "Macgregor" De Olaso
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Hey Jeff, what about the RocketRAID 2000 or any of the lower models for using only sata drives instead of the 3510? They´re way cheaper.
Note: i need the card to be able to work as storage in a 08mac pro with Mac OS and VIsta ultimate64 with bootcamp (4-5drives in raid5).
Note: i need the card to be able to work as storage in a 08mac pro with Mac OS and VIsta ultimate64 with bootcamp (4-5drives in raid5).
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Jeff Kilgroe
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There really is no one perfect solution for a 2008 Mac Pro. Here is what is built-in to the '08 system:
* Quad-channel SATA host via single internal mini-SAS connector (iPass connector). This interface is bootable and usable for Bootcamp. The mini-SAS to SATA fan-out cable (iPass cable) inside the mac is just long enough to reach the onboard connector, but it's usually possible to disconnect it and attach it to a connector on the end of a RAID card in the top PCIe slot. Longer cables can of course be purchased, if you don't mind the hassle of routing the new wiring -- you have to disassemble a fair bit of hardware to do this.
* Dual ATA-133 hosts, one for each optical bay. These interfaces are bootable and usable for Bootcamp.
* Two-channel secondary, limited function SATA host labeled "ODD_x". These are only bootable for EFI / OSX and not usable for Bootcamp. There are no Windows drivers available for this particular SATA host. Most all '08 Mac Pros ship with nothing attached to these ports. However, I have run across a few systems that shipped just before the '09 Nehalem systems started shipping, which have optical drives connected to this interface rather than to the ATA interface. This is probably due to ODD hardware supply chain and what was available on the assembly line at the Mac Pro model transition. Some people route these two SATA ports out the rear of their Mac for eSATA functionality, but functionality is incomplete and the system does not properly regulate voltage to use the ports as true hot-swap or eSATA connections.
I am not up on what every card on the market allows for connectivity and, more importantly, if it will boot on a MAC. Most RAID cards on the market are *NOT* Mac-bootable. In addition to that, I am not aware of any that will support Bootcamp. With one half-assed exception.... That is the CalDigit RAID card. It supports Bootcamp in a round-about way. On the CalDigit card, there is a second mini-SAS connector that can be used with a short cable to connect the card back to the iPass header on the logic board. Flip a jumper switch and the card disables the primary SATA channel from the the RAID host and allows it to bypass through to the controller on the logic board. That way, the drive in bay #1 is bootable from the logic board and can be used in all the typical ways -- OS volume, can have a bootcamp partition, etc..
In my 2008 Mac Pro, I have the CalDigit RAID card. Originally, I had the iPass cable back to the logic board and used the primary drive as my OS drive with a bootcamp partition. That was just an OK solution. But I've since changed that and now have all 4 bays in a RAID-5 on the CalDigit card. I have a mini-SAS fan-out cable going from the logic board up to the second optical bay where I have two SATA drives mounted. The system thinks those two HDDs are actually the internal bay #1 and #2. One HDD is my OSX system volume, the other is Vista x64 I start with Bootcamp. Additionally, I have a CalDigit HD-Element external RAID connected. The internal RAID-5 and external Element RAID-5 are both using 4x 1.5TB Seagate drives (which like to go bad on a regular basis). I have the two RAID-5's put striped together as RAID-0 and it gives me 9TB of formatted space that can sustain 450+MB/s.
I have a new '09 Nehalem Mac Pro, but don't have any performance RAID for it yet. I'm thinking about doing one of those MAXX DIGITAL ones that Peter Majtan helped set up the reduser special for. But I'm holding my breath waiting for the 2TB HDDs. I may not be able to wait much longer though... The '09 system is becoming my workstation of choice and I just installed my RED Rocket™ into it a few minutes ago... I'm typing this post as I wait for a response as to where I can get the ROCKETcine software....
As for the HighPoint RAID cards, go to their web site -- www.highpoint-tech.com and click on the Mac tab. You can have it list all the Mac-recommended RAID cards for SAS or SATA and it will tell you if they are bootable or not. If you want a volume or partition for Bootcamp, the bootcamp drive *must* operate off the logic board SATA host. A bootcamp volume or partition can not reside on a RAID volume.
* Quad-channel SATA host via single internal mini-SAS connector (iPass connector). This interface is bootable and usable for Bootcamp. The mini-SAS to SATA fan-out cable (iPass cable) inside the mac is just long enough to reach the onboard connector, but it's usually possible to disconnect it and attach it to a connector on the end of a RAID card in the top PCIe slot. Longer cables can of course be purchased, if you don't mind the hassle of routing the new wiring -- you have to disassemble a fair bit of hardware to do this.
* Dual ATA-133 hosts, one for each optical bay. These interfaces are bootable and usable for Bootcamp.
* Two-channel secondary, limited function SATA host labeled "ODD_x". These are only bootable for EFI / OSX and not usable for Bootcamp. There are no Windows drivers available for this particular SATA host. Most all '08 Mac Pros ship with nothing attached to these ports. However, I have run across a few systems that shipped just before the '09 Nehalem systems started shipping, which have optical drives connected to this interface rather than to the ATA interface. This is probably due to ODD hardware supply chain and what was available on the assembly line at the Mac Pro model transition. Some people route these two SATA ports out the rear of their Mac for eSATA functionality, but functionality is incomplete and the system does not properly regulate voltage to use the ports as true hot-swap or eSATA connections.
I am not up on what every card on the market allows for connectivity and, more importantly, if it will boot on a MAC. Most RAID cards on the market are *NOT* Mac-bootable. In addition to that, I am not aware of any that will support Bootcamp. With one half-assed exception.... That is the CalDigit RAID card. It supports Bootcamp in a round-about way. On the CalDigit card, there is a second mini-SAS connector that can be used with a short cable to connect the card back to the iPass header on the logic board. Flip a jumper switch and the card disables the primary SATA channel from the the RAID host and allows it to bypass through to the controller on the logic board. That way, the drive in bay #1 is bootable from the logic board and can be used in all the typical ways -- OS volume, can have a bootcamp partition, etc..
In my 2008 Mac Pro, I have the CalDigit RAID card. Originally, I had the iPass cable back to the logic board and used the primary drive as my OS drive with a bootcamp partition. That was just an OK solution. But I've since changed that and now have all 4 bays in a RAID-5 on the CalDigit card. I have a mini-SAS fan-out cable going from the logic board up to the second optical bay where I have two SATA drives mounted. The system thinks those two HDDs are actually the internal bay #1 and #2. One HDD is my OSX system volume, the other is Vista x64 I start with Bootcamp. Additionally, I have a CalDigit HD-Element external RAID connected. The internal RAID-5 and external Element RAID-5 are both using 4x 1.5TB Seagate drives (which like to go bad on a regular basis). I have the two RAID-5's put striped together as RAID-0 and it gives me 9TB of formatted space that can sustain 450+MB/s.
I have a new '09 Nehalem Mac Pro, but don't have any performance RAID for it yet. I'm thinking about doing one of those MAXX DIGITAL ones that Peter Majtan helped set up the reduser special for. But I'm holding my breath waiting for the 2TB HDDs. I may not be able to wait much longer though... The '09 system is becoming my workstation of choice and I just installed my RED Rocket™ into it a few minutes ago... I'm typing this post as I wait for a response as to where I can get the ROCKETcine software....
As for the HighPoint RAID cards, go to their web site -- www.highpoint-tech.com and click on the Mac tab. You can have it list all the Mac-recommended RAID cards for SAS or SATA and it will tell you if they are bootable or not. If you want a volume or partition for Bootcamp, the bootcamp drive *must* operate off the logic board SATA host. A bootcamp volume or partition can not reside on a RAID volume.
Last edited:
Miguel "Macgregor" De Olaso
Well-known member
Thanks for the long answer.
THe thing is that i don´t need a bootable raid, as i said, i just need the raid for storage. So my idea right now is to have something similar to what you have:
- 4 bays with 4 drives on raid5
- 2 extra sata connections with 2 drives using the MaxConnect. One drive as the primary drive of the system with mac os/vista, the other just for safe storage.
This is why i was asking about cheaper cards for an alternative. I´m not a computer engineer and i don´t want to become one, so i hope i´m able to get a clear view of where to connect so many cable adapters (ipass, minisas...).
THe thing is that i don´t need a bootable raid, as i said, i just need the raid for storage. So my idea right now is to have something similar to what you have:
- 4 bays with 4 drives on raid5
- 2 extra sata connections with 2 drives using the MaxConnect. One drive as the primary drive of the system with mac os/vista, the other just for safe storage.
This is why i was asking about cheaper cards for an alternative. I´m not a computer engineer and i don´t want to become one, so i hope i´m able to get a clear view of where to connect so many cable adapters (ipass, minisas...).
Rocco Schult
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Don'r forget the lower cost Highpoint controllers are somewhat restricted. While HP prints SAS expander compatibility, they are in fact not. They just replied after I built a system on that feature with an expander equipped HDD cage [and said they support expander in driver level, but not in BIOS level, wha'ever].
Itay away from Highpoint. My '02 cents go to 3ware. Exquisite support and performance, working under OSX and XP. No experience about booting in OSX though.
Itay away from Highpoint. My '02 cents go to 3ware. Exquisite support and performance, working under OSX and XP. No experience about booting in OSX though.
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Jeff Kilgroe
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I don't have any experience with 3Ware under OSX... Their OSX support is very new, like only maybe within the past year. But 3Ware cards have been awesome on Windows and Linux for years. I would definitely give one a try on OSX if it fit my needs.
Other than that, I can't say enough good things about the ATTO cards and their support, they don't really have any "cheap" RAID offerings though.
Macgregor, the MaxConnect stuff, like their SAS/SATA link are designed to simplify a lot of this stuff. What you want to do should be pretty easy, but if you give MaxUpgrades a call, they can hook you up with a couple options for additional HDDs in that optical bay. They sell a couple different RAID controllers too, not sure which ones or may be able to recommend one.
The HighPoint cards are nice, but like Rocco points out, some of the cheaper options are limited. Same with the cards from Areca -- nice, but cheaper ones have limited functionality. Most of the cheaper ones from both suppliers don't support SAS expanders and multi-port multipliers like he points out. This is not an issue for internal connectivity, but if you ever want to add external enclosures this can become an issue.
Other than that, I can't say enough good things about the ATTO cards and their support, they don't really have any "cheap" RAID offerings though.
Macgregor, the MaxConnect stuff, like their SAS/SATA link are designed to simplify a lot of this stuff. What you want to do should be pretty easy, but if you give MaxUpgrades a call, they can hook you up with a couple options for additional HDDs in that optical bay. They sell a couple different RAID controllers too, not sure which ones or may be able to recommend one.
The HighPoint cards are nice, but like Rocco points out, some of the cheaper options are limited. Same with the cards from Areca -- nice, but cheaper ones have limited functionality. Most of the cheaper ones from both suppliers don't support SAS expanders and multi-port multipliers like he points out. This is not an issue for internal connectivity, but if you ever want to add external enclosures this can become an issue.
Ricardo Reyes
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Jeff,
The Areca cards do not have limited funtionality. All Areca SAS controllers, like the ARC-1680 series support SAS expanders. In fact, Areca has their own SAS expander solution available that was built around the Areca controller, delivering unmatched performance.
The CineRAID line of storage solutions (www.CineRAID.com) was built on the Areca RAID Controller and include Areca IO boards, SAS expanders and RAID cards.
I know Miguel is not looking for a bootable RAID controller, but Areca cards are MAC OSX bootable if needed.
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Jeff Kilgroe
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Ricardo, that's good to know. I have apparently been mis-informed.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Ricardo Reyes
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By the way, if your in the Los Angeles Area.
Areca and CineRAID will be showing their solutions with Iridas using Red R3D workflows at the RED Los Angeles User Group on 8/1/09.
This would be a great opportunity to take a look at CineRAID's OnSet Recording and Grading systems as well as the CineRAID's EditPRO storage systems featuring Areca RAID technology.
For more info:
RED Los Angeles User Group
August 1st, 2009
9am to Noon
www.redusergroupla.com
Areca and CineRAID will be showing their solutions with Iridas using Red R3D workflows at the RED Los Angeles User Group on 8/1/09.
This would be a great opportunity to take a look at CineRAID's OnSet Recording and Grading systems as well as the CineRAID's EditPRO storage systems featuring Areca RAID technology.
For more info:
RED Los Angeles User Group
August 1st, 2009
9am to Noon
www.redusergroupla.com