Red Rocket PCIE setup...?

[Jeff Brown]

So I've just got my Red Rocket and wondering how people are best configuring their PCIE lanes.

I've got an early 2008 Mac Pro with 2 x 16x and 2 x 4x slots and at the moment hve the following:

16x - ATI graphics card
16x ATTO H360 for LTO
4 x Blackmagic video card
4 x Rocket Raid 2314 for 3 x esata external storage boxes

So what are my options?

Get a fan cable SAS to 4x esata and lose the rocketraid, move the Atto to a 4x slot and use the 16x for the red rocket?

How much speed do I lose that way?

Can I move the graphics card to a slower lane - is that a problem?

Just buy a newer tower with faster lanes?


Any tips appreciated!

Regards

Jeff Brown

Brownianmotion.co.uk

 

[Kaku Ito]

16x ATI
8x RR
4x ATTO
4x BMD

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

16x ATI
8x RR
4x ATTO
4x BMD

I agree. Perhaps place the ATTO in the top slot for better access if you're leaning over the top of the system to attach devices, like I often am.

In my '09 Nehalem tower, I have:

X16 1> nVidia 285
X16 2> RED Rocket
X04 3> Kona3
X04 4> ATTO H680

In the new Mac Pro systems for this year, all slots are PCI-E 2.0 so I went with the ATTO H680 for two reasons. One is that it supports the latest SATA-3 and SAS 6Gbps spec, but more so because it's a PCI-E 2.0 card, which will give me 2GB/s bandwidth in that X4 2.0 slot, whereas the ATTO 3xx series would top out at 1GB/s in that same slot. ATTO hasn't released their R6xx cards yet... The Kona3 is nice, but overkill, I'm currently borrowing it from someone. I actually was going to get the Kona LHi, but it seems to be having issues for a lot of people when not installed in slot 2 on the Mac Pro... Apple needs to be making these systems with all X16 slots. There's no logical reason for them to only be offering 4 PCI-E slots in a "pro" workstation and then to cripple two of the slots by making them X4. What a joke.

 

[Jeff Brown]

Thanks guys.

So I got it wrong I actually have an ATO to H680 - will putting that in a 4x slot slow it a lot?
Also is using a sas-4x estata fan cable going to slow things down?

Forgot to say my mac pro is the 20087 one that doesn't have the expansion slot utility - it's just fixed as 2 x 16 and 2x 4.

Cheers

Jeff Brown

 

[Kaku Ito]

Jeff,

The reason why I'd put R380 to the 3rd is because it gets hot and malfunction sometime.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

(snip)Apple needs to be making these systems with all X16 slots. There's no logical reason for them to only be offering 4 PCI-E slots in a "pro" workstation and then to cripple two of the slots by making them X4. What a joke.

:iagree: Jeff's point is especially true now that the iMac, Mini and the laptops are more than capable of satisfying over 90% of Apple's customer base.

The only buyers interested in towers are power users. At the established price points it is not unreasonable to expect workstation level slots, buses, interfaces, etc.

Come on Apple. And while you're at it, how about proper support for current graphics protocols so we can get the most out of the newest GPUs from nVidia.

Cheers- #19

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

In Apple's defense, though. The Intel X58 "Tylersburg" chipset only supports 40 PCI-E 2.0 lanes, so Apple is using all of them by providing two X16 and two X4 slots. ...There is however the ability to extend the PCI-E host with an additional 40 lanes via a secondary chipset and some high-end PC mainboards are doing this. nVidia is providing 80 lanes or more in some of their high-end chipsets for quad-SLI plus additional devices.

As for the other comments above. I haven't experienced the overheat and shutdown with the R380 cards I've used and I have one in my '08 Mac pro. ATTO card in the top slot...

No PCI-E lane utility in '08 and '09 Mac Pro systems, only in the '06 models.

In my '09 Mac Pro, I have the ATTO H680 in slot #4. In the '09 nehalem models all slots are PCI-E 2.0, whereas in the '08 Mac pros only the two X16 slots are 2.0 slots. The H680 is a v2.0 card and I chose it for this reason as well as its support for the latest SATA2 / SAS 6Gbps spec. It is capable of up to 2GB/s in this system in that slot. In an '08 Mac Pro, it would be limited to half the bandwidth, or 1GB/s. In most cases, this isn't going to slow it down. There's only a total of two mini-SAS ports or 8 channels with no onboard RAID functionality. It's unlikely that you would max out the 1GB/s limit of that hardware combination in most situations. Possible, but unlikely unless you're attaching external hardware-RAID units with port multipliers. If that's the case, then you may want to move the Rocket over to an X4 slot and cut it's potential bandwidth in half. Which should still give more than enough throughput for processing 4K at 30fps.

I use a mini-SAS to 4 x eSATA fan-out cable to connect all my eSATA devices. Works great.

 

[Jeff Brown]

Many thanks chaps - most useful.

So I will be buying that new 09 mac pro after all....!


Jeff Brown
brownianmotion.co.uk