Mac Pro updates: is hardware RAID for the internal drives a likely update?

[moreover]

I'm tempted to get a Mac Pro but I'm wondering what's in store for the next update of this new line. I'd love to see the possibility of doing a hardware RAID with the internal drives. Has there been talk that this might be in the pipeline? I don't care for processor upgrades but this one would make we wait.
At the same time I hear that people seem to be quite happy with Apple's software raid, and even more so with SoftRaid (even though the latter is not cheap).
I could hold out with my G5 for some time but would prefer to sell it soon before it loses even more value.

[SPG]

I just striped 3 drives together and they're plenty fast.
How much speed do you need that 3 drives running together each with their own channel isn't enough?

[slughead]

Apple wont do RAID. Most people who buy Mac Pros don't need it.

Moreover, intel mobos rarely support RAID from what I've seen.

[aneks]

Apple wont do RAID. Most people who buy Mac Pros don't need it.

Moreover, intel mobos rarely support RAID from what I've seen.
HUH ?
except for those of us using it for things like final cut, shake, motion, after effects, cinema 4d, maya or anything else that benefits from fast drive transfers. Apple's decsion to disable hardware RAID on this board, (yes it does have it and it works awesome on most intel 5000x boards) is baffling !?

Considering how much apple push themselves into the video market I guess this is jsut a ploy to push high-end users to X-RAIDS

[slughead]

HUH ?
except for those of us using it for things like final cut, shake, motion, after effects, cinema 4d, maya or anything else that benefits from fast drive transfers. Apple's decsion to disable hardware RAID on this board, (yes it does have it and it works awesome on most intel 5000x boards) is baffling !?

Considering how much apple push themselves into the video market I guess this is jsut a ploy to push high-end users to X-RAIDS


Woop. Didn't know that the 5000x supported HW RAID.

In some ways, I prefer Apple's software RAID--you can plug the drives into any mac you want without messing with anything.

I use a 2x300GB RAID-0 (internal) for video editing and whatnot.

Yes, many of us could use hardware RAID, but MOST mac pro users wouldn't. Besides, that would mean Apple would have to include 2 hard drives.. to squeeze a 250GB out of them was like pulling teeth.

[ieko]

I'd personally like to make a hardware RAID 5 with a MacPro but formatted in NTFS so my all my machines could use it. Is there a way to do this?

[slughead]

I'd personally like to make a hardware RAID 5 with a MacPro but formatted in NTFS so my all my machines could use it. Is there a way to do this?

External firewire with a RAID-5 bridgeboard.

And Mac OS X CANNOT WRITE TO NTFS VOLUMES.

Currently, there's no 'format' which can be read and written under both OS's except fat-32 which only supports 32bit addressing (which is like 32 gigs or something).

[SPG]

I just striped 3 drives together and they're plenty fast.
How much speed do you need that 3 drives running together each with their own channel isn't enough?

To answer my own question, the speed is no longer the issue on the OSX side. This RAID is plenty fast, but it doesn't show up on the WinXP side even with MacDrive...bummer. Now I need to edit and then transfer the completed quicktime file to another single drive for Encoding on the PC side.

[ieko]

External firewire with a RAID-5 bridgeboard.

And Mac OS X CANNOT WRITE TO NTFS VOLUMES.

Currently, there's no 'format' which can be read and written under both OS's except fat-32 which only supports 32bit addressing (which is like 32 gigs or something).

Are you sure? I can save things from my G5 onto a RAID (NTFS) on one of my XP machines.

I want the RAID to be internal, so external isn't an option.

[Counterfit]

If the NTFS volume is mounted on a machine that can write to it (Windows, Linux?), the client OS is pretty much moot, because the client doesn't interface directly with the file system.

[slughead]

Are you sure? I can save things from my G5 onto a RAID (NTFS) on one of my XP machines.

I want the RAID to be internal, so external isn't an option.

I'm positive. You must be doing it through a network.

In order to have a RAID 5, you must do it through a controller. The controller must be the same no matter what. This means that moving the drives from 1 computer to another is impossible once the RAID is setup (your partition just wont show up.

Therefore, a removable controller (such as a firewire bridgeboard) is your only option.

If you want to use a network, everything will work great! Over a network FILE SYSTEM DOES NOT MATTER! You can use HFS+ and it'll work fine. Just keep the drives in 1 machine at all times. If you do that, it doesn't matter how you set it up or what filesystem you use.

[ieko]

I'm positive. You must be doing it through a network.

In order to have a RAID 5, you must do it through a controller. The controller must be the same no matter what. This means that moving the drives from 1 computer to another is impossible once the RAID is setup (your partition just wont show up.

Therefore, a removable controller (such as a firewire bridgeboard) is your only option.

If you want to use a network, everything will work great! Over a network FILE SYSTEM DOES NOT MATTER! You can use HFS+ and it'll work fine. Just keep the drives in 1 machine at all times. If you do that, it doesn't matter how you set it up or what filesystem you use.
Ohh, okay. Yeah my RAID is ony a Windows XP machine and it's shared over the network.