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5th hard drive pros or cons

F

faumble

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 8, 2008
141
0
I am going to install a 5th hard drive on a mac pro, already have the other 4 slots occupied, but after reading some comments sounds like it might not be a good but still cant find out why, so wanted to make sure if it could be bad in someway to install a 5th hd on the free optical space?
Thanks in advance
 
There's no problem installing a 5th Hard Drive, it will work perfectly with OS X, all you have to do is get a SATA connection from the spare SATA connector on the motherboard to the drive and get power to the drive (if it doesn't have a Molex power connection).

The only problem that I came across is that Windows won't see the 5th drive for some reason, so you can't use that drive for Boot Camp.
 
What about an external enclosure?

I have 4 sata drives installed internally in my MacPro, in external enclosures I have 4 more sata drives, connected to the MacPro by firewire 800.
 
Firewire 800 is a beautiful thing! Take advantage of it.

Also, a $22 part will give you 2 ESATA ports!
 
Thanks, will be going the esata route since firewire is kind of slow and the 5th hd might bring some trouble as I suspected, so if anyone has recommendations of esata port I would greatly appreciate it :) Thanks in advance.
GotPro, could you please give me a link to the $22 esata port?
 
faumble said:
Thanks, will be going the esata route since firewire is kind of slow and the 5th hd might bring some trouble as I suspected, so if anyone has recommendations of esata port I would greatly appreciate it :) Thanks in advance.
GotPro, could you please give me a link to the $22 esata port?
Click to expand...

The "$22" port just connects to the same extra sata ports on the board. It would be the same as installing the 5th drive.
 
Thanks GotPro!
So now I am searching for recommendations for a pci esata card for the early 2008 mac pro, any recommendations? :) Thanks in advance.
 
NATO said:
There's no problem installing a 5th Hard Drive, it will work perfectly with OS X, all you have to do is get a SATA connection from the spare SATA connector on the motherboard to the drive and get power to the drive (if it doesn't have a Molex power connection).

The only problem that I came across is that Windows won't see the 5th drive for some reason, so you can't use that drive for Boot Camp.
Click to expand...

I second that. Actually, I use both spare SATA connectors. This is what I use:

1. external SATA connector http://www.newertech.com/products/esata_cable.php
2. miniG External SATA 2-drive solution http://www.transintl.com/store/category.cfm?Category=2599#top

I put the original 320GB that came with the MP into that enclosure (use as a clone) and add another 1TB Seagate ES2 and use as TimeMachine backup

Everything works well. But as NATO mentioned, Windows will NOT see the 2 connected drives. No solution yet so far. Worse yet, I also have the APPLE RAID card... so BOOTCAMP is out of the question for me :(
 
kittiyut said:
I second that. Actually, I use both spare SATA connectors. This is what I use:

1. external SATA connector http://www.newertech.com/products/esata_cable.php
2. miniG External SATA 2-drive solution http://www.transintl.com/store/category.cfm?Category=2599#top

I put the original 320GB that came with the MP into that enclosure (use as a clone) and add another 1TB Seagate ES2 and use as TimeMachine backup

Everything works well. But as NATO mentioned, Windows will NOT see the 2 connected drives. No solution yet so far. Worse yet, I also have the APPLE RAID card... so BOOTCAMP is out of the question for me :(
Click to expand...

kitty,

i know you're very bitter about the Apple RAID card. i don't blame you in some ways. But boot camp is not out of the question. You can always remove 1 drive the from the array and use as the boot camp drive??

What about reEFIt?
 
thanks, appreciate it, but I need windows to recognize the hd, so which esata card would you recommend me?
Thanks in advance,
-J
 
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