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Adding eSATA to 2009 Mac Pro Octo

T

tanousjm

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 5, 2009
41
0
Hi everyone,
I am a new Mac Pro owner (2009 8x2.26) and I have used up all my internal SATA connections on two software RAIDs for OSX (including the second optical drive bay).

I also need to run Windows via Boot Camp and I'm hoping that I can use an external drive via an eSATA connection. I've seen various eSATA PCI-Express cards on sites like NewEgg and OWC, but I'm not sure if they create new eSATA ports from the PCI-Express connection, or if they need to be connected internally to SATA port on the motherboard. I don't need RAID or anything fancy for this connection, just a way to plug an eSATA cable into a PCI express card and then connect that to a fast external hard drive.

Does anyone have any experience with this and could you recommend a product? Is this even possible?

Thank you for you help!

-Jim
 
Thank you so much for your quick replies! The card is ordered and on the way.

Update: Actually, I just temporarily cancelled my order as I noticed that the card is listed as compatible with Mac Pro 2006-2008 systems (I got all excited and jumped the gun). Does anyone know if this will work with my 2009 Mac Pro?
 
tanousjm said:
Thank you so much for your quick replies! The card is ordered and on the way.

Update: Actually, I just temporarily cancelled my order as I noticed that the card is listed as compatible with Mac Pro 2006-2008 systems (I got all excited and jumped the gun). Does anyone know if this will work with my 2009 Mac Pro?
Click to expand...

Damn looks like it is not from this blurb near the bottom of the page.

(5) Not compatible with Mac Pro (Early 2009), nor with slot 2 (PCIe 2.0 slot) in Mac Pro (Early 2008).
Click to expand...

You may want to email to confirm this is still true.
 
tanousjm said:
Thank you so much for your quick replies! The card is ordered and on the way.

Update: Actually, I just temporarily cancelled my order as I noticed that the card is listed as compatible with Mac Pro 2006-2008 systems (I got all excited and jumped the gun). Does anyone know if this will work with my 2009 Mac Pro?
Click to expand...

The driver doesn't work in Snow Leopard. OS puts up a dialog saying its not compatible and moves it to another location.
 
Yeah, this does seem like a needlessly complicated task. I imagine that there are lots of Mac Pro owners who would need additional hard drive connectivity.

If I can't find anything, would booting Boot Camp from an external FW800 drive work? If so, how bad of a performance hit would it be compared to eSATA?

Thanks again for everyone's responses!
 
Boot camp will only work with a SATA drive. It is possible to use a Windows install from a USB drive, but not Firewire.
 
Thanks for your replies, everyone. I have been unable to find a product that will work with the 2009 Mac Pros; I don't know what changed in terms of PCI Express compatibility between the 2008 and 2009 models, but it was something big, as all the products I've looked at don't work with the 2009s.

I've resorted to reducing my scratch disk RAID from 3 drives down to 2, and running boot camp off that now free drive. It's working great and I guess the ability to run my Windows applications is worth losing about 100MB/s on that RAID.

If anyone ever finds a product for the 2009 Mac Pros, please let us know!
 
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