any other raid cards other then the ones on macs site for mac pro?suggestions?

[cultureofmusik]

any suggestions please. im trying to go raid with my mac pro . im looking at getting 2 150 gig raptors 10k rpm but im not sure on which raid card would work best with these drives? and i cant afford more then $250. Can anyone plz help me in suggesting any fast raid cards compatible with my mac quad pro and these 2 sata raptor drives?
my raid setup would be at 0 running 2 of the 150 GB 10 k raptors.
now which card to use with these ? in the $250 range (fastest possible) thnx..

I have a mac quad pro dual core 2.66 intel xeon...Using OS X 10.5.2 -leopard

I was looking at this card but im new to mac and not sure if this would be compatible with the setup.. ( if anyone could tell me, id greatly appreciate it !!.. )

RocketRAID 2310 4 Port PCI Express SATA II RAID Host Controller

4 Port PCI Express x4 Card
SATA II and SATA I hard drive support
Up to 300MB/s for each SATA II drive port
Supports RAID level 0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD
Online Capacity Expansion and Online RAID Level Migration (OCE/ORLM)
Native Command Queuing (NCQ)
SAF-TE enclosure management
Includes low profile bracket for installation in low profile chassis
Hard drive activity and Failed LED support
Staggered drive spin-up support
Hot swap and hot spare
Write-through and write-back cache support
Quick and Background initialization for quick RAID configuration
Online array roaming
BIOS booting support (INT13)
64bit LBA for over 2TB support
Automatic RAID rebuild of failed drive
S.M.A.R.T drive monitoring for status and reliability
Browser-based RAID management software
Command Line Interface (CLI)
SMTP for email notification
Operating system support for Windows, Windows x64 Editions, Linux (open source), FreeBSD (open source) and Mac OS X

 

[PowerPaw]

There are plenty of posts on this topic and suggested RAID cards which I followed not too long ago. I too was interested in doing something very similar and had taken a really good look at the various offerings out there as the Mac card was expensive and had battery problems. I found that some cards boot OS X others don't, some have battery backup, some support ACPI etc. Eventually I had got it down to the RocketRAID 3510 and then started looking around for a price. I was looking at Newegg at the customer reviews... well take a look for yourself

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115048&Tpk=rocketraid 3510

Not a good story.

I then realised that adding a RIAD card could be a huge risk and cost $$$ - what if it goes wrong. I have worked with enterprise server RAID for many years but looking at the compatibility problems for low-end open systems machines I soon remembered what all that qualification and testing is about.

So what is the benefit of a RAID card? RAID 5 seems to be one of them, adding huge numbers of disk devices is another for applications where high server IO is required; if that is not what you are after take a look at some bench marks using software RAID - yes Mac OS X boots from software RAID 0. Sure there are some benefits of having that 256MB of cache on the more expensive cards but then look at some of the performance results on a system actually doing some useful work and not running a benchmark test, especially when we are talking about two disks.

The 10K Raptors on their own will give you a nice boost for your system and apps and you could save yourself a few more $$$ if you just go with one 300GB drive as RAID 0 will give you a little more performance but I am not sure if it is really going to be worth it when balanced against the relative risk of something going wrong with your RAID 0. A lot less hassle that going with RAID.

BTW for the new Mac Pros you need to get the WD3000HLFS drives where the S-ATA connector is correctly located for the backplane, also there may be some additional cabling depending on your model - not sure.

Just my 2 cents

 

[nanofrog]

any suggestions please. im trying to go raid with my mac pro . im looking at getting 2 150 gig raptors 10k rpm but im not sure on which raid card would work best with these drives? and i cant afford more then $250. Can anyone plz help me in suggesting any fast raid cards compatible with my mac quad pro and these 2 sata raptor drives?
my raid setup would be at 0 running 2 of the 150 GB 10 k raptors.
now which card to use with these ? in the $250 range (fastest possible) thnx..

I have a mac quad pro dual core 2.66 intel xeon...Using OS X 10.5.2 -leopard

I was looking at this card but im new to mac and not sure if this would be compatible with the setup.. ( if anyone could tell me, id greatly appreciate it !!.. )

RocketRAID 2310 4 Port PCI Express SATA II RAID Host Controller

4 Port PCI Express x4 Card
SATA II and SATA I hard drive support
Up to 300MB/s for each SATA II drive port
Supports RAID level 0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD
Online Capacity Expansion and Online RAID Level Migration (OCE/ORLM)
Native Command Queuing (NCQ)
SAF-TE enclosure management
Includes low profile bracket for installation in low profile chassis
Hard drive activity and Failed LED support
Staggered drive spin-up support
Hot swap and hot spare
Write-through and write-back cache support
Quick and Background initialization for quick RAID configuration
Online array roaming
BIOS booting support (INT13)
64bit LBA for over 2TB support
Automatic RAID rebuild of failed drive
S.M.A.R.T drive monitoring for status and reliability
Browser-based RAID management software
Command Line Interface (CLI)
SMTP for email notification
Operating system support for Windows, Windows x64 Editions, Linux (open source), FreeBSD (open source) and Mac OS X

For a 2 drive RAID 0, a hardware card won't make a difference, and be a waste of money. If you were after RAID 5/50/6/60, then it's absolutely needed.

The RR2310 will work with a Mac, but you need to pay attention to the cabling. It uses standard SATA connections, but the drive cable used in the Mac is a single SFF-8087 connector (mini SAS). An adapter is needed, and one is offered by MaxUpgrades, IIRC. You might also want to look at newegg's customer reviews for the 2310. The RR3510 doesn't support Mac.

You might also want to note, that the RocketRAID gear only works with one OS, as different firmware is required for Mac and Windows/Linux. Not just different drivers. Not a problem if you stick to OS X, but it won't work if you want to use it in a multiple OS environment.

The next step up would likely be either CalDigit or Accusys. Beyond that, you get into ATTO or Areca. Very high end, but worth it if you require such a card. Any of these will beat Apple's (too expensive, has issues, and too slow) offering IMO.

If you plan to do more with it in the future, it might help if you give more information.

# drives
RAID type
OS environment, including Boot Camp
internal, external, both
if you need boot support

 

[TSparger]

Take a look at CalDigit Raid card. It's not much less than the Apple Raid card, but it looks pretty nice.

 

[nanofrog]

Take a look at CalDigit Raid card. It's not much less than the Apple Raid card, but it looks pretty nice.

Around the Holidays, a thread was started about an offer of the CalDigit for $320USD. Even it's regular price of $520, last I looked, was cheaper than the $800 Apple wants for their crap...err...offering.