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Apple RAID card - need answer!

kittiyut said:
My question is, since the drives are connected to the RAID
card, will that leave SATA connections on the motherboard for me to use the
above eSATA extended cable (the first link you posted) so that I can connect
my external SATA drives? Thanks!:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Good question, I'd like to understand this, too. I bought the RAID card and an eSATA card with this plan in mind:

4 x 1 TB in Raid5 (internal)
1 x 160GB Raptor (internal - in ODD space using one of two spare SATA ports)
2x250 software RAID0 (external using eSATA card).

Do I need the eSATA card or can I just use an external cable adapter off the motherboard now that I have the RAID card?

I should have the computer in a week so I guess I can figure this out then, but it'd be nice to know now...
 
kittiyut said:
Hey Newtech: I ordered my Mac with the RAID card option and plan to attach
4 1TB drives to it. My question is, since the drives are connected to the RAID
card, will that leave SATA connections on the motherboard for me to use the
above eSATA extended cable (the first link you posted) so that I can connect
my external SATA drives? Thanks!:rolleyes:

PS. BTW what does ODD stand for? Optical Disk Drive?
Click to expand...

The internal drives connect to a cable harness not directly to the MLB. The harness gets disconnected from the MLB to attach to the RAID card, leaving the connector on the MLB free to use for other drives.

ODD = Optical disc drive


The four HDD supported by the MLB are accessed via an iPass connector, the two ODD SATA are standard SATA ports, The RAID card also interfaces to its drives via an iPass connector. The internal drive harness is iPass -> 4 SATA.
 
I just went through this so I'll share what I've learned. My old and new setup configurations are below.

Old Setup:
2x250GB software RAID0 - Boot
500GB backup drive - nightly backups from my boot drive
74GB raptor - Windows XP bootcamp drive

New Setup:
Internal -
4x750GB Apple RAID5 - Two volumes; 300GB-OS, 1.5TB-Home directories and Storage
2xAsus Sata DVD Burners - ODD ports
External -
2x250GB software RAID0 - Photoshop/FCP scratch, misc
500GB - haven't really figured out what I want to do with it yet.
74GB - Windows XP bootcamp drive

And here's how I have it all hooked up

Apple Raid Card installed normally to the Mac Pro Sata backplane.

Logic Board iPass - iPass to Sata cable - Sata extension - Sata to eSata PCI bracket - 4-Bay eSata enclosure.

I got my iPass to Sata cable from newark and had to use Sata extensions as it wasn't long enough. I just now ordered the cable that newtech posted as it should be long enough to reach from the logic board iPass connector all the way to the back of the machine and should help to cleanup the inside a little bit. Thanks newtech!!!


http://www.newark.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?SKU=13M3656
http://www.satagear.com/PCI-SATA-1A1.html
 
2 Question for you guys: (from a raid dummy)

1-Can I simply install a raptor 750 on my mac pro as a normal drive and do not have to set up any raid?

2-What should be on my raptor since my new Mac Pro should come with the minimum size apple factory hard drive? Should I put all my apps on the small 320gb or should it be on the raptor for a gain of speed?
 
can someone answer my simple question?

i know the mac is cableless - easy plug and swap drives right? so if i wanted to wire two of my four internal drives to the the raid card how does this work? I don't have a mac pro to look at so i don't get it till someone tells me whats up. i can apple and take a half hour trying to get someone on the phone that knows but i was hoping you guys could help. this is the only issue holding me back right now. please. i hope it is such as simply attaching a cable to the drive.
 
Personally, I wouldn't bother with the RAID card.

For a lot less money, I have ordered a NAS enclosure with RAID support for 2 drives and as well as supporting a gigabit connection, it has a built in FTP server so I can access my files from anywhere in the world.
 
gazfocus said:
Personally, I wouldn't bother with the RAID card.

For a lot less money, I have ordered a NAS enclosure with RAID support for 2 drives and as well as supporting a gigabit connection, it has a built in FTP server so I can access my files from anywhere in the world.
Click to expand...

Link?
 
Bass108 said:
can someone answer my simple question?

i know the mac is cableless - easy plug and swap drives right? so if i wanted to wire two of my four internal drives to the the raid card how does this work? I don't have a mac pro to look at so i don't get it till someone tells me whats up. i can apple and take a half hour trying to get someone on the phone that knows but i was hoping you guys could help. this is the only issue holding me back right now. please. i hope it is such as simply attaching a cable to the drive.
Click to expand...

You will not be able to wire only two drives to the raid card. It's all or nothing. I haven't tried it myself but you might be able to create a single drive array, RAID1 or JBOD perhaps.
 
wtf?!

so it has to be in say an external enclosure coming in and then wired to the card?

you can't rewire the internal drives to the card?
 
im also interested in 4-5 internals as raid 5 and another one raptor as boot drive, etc.. is this possible?
 
Bass108 said:
wtf?!

so it has to be in say an external enclosure coming in and then wired to the card?

you can't rewire the internal drives to the card?
Click to expand...

Sorry, let me clarify a little bit. You most definately can, and should, run the internal drives to the raid card. You can't split up the group of drives, they must be kept in groups of four drives. So you could potentially run four external drives off of the raid card and leave the internal drives hooked up to the logic board. I believe the prefered way of doing it is to run the internal drives off of the raid card and then use the logic board iPass connector for any external drives.

You can't run two internal drives to the raid card and two internal drives to the logic board. I hope this all makes sense. Let me know if it needs more clarification.
 
phildog33 said:
im also interested in 4-5 internals as raid 5 and another one raptor as boot drive, etc.. is this possible?
Click to expand...

As edesignuk mentioned, you will only be able to run a 4 drive raid 5. Assuming you only have one superdrive, I would just mount the raptor under the superdrive and run it off of the ODD_SATA port. That would work perfectly as long as you don't intent on running Windows.
 
wait so the raptor cant go into bootcamp? if its under the ODD and going to teh onboard Sata? seems like ti would just be another internal at the point, and unraided... it should bootcamp ok

?
 
phildog33 said:
wait so the raptor cant go into bootcamp? if its under the ODD and going to teh onboard Sata? seems like ti would just be another internal at the point, and unraided... it should bootcamp ok

?
Click to expand...

The ODD_SATA ports are not visible when using Bootcamp unfortunately. It's possible but you'll have to use a patched version of Grub to boot Windows. The easiest way, and the way I do it, is to use the logic board iPass connector to run your drive externally. I can confirm that this works perfectly.

I'm in the process of getting my ODD_SATA ports to work in Windows so that I can use my two SATA burners in XP. Check out this thread for more details. They're talking about getting them to work in Windows software raid but it also applies in our situation. We just need those ports to be in AHCI mode instead of Legacy IDE.

http://forum.onmac.net/showthread.php?t=2739
 
i get what your saying now. this wouldn't be a problem with a pc...but then again i guess thats why i don't want a pc :p

ok...i don't want my program drive on the raid. i just wanted a 0 config for a sample drive for virtual instruments and possible a raid 1 with an audio drive, which i have given up on.

i will in any case go with an external case. i would love to run the card through my logic board...but i don't want to have my program on an external...seems just odd to me...


i could always say screw the apple card and go with the firmtek raid card they have...

http://firmtek.stores.yahoo.net/sata2es2e.html

any thoughts? i should have just said screw raid...but i have a computer in the process of shipping. i'm thinking the apple card is better and i get the option of running SAS drives later...maybe when they are cheaper and not as noisy...sounds better to me.

so would you guys stick with the apple card and go with the external setup if you were in place?

i also don't like the idea of having four drives on a raid inside my comp...seems like a lot of heat and being an audio guy i would like to keep down on noise and heat...it gets mighty hot in recording areas.
 
another thing...how hard is it to mount the program drive to the odd? and does anyone know for sure that you can have a raid card with two drives in 0 and two in 1?

just weighing out options here.
 
Can disk utility run two internal disks (in my case, not the boot disk) in RAID 1+0? I current have the drives mirrored using RAID 1, but would love to get the speed of striping plus the reliability of mirroring.
 
Bass108 said:
another thing...how hard is it to mount the program drive to the odd? and does anyone know for sure that you can have a raid card with two drives in 0 and two in 1?

just weighing out options here.
Click to expand...

Mounting the drive below the superdrive is actually pretty straightforward. You'll need a 5 1/4 to 3 1/2 drive adapter to physically make it fit and then you'll just need to hook it up electrically. There's an extra 4-pin molex connector already there and you can get a 4-pin molex to sata power adapter if your drive only accepts the sata power connector. The hardest part is going to be getting the sata data cable hooked up. I've heard that you can do it without removing anything from the computer with a pair of needle nose pliers but I found it easier to take the machine apart. The front fan assembly is what's in the way, but in order to remove it you have to move a bunch of other stuff out of the way. Pretty simple and I've done it so many times that it only takes me about 5 minutes now. Let me know if you want exact details on how to remove the front fan. O yeah, you're going to want a right angle sata cable or you'll have interference with the fan.

The Apple RAID Card will absolutely let you do a two drive raid 0 and a two drive raid 1.
 
netdog said:
Can disk utility run two internal disks (in my case, not the boot disk) in RAID 1+0? I current have the drives mirrored using RAID 1, but would love to get the speed of striping plus the reliability of mirroring.
Click to expand...

You need four drives in order to do a RAID0+1. I know that its possible to do it using Disk Utility but I don't have the specifics as I've never done it myself. I'm pretty sure there's a preferred order for creating the array. A quick search should help you out.
 
thanks mr. stangboy.

glad to hear someone knows that about the card.

i think i will go hold off on sticking 5 drives in the computer for now. but i may change my mind. i will probably go with the external setup unless firmtek tries to tell me otherwise. i will consider using the odd another day. but why exactly is the data cable such a problem? taking a fan apart does seem like a more intensive project...i would be interested in how to do it in case if ever need be and having it on the post would probably be beneficial to anyone looking at this post later.

is their any concern in doing this setup with a raptor in the odd...because i am sure it doesn't play as nice as say regular SATA-300 drives.

and hey if do sas later and want to hook them up to the card...then it just works as a controller? how does that work? Can you mix SATA and SAS i know apple says not too but i with all this raid talk i would think that would also have to have them in RAID if your using your raid card? not sure...something else to complicate things eh?

<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~trying to understand the lovely world of raid
 
netdog said:
Can disk utility run two internal disks (in my case, not the boot disk) in RAID 1+0? I current have the drives mirrored using RAID 1, but would love to get the speed of striping plus the reliability of mirroring.
Click to expand...

Y.E.S.

You just have to parse it together via terminal, it is just couple one line commands,nothing complicated.

Just put first two disks to a raid1 together (A+B and C+D) with disk utility and parse those two together to E via terminal.


Just remember to put them to raid10 not raid0+1. Raid10 can theoretically survive a 2 disk crash (of 4 disks) as raid0+1 can only survive 1 disk crash.
So no point of going 0+1.
 
Bass108 said:
thanks mr. stangboy.

glad to hear someone knows that about the card.

i think i will go hold off on sticking 5 drives in the computer for now. but i may change my mind. i will probably go with the external setup unless firmtek tries to tell me otherwise. i will consider using the odd another day. but why exactly is the data cable such a problem? taking a fan apart does seem like a more intensive project...i would be interested in how to do it in case if ever need be and having it on the post would probably be beneficial to anyone looking at this post later.

is their any concern in doing this setup with a raptor in the odd...because i am sure it doesn't play as nice as say regular SATA-300 drives.

and hey if do sas later and want to hook them up to the card...then it just works as a controller? how does that work? Can you mix SATA and SAS i know apple says not too but i with all this raid talk i would think that would also have to have them in RAID if your using your raid card? not sure...something else to complicate things eh?

<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~trying to understand the lovely world of raid
Click to expand...

The only problem with hooking up the sata data cable to the ODD_SATA ports is that the front fan assembly is in the way of the ports. I know that some people have managed to hook it up using needle nose pliers. I have big hands and didn't really want to be digging around in my computer with pliers so I decided to remove the front fan assembly. Once that's removed its a straight shot to the ports and it will also allow you to route the cable nicely to the optical drive area. Anyone who has done computer work before should be able to do it without too much trouble. My replacement iPass cable comes Friday so when I replace it this weekend I'll try to take some pictures to document exactly what's involved. The raptor would work just as well on the ODD_SATA ports as on the normal internal connectors. Doesn't matter that it isn't SATA/300 as one drive won't be able to fully saturate even a SATA/150 connection.

I'm really not sure about mixing SAS and SATA drives. I would assume that it would work as long as you don't try to mix them within an array. SAS drives are still a little bit expensive for me so I can't try it for you.
 
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