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Caldigit raid card and 10.5.7 upgrade

nanofrog said:
Cloning takes some time, testing it out, and especially restoring it, if 10.5.7 does in fact "break" the CalDigit. :eek: :p
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Well, this is interesting... Maybe shove two cheap discs in a RAID 0 on the card, do the update, and see what happens? Expensive proposition... OP, have you tried contacting Caldigit directly?

EDIT - Saw the link. All I can say is if you still have all your applications on optical media in addition to having the original OS discs, all you really need to do is backup you media.
 
I installed it today it went on nice an easy no problems and i do boot from the Array.
 
joaoferro37 said:
Yes, 20 days after Apple release 10.5.7. My Areca card did not even need to wait for new driver. Apple has its built in driver.
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In working with another member via email, and phone calls, the Areca's where far easier to deal with than the CalDigit it replaced. Less potential for "breaking" when an update is installed. And in an instance it did, it was fairly easy to fix. :)
 
nanofrog said:
In working with another member via email, and phone calls, the Areca's where far easier to deal with than the CalDigit it replaced. Less potential for "breaking" when an update is installed. And in an instance it did, it was fairly easy to fix. :)
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I just don't agree that why should I buy a CalDigit's RAID card (yes, it is a bit cheaper) but their storage is way over priced but not as good as other brand like Areca or ProAVIO.
 
joaoferro37 said:
I just don't agree that why should I buy a CalDigit's RAID card (yes, it is a bit cheaper) but their storage is way over priced but not as good as other brand like Areca or ProAVIO.
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:confused:

I wouldn't either. :eek: ;) CalDigit left me with a really bad experience, and wouldn't use them. And it wasn't even something I bought. :eek: :p

It was released very late, yet was very immature when released. It was a rush job to get them shipped. They skipped a lot of the testing that should have been done. This was even confirmed via a phone conversation with one of their engineers. :eek: :rolleyes:

BTW, they didn't design or manufacture their gear. That's done by ODM's. Accusys designed and manufactured the card. No idea who did the enclosure work.

And yes, they're greedy on the enclosures. So I'll pass, and find something better. I'm using Areca ATM, and am rather happy with it. :D
 
Caldigit Raid and 10.5.7

I happen to own more than one MacPro, the 2008 with the Caldigit Raid Card was waiting for the official ok. Installed it yesterday and it worked fine. No need to clone, no need to reinstall drivers. However, my MacPro 2009 Nehalem with a RocketRaid 4322 worked the day of the OS update. In fact, Highpoint states that their driver works with all versions of 10.5 (leopard) ie. 10.5.x, so that goes to show that the major card vendors were on top of this. I have had much less problems with the Highpoint card than the Caldigit card. I have a new 2009 Apple Raid Card still sitting in the box (arrived a few days ago), which I am anxious to try out this weekend and see how it compares. I plan on using it for the internal bays (raid 0 scratch disk). Right now using Raid0 with 4xVelociraptors on external SAS enclosure and it gets close to 600 MB/s, a great scratch disk but external.

Peace
Noushy
 
noushy said:
I happen to own more than one MacPro, the 2008 with the Caldigit Raid Card was waiting for the official ok. Installed it yesterday and it worked fine. No need to clone, no need to reinstall drivers. However, my MacPro 2009 Nehalem with a RocketRaid 4322 worked the day of the OS update. In fact, Highpoint states that their driver works with all versions of 10.5 (leopard) ie. 10.5.x, so that goes to show that the major card vendors were on top of this. I have had much less problems with the Highpoint card than the Caldigit card. I have a new 2009 Apple Raid Card still sitting in the box (arrived a few days ago), which I am anxious to try out this weekend and see how it compares. I plan on using it for the internal bays (raid 0 scratch disk). Right now using Raid0 with 4xVelociraptors on external SAS enclosure and it gets close to 600 MB/s, a great scratch disk but external.

Peace
Noushy
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It turns out, Areca is the ODM for the 43xx series. :eek: :D So I'd expect this. ;) So far, no problems with the Areca's either. But I'm not running OS X on it. Yet. :p Though there was a slight niggle with 10.5.6 with the ARC-1680ix 12 in another system. Not that big a deal, and 10.5.7 hasn't caused any problems that I'm aware of.

I did add a fan to it (option), and when activated Fan Detect, would get some beeps on occasion, even though it was working. Disabled the setting, and all is fine. Still runs, but no alarm going off. I did get a nice 14C drop in temp though. ;) No issues from all the experimentation with different setups and settings. :)

I've not dealt with this at all on the models that come equipped with one stock, so not a big deal.
 
CalDigit makes a good RAID card, but it's useless for external arrays unless you use their HDElement enclosures (expensive). It'll support bare drives internally (only certain Seagate and Hitachi models officially supported).

An Areca or Atto card is a better choice if you don't want to be limited to proprietary external enclosures.
 
CaptainChunk said:
CalDigit makes a good RAID card, but it's useless for external arrays unless you use their HDElement enclosures (expensive). It'll support bare drives internally (only certain Seagate and Hitachi models officially supported).

An Areca or Atto card is a better choice if you don't want to be limited to proprietary external enclosures.
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Unfortunately, CalDigit didn't design or manufacture the card. Accusys did. What CalDigit did do, was to specify that it had to be tied to the HDElement (ID string), and some adjustments where made to the port configuration (1 int, 3 ext).

Otherwise, if you go and get the model Accusys sells on thier own, it works with other enclosures.

CalDigit then either developed the UI themselves, or aquired it. It reminds me of something, but it escapes me ATM. :eek: Then there's the marketing. That's all though.

Since it was late, it wasn't tested properly, and has had some serious problems. Perhaps better now, but I won't trust a card that drops out "officially supported" drives with far too often regularity (daily or worse). It couldn't be trusted AT ALL, so I tend to skip such products, even after some time has passed.
joaoferro37 said:
CalDigit's solution is just another Asian own company that had someone oem or odm for it. Re-packaging it, and make it a Mac wanna be solution. Did a lot of marketing here but does not have the core technology. Not like High-Point, Areca, LSI, etc. It is a marketing company with the technology from someone else and sell at high price.
I discuss with Maxtronic at NAB show and realized the whole story.

Few thing I hate about CalDigit,
I helped my client to install few of their S2VR HD and CalDigit phased out the product. I helped my clients to get few FireWire VR, and they phase out the product. The S2VR HD got problem and I have no way to replace it, same as the FireWire VR.

So I discovered from my vendor and found out the S2VR HD got a lot of problems so they discontinued, as well as FireWire VR.

The HDPro was promised to have SAN ready and it was advertised. And my client returned the product because it cannot deliver as it advertised. After one year, it finally had SAN ready with only two clients can access to it.
It was totally false advertisement and never deliver the promise.


Question:
1.Why did they launch their products without fully testing it?
2. Why false advertisement?
3. When and what product will they phase out again?
4. When and what is (are) the next not supported CalDigit product(s)?
5. Why it is so over priced?

The enclosure is sleek and the GUI is fancy but it is way over priced and not as reliable as other brand.
Click to expand...
WOW! Glad I haven't bothered. ;)
 
Caldigit Raid

Nano, you pretty much summed it up. We discovered that the Caldigit card was really an Accusys ODM product. The card is built well, and fits tight. It works great as an internal raid card for the Mac Pro 2008, but ouch, $550 for a 4 drive raid controller is a lot. I hate that they locked out the external SAS ports to only their HDElement unit which is well made but way overpriced. The Highpoint card looked exactly like the Areca card, now I am not surprised. It is a solid product, and the drivers work like they are supposed to. The system sleeps, wakes, and the arrays run great. The only gripe was the $150 for the backup battery. In a card costing $800 it should be standard. The Apple Raid Card comes with the battery.

Peace,
Noushy
 
noushy said:
Nano, you pretty much summed it up. We discovered that the Caldigit card was really an Accusys ODM product. The card is built well, and fits tight. It works great as an internal raid card for the Mac Pro 2008, but ouch, $550 for a 4 drive raid controller is a lot. I hate that they locked out the external SAS ports to only their HDElement unit which is well made but way overpriced. The Highpoint card looked exactly like the Areca card, now I am not surprised. It is a solid product, and the drivers work like they are supposed to. The system sleeps, wakes, and the arrays run great. The only gripe was the $150 for the backup battery. In a card costing $800 it should be standard. The Apple Raid Card comes with the battery.

Peace,
Noushy
Click to expand...
I think my hesitancy with the CalDigit has a lot to do with how poorly it worked upon release. Granted, they've had time to work out the bugs, but those experienced at the time, where totally unacceptable. :mad:

So it's made me leary of their products. Then combine it with the tying of the HDElement, and the related costs of both products, I won't bother. :p

As for battery backups, unfortunately, they usually aren't standard from what I've seen (Atto, which though listed, aren't available, Areca, Highpoint, and most others), despite the cost of the card. Even those over $1k. :eek: Apple's card is actually an anomaly. :eek: :D

For some strange reason, the BBU on the Highpoint is both slightly different than the one used on the Areca, and costs more. By about $50USD, as I can find it for just under $100USD, when ewiz.com has them in stock. ;) Or about $105USD shipped. ;) :p
 
I got warned but well, don't care anymore.
The battery backup, call CalDigit and find out how long will it take to fully charged and how reliable it is.
Does anyone REALLY have a system fail and not be able to recover the RAID data.

OR, any system that is saved by a RAID card that has a battery backup.
Besides, the only High Point card I will suggest is the 43XX card.
The 2314 is a totally nighmare. Not reliable, always rebuild itself.
The 3522 is the worst nightmare very unstable. I called them few times and found out, they had two different 3522 cards, using different hardware and claim that nothing had been changed and the 3522 was fully compatible with 10.5.6.
They lied.
 
noushy said:
Nano, you pretty much summed it up. We discovered that the Caldigit card was really an Accusys ODM product. The card is built well, and fits tight. It works great as an internal raid card for the Mac Pro 2008, but ouch, $550 for a 4 drive raid controller is a lot. I hate that they locked out the external SAS ports to only their HDElement unit which is well made but way overpriced. The Highpoint card looked exactly like the Areca card, now I am not surprised. It is a solid product, and the drivers work like they are supposed to. The system sleeps, wakes, and the arrays run great. The only gripe was the $150 for the backup battery. In a card costing $800 it should be standard. The Apple Raid Card comes with the battery.

Peace,
Noushy
Click to expand...

Yes the CalDigit card is made by Accusys and their office here is Maxtronic
http://www.maxtronic.com
I do not believe it is well made. I believe, ATTO, Areca, LSI, are well made.

The RAID engine is not like enclosure can be made and built up, and market it in a very a short period of time. And most of the time they spend on marketing because this is the only thing they know.
I got burned by these young companies like CalDigit and High Point. They may have a good product such as firewire vr and caldigit vr that are using firmware raid but good luck at rebuild. You really have to cross your fingers or you can wait for hours and hours and maybe many attempts.

Few important components of a reliable RAID storage solution are the RAID card, the power supply and of course the fan.
Other than that, it's all metal work.

I can get a DVD duplicator enclosure and get Vantech internal drive tray with individual fan for each hard drive and hookup to a Areca card and get the same performance for much less and will work better.

I will still get support from Areca and Vantech anyways since Fry's and most of computer store will carry it.

One vendor support is a good thing but I would like to know what will fail?
The card, the hard drive or the drive tray?

This bring up a good question. Do I need one vendor support? If a 1TB hard drive fail, I can go to any local store and pick up for less than 90 dollars and I don't have to wait for over night shipment, contact RAID suppliers, spent my time with tech support and fill up the damn RMA form and wait for approval!!

If a well known RAID card failed, I can go to any computer store or have it over night it to me from manufacture.

If a power supply failed, a ATX power supply won't cost you much and you can get it anywhere.

Again, my points is, the only vendor support you need is the people who really build the RAID card and most likely, they will support it. You don't have to wait for the tech support to call you back because the tech support don't have to call the REAL manufacture for tech support. What do they mean by one vendor support?

Take you pick.
 
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