The processor on it isn't listed on Apple's RAID card page. Nor in the Mac Pro pages.
As far as the speed, people have reported faster throughputs from the CalDigit. Others would as well.
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Caldigit RAID card
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As far as the speed, people have reported faster throughputs from the CalDigit. Others would as well.
Sorry, I missed you're post.I installed caldigitRAID card onto my MacPro back to Aug. It's been 2-3 months. It's been working like a gem out the starting gate. I have OS drive in the first bay, all my photos and raw files in the rest of RAID 5 drive.
MacPro 2008
OS10.5.5
CalDigit RAID card
HDElement 4TB - backorder
Could you provide more detail about the physical setup?
Number of drives, how the arrays are setup (internal, external, mixed), type,...
It could be very helpful if you can.
Thanks.
Experience with caldigit raid
Nano,
So far, I am only running 4 x Seagate Barracuda ES2 1tb drives internally on the caldigit card, and have no problems with data corruption. In fact, it is partitioned raid5, 2/3rds macos hfs+, 1/3rd NTFS, and both partitions show up in macos (using NTFS software) and in Windows Vista x64 using macdrive. I only had the volume corrupted once, due to windows attemping to repartition the drive. If anyone has some other experience, please post to help us all. I have also used the software raid (apple's macos utility) and for small jobs, it performs quite well. With a pair of wd 1tb drives, reaches 160mb/s read/write which I use for time machine. These two drives are in an external esata case with an internal extender from ports 5 and 6. FYI, cannot use ports 5 or 6 for bootcamp. I installed a 4x2.5 cage in the second optical bay, and an internal 8087 cable with 4 sata connectors to bring ports 1-4 to the cage. In the cage, I have 2 300gb velociraptors, one for macos, one for windows. I have the option of installing 2 more if needed. Originally I had two 320gb 7200rpm seagate momentus drives in raid0 via apple software raid, used for time machine, but since moved to the external arrangement listed above.
Peace,
Noushy
Nano,
So far, I am only running 4 x Seagate Barracuda ES2 1tb drives internally on the caldigit card, and have no problems with data corruption. In fact, it is partitioned raid5, 2/3rds macos hfs+, 1/3rd NTFS, and both partitions show up in macos (using NTFS software) and in Windows Vista x64 using macdrive. I only had the volume corrupted once, due to windows attemping to repartition the drive. If anyone has some other experience, please post to help us all. I have also used the software raid (apple's macos utility) and for small jobs, it performs quite well. With a pair of wd 1tb drives, reaches 160mb/s read/write which I use for time machine. These two drives are in an external esata case with an internal extender from ports 5 and 6. FYI, cannot use ports 5 or 6 for bootcamp. I installed a 4x2.5 cage in the second optical bay, and an internal 8087 cable with 4 sata connectors to bring ports 1-4 to the cage. In the cage, I have 2 300gb velociraptors, one for macos, one for windows. I have the option of installing 2 more if needed. Originally I had two 320gb 7200rpm seagate momentus drives in raid0 via apple software raid, used for time machine, but since moved to the external arrangement listed above.
Peace,
Noushy
When you say ports 5 & 6, are you referring to the ODD_SATA ports on the logic board?
Setup
Nano,
You are correct, these are the extra ports 5 & 6 that are behind the fan bracket near the ipass connector. Ports 1-4 show up as bays 1-4 on the ipass, and 5&6 are separate. Buy a cheap internal to external esata pci bracket from newegg for $10 or so (not the stupid $25 newertech charges) and you are good to go. The performance is fantastic with two fairly slow drives. I am using 2 1tb GP caviar drives which are some of the slowest 1tb drives, and still get 150-160MB/sec performance on apple's software raid for time machine backup. I purchased a cheap $60 case from OWC (black, two drive pro case), which has two esata ports on the back, ran a pair of good quality esata cables (1m each, newegg for around $10-$15), and then used the bracket to bring ports 5 and 6 out. Works perfectly, only thing missing about the cheap case is an activity light, but who cares. Whole setup cost me less than $100 plus the cost of the drives. Much much better than firewire, even FW800. I have a similar aluminum case from OWC which has an internal sata x 2 bridge card to firewire raid, and never got past 30MB/sec. It was torture backing up my machine that way.
Peace,
Noushy
Nano,
You are correct, these are the extra ports 5 & 6 that are behind the fan bracket near the ipass connector. Ports 1-4 show up as bays 1-4 on the ipass, and 5&6 are separate. Buy a cheap internal to external esata pci bracket from newegg for $10 or so (not the stupid $25 newertech charges) and you are good to go. The performance is fantastic with two fairly slow drives. I am using 2 1tb GP caviar drives which are some of the slowest 1tb drives, and still get 150-160MB/sec performance on apple's software raid for time machine backup. I purchased a cheap $60 case from OWC (black, two drive pro case), which has two esata ports on the back, ran a pair of good quality esata cables (1m each, newegg for around $10-$15), and then used the bracket to bring ports 5 and 6 out. Works perfectly, only thing missing about the cheap case is an activity light, but who cares. Whole setup cost me less than $100 plus the cost of the drives. Much much better than firewire, even FW800. I have a similar aluminum case from OWC which has an internal sata x 2 bridge card to firewire raid, and never got past 30MB/sec. It was torture backing up my machine that way.
Peace,
Noushy
Those eSATA brackets are quite handy.
The only downside to using them, is they aren't hot-swappable.
BTW, you can make the ODD_SATA ports visible to Windows, by installing the AHCI drivers.
Hopefully, it might open up a possibility or two that makes life easier.
ports 5 & 6
Nano, what you are saying is installing the ahci drivers will windows is setting up allows bootcamp on ports 5 & 6? Not really a big issue for me, but that is good to know. Also, I do not need the hotswap capability because I use those ports for my time machine backup, and that is always attached. I can see having a true eSata port would come in handy for the performance it offers, which is much much better than the firewire experience I had. Purchase a cheap sil-chipset based card, I did, a rosewill card, and you can have 2 eSata ports on a pci-e x1 card which supports port multipliers and cost $30 from newegg.
Peace,
Noushy
Nano, what you are saying is installing the ahci drivers will windows is setting up allows bootcamp on ports 5 & 6? Not really a big issue for me, but that is good to know. Also, I do not need the hotswap capability because I use those ports for my time machine backup, and that is always attached. I can see having a true eSata port would come in handy for the performance it offers, which is much much better than the firewire experience I had. Purchase a cheap sil-chipset based card, I did, a rosewill card, and you can have 2 eSata ports on a pci-e x1 card which supports port multipliers and cost $30 from newegg.
Peace,
Noushy
Yeah, a card is nice. I'd located a 2 port eSATA card by Syba. Also quite inexpensive. Good to know there's another one available.
I see people looking at a Sonnet E2P/E4P, and they cost more. Enough to consider something else that has the same specs anyway.
I do like the idea of using the ODD_SATA ports if possible. Great for optical drives, and an eSATA card if hot-swap is needed.
Options are always good. Nanofrog: Seem you like to find OEMs,i've got one for you here, these two tower raid suppliers obviously use the same cases, know what it is or care to find out??
http://maxxdigital.com/shop/index.php?cPath=58_104
http://www.cineraid.com/products_editpro8.htm
http://maxxdigital.com/shop/index.php?cPath=58_104
http://www.cineraid.com/products_editpro8.htm
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Power 7 Technology Co., Ltd.
Other products seem to follow the same industrial design concept, but contact would need to be made to confirm.
Thanks nanofrog, I think you are right about cineraid supplying maxx digital with their towers but not so sure if power 7 technology is the original ODM
From what i've been reading, something like this with an Areca ARC-1221x is one of the best solutions for a single computer edit station.
plus i'vealso now read some people having problems with the caldigit raid card and would be worried until some more software improvements are made
From what i've been reading, something like this with an Areca ARC-1221x is one of the best solutions for a single computer edit station.
plus i'vealso now read some people having problems with the caldigit raid card and would be worried until some more software improvements are made
I got my DIY RAID with Areca ARC-1221 card, 8TB of hitachi for less than $1700, RAID 5 performance is around 640MB/s
Will post the pictures after I complete my 3 days marathon test.
Will post the pictures after I complete my 3 days marathon test.
OEM/ODM aren't the easiest to find. I don't think you'd have much luck buying small quantity (1 - 2), and if they'd sell it, the shipping would be horrendous.
A general "8 bay SATA enclosure" turned up a site or two that sells retail.
pc-pitstop might help. So would provantage, but it's best to have specific model numbers here, as they have a large database.
Are you looking specifically a unit with I^2C communications?
Assuming this is the case, going by the CineRaid you linked.
If so, the RaidAge 8 bay box would work. Not quite as pretty as the CineRaid, but you can add any drive you wish. Sold empty.
Others too of course, but most aren't the most attractive to look at, if it matters.
On the CalDigit, I'd say wait at this point in order to get more information. I've recently been informed that the card was a disaster for another member, and the array wouldn't last but a couple of weeks before all data was lost. It seems to loose the Partition Tables, as there isn't a backup copy stored. ATM, it's unclear if this more of a specific issue (combining internal and external drives into a single array), or more widespread.
Hope this helps.
Product/model numbers would help too, if you would.
Thanks.
I installed caldigitRAID card onto my MacPro back to Aug. It's been 2-3 months. It's been working like a gem out the starting gate. I have OS drive in the first bay, all my photos and raw files in the rest of RAID 5 drive.
MacPro 2008
OS10.5.5
CalDigit RAID card
HDElement 4TB - backorder
I discuss with Proavio and found out caldigit raid card only works for caldigit's products and to get a 4TB, they charge 4000 dollars!!!!!
Why would I choose a caldigit over areca card?
The CalDigit RAID card isn't really a bargain, as they tied the HDElement to it. And they are expensive for what you get Consumer drives BTW, not enterprise units.
So you can only use that enclosure. No other manufacturer's product will work. Nor do you get the ability to chose the drives used in them, unless you buy additional disks to replace the originals. Some other issues as well, but I'll let that individual tell their own story when they get everything sorted.
The CalDigit RAID card isn't really a bargain, as they tied the HDElement to it. And they are expensive for what you get Consumer drives BTW, not enterprise units.
Some other issues as well, but I'll let that individual tell their own story when they get everything sorted.
I did some research on cal digigit card.
It does not support the latest Mac Pro.
The backup battery takes days to fully charged.
Only compatible with their hd element.
and they constantly discontinue products.
Using IOP 331 not the latest IOP 341.
Not compatible with SAS drive.
Besides, seems cal digit hdpro is as same as the maxtronic SA-4378S. Found out at the NAB. Was talking to the rept, Eric and foud out they are OEM for Cal digit.
http://www.maxtronic.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=99&Itemid=130
is as same as their hd pro
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/529142-REG/CalDigit_732217E_2_56TB_HDPro_External_Hard.html
the difference is the price and color.
CalDigit doesn't actually design or manufacture anything. A company called Accusys did all of the work. A couple of minor differences were made to produce a "custom" version, but is nearly identical to one of the model Accusys sells. Internal ports (3) were swapped out for external ones, leaving one internal (SFF-8087). Last I checked, they were available at newegg. They even used the same heatsink.
At the time the thread was active, the '09 MP wasn't out yet, nor did anyone know enough to predict it would use the PCIe lanes for HDD data transfer to Apple's redesigned RAID Pro.
LSI builds Apple's card BTW.
Update on raid card
Hello all, sorry for no recent response, busy with work. I just installed a raid card about 2 weeks ago on my 2009 Mac Pro. Since my caldigit raid card would not work, I sold that with my previous 2008 model. I ended up purchasing a Highpoint Tech 4322 card, mainly because I wanted to stick with external for now. Using a custom built enclosure, I am running 4 x 2tb Caviar GP in Raid5 for backup, and getting around 300-350mb/s. The second set of drives are WD Velociraptors in Raid0, yielding around 1.2tb at 550-600mb/s. I use the later for a scratch disk and it works great. There are lots of other ways to configure this (like 8 drives in Raid5 or Raid6), all depending on your needs. The driver works perfectly with 10.5.6, and I have had it up and running since the install. They make a version with 1 internal and 1 external port as well, although on the Mac Pro 2009 you cannot use the hotswap bays with a third party raid card. I have an Apple raid card on order, but I may just end up cancelling that one. I could move the raptors into the optical bay, but at this point I am happy with the setup.
Peace,
Noushy
Hello all, sorry for no recent response, busy with work. I just installed a raid card about 2 weeks ago on my 2009 Mac Pro. Since my caldigit raid card would not work, I sold that with my previous 2008 model. I ended up purchasing a Highpoint Tech 4322 card, mainly because I wanted to stick with external for now. Using a custom built enclosure, I am running 4 x 2tb Caviar GP in Raid5 for backup, and getting around 300-350mb/s. The second set of drives are WD Velociraptors in Raid0, yielding around 1.2tb at 550-600mb/s. I use the later for a scratch disk and it works great. There are lots of other ways to configure this (like 8 drives in Raid5 or Raid6), all depending on your needs. The driver works perfectly with 10.5.6, and I have had it up and running since the install. They make a version with 1 internal and 1 external port as well, although on the Mac Pro 2009 you cannot use the hotswap bays with a third party raid card. I have an Apple raid card on order, but I may just end up cancelling that one. I could move the raptors into the optical bay, but at this point I am happy with the setup.
Peace,
Noushy
LSI 1064 and 500Mhz PPC chip. It happens to coincide with LSI's design methodology.
Just some updated components (previous was 350MHz PPC), which is a custom mod of the MegaRAID (8804 IIRC). And of course the use of traces to route data through the unused PCIe lanes. If not LSI, who made it? And how did they obtain the use of LSI's intellectual property to build it without licensing? (I mean design, not the use of the parts they sell to other manufacturers).
LSI 1064 and 500Mhz PPC chip. It happens to coincide with LSI's design methodology.
If not LSI, who made it? And how did they obtain the use of LSI's intellectual property to build it without licensing? (I mean design, not the use of the parts they sell to other manufacturers).
There is one more major chip on the board. What is it?
The bridge chip (LSI1064) and 500MHz IOP are under the heatsink.
Other than the pair of Marvell controllers, do you mean the part located in the socket?
I believe it's an FPGA.