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Mac Pro Raid Card battery failure

N

nanofrog

macrumors G4
May 6, 2008
11,719
3
POLOgt said:
Are the Apple RAID Cards that problematic?
I was considering it, I going to stay with Apple on this one for the interface and plug and play, .... etc...

I have seen they have had issues with their batteries, is that their only fault or am I just missing the rest?

Thank you for the help,
Click to expand...
Apple's RAID Pro card:
1. Slow
2. Expensive
3. Battery problems
4. Physical installation limits. (It's an 8x lane card, and was meant to go in slot 3 or 4 due to the short iPass cable. These slots are 4x. They can be reconfigured on the '06 and '07 models, but not on the '08 (fixed settings). So you may not even run the card at all lanes functioning, depending on the exact model you have).
5. Limited features. (Particularly not being able to work with any other OS other than OS X). Apple just never bothered to create the drivers. :rolleyes:

You can do better with 3rd party, for both performance, and cost. ;)
 
POLOgt

POLOgt

macrumors member
Jan 27, 2009
84
0
nanofrog said:
Apple's RAID Pro card:
1. Slow
2. Expensive
3. Battery problems
4. Physical installation limits. (It's an 8x lane card, and was meant to go in slot 3 or 4 due to the short iPass cable. These slots are 4x. They can be reconfigured on the '06 and '07 models, but not on the '08 (fixed settings). So you may not even run the card at all lanes functioning, depending on the exact model you have).
5. Limited features. (Particularly not being able to work with any other OS other than OS X). Apple just never bothered to create the drivers. :rolleyes:

You can do better with 3rd party, for both performance, and cost. ;)
Click to expand...

Thank you,
that was plenty to convience me not to, but one is on eBay for starting bid of $250
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=320336672860

mostly why I asked, Thanks again
 
POLOgt

POLOgt

macrumors member
Jan 27, 2009
84
0
nanofrog said:
No problem. :)

No idea what the bids would increase to anyway. ;)
Click to expand...

They have been selling for $400 to $500 on eBay with "Best Offer" and "Buy it Now", but with the very unfortunate turn of our economy and now for the first I have ever seen while tracking their price, a seller has started the bid at $250.

Before the depression of the market, prices where at $600+ though I cannot remember how many sold at that.

Just a FYI if anyone is interested,
 
Sesshi

Sesshi

macrumors G3
Jun 3, 2006
8,113
1
One Nation Under Gordon
nanofrog said:
Apple's RAID Pro card:
1. Slow
2. Expensive
3. Battery problems
4. Physical installation limits. (It's an 8x lane card, and was meant to go in slot 3 or 4 due to the short iPass cable. These slots are 4x. They can be reconfigured on the '06 and '07 models, but not on the '08 (fixed settings). So you may not even run the card at all lanes functioning, depending on the exact model you have).
5. Limited features. (Particularly not being able to work with any other OS other than OS X). Apple just never bothered to create the drivers. :rolleyes:

You can do better with 3rd party, for both performance, and cost. ;)
Click to expand...

What card do you use?
 
PowerPaw

PowerPaw

macrumors member
Jan 15, 2009
95
0
You have to wonder what causes the battery to fail.

From what I have read these cards are not Energy Star compliant so I guess they wont allow you to sleep you system. If you want to power off your system I am assuming you have to shut it down and let the batteries drain only to recharge them at half charge the next day and repeat the process for a few weeks until the batteries give up. Just a hunch. Some of the third party cards come with battery backup as an option.

And yes I know what the batteries are for but then you could also UPS your system if you are into a RAID budget. Generally battery backed RAID go into servers that are never switched off.
 
Sesshi

Sesshi

macrumors G3
Jun 3, 2006
8,113
1
One Nation Under Gordon
^ The battery on a RAID card is for a slightly different purpose - yes a UPS would solve the underlying issue but the cards have battery backup for additional data security in caching. RAID card battery failures are not uncommon I have to say, although we've had only one on our Pros that I can recall.

@nanofrog: Thanks. I'll have to find out there they sell that in the UK. What config are you running it, and I presume if you chose this over the Apple card there was some sort of performance improvement - any idea how much?
 
PowerPaw

PowerPaw

macrumors member
Jan 15, 2009
95
0
Sesshi said:
^ The battery on a RAID card is for a slightly different purpose - yes a UPS would solve the underlying issue but the cards have battery backup for additional data security in caching. UK.
Click to expand...

The batteries are there if the system kills itself, power loss is your enemy as you loose the charge on the cache and it doesn't get flushed to disk; the memory on these cards is volatile and requires power to maintain the stored information on it. I the system hung up requiring a power reset you might be in trouble and a UPS in this case won't work. If you were working on a guaranteed transactional trading system this would be a problem if the data wasn't being synchronously replicated.

The fact that the card doesn't allow you to sleep the system is irritating unless you are happy leaving it on all the time. In an enterprise maintaining sleeping desktops is hard to do when you are trying to deliver critical updates (anti-virus, patches etc) and trying to get wake on LAN to work so its not that unusual to leave a system on all the time.
 
N

nanofrog

macrumors G4
May 6, 2008
11,719
3
Sesshi said:
@nanofrog: Thanks. I'll have to find out there they sell that in the UK. What config are you running it, and I presume if you chose this over the Apple card there was some sort of performance improvement - any idea how much?
Click to expand...
It's sort of off topic, so I'll send it PM. :eek: :p
 
T

Timeline

macrumors newbie
Feb 11, 2005
20
0
3rd raid card failure

I bought an early 08 machine 8 core desktop with raid card and 4 serial SCSI's which must use the raid card to operate in this machine.

I have had the raid card replaced three times and still have the problem with the battery and have asked for a newer machine as of today or money back.

They claim that even with Apple care I am not eligible for a new machine yet they have tried to repair the problem these many times. They even replaced the core card motherboard on the first repair.

At this point they have passed on my file to their engineers to solve it and asked me to wait a week. If they cannot fix it then we negotiate but I may do small claims for the maximum amount if they are not reasonable on the fix. I have asked for money back on the drives and raid card or swap the drives for raptors as they are about as fast plus money back on the raid.

We'll see!

These cards are crap and the fact that Apple made the Mac Pro desktop drive bays in such a way that you can only use their proprietary cards is BS.

Had I known this I would not have paid Apple for 4 15k spin SCSI serial drives and the raid card as this was the only way to install fast drives in the machine at the time.

I'm really pissed.

Gary B.
 
N

nanofrog

macrumors G4
May 6, 2008
11,719
3
Timeline said:
I bought an early 08 machine 8 core desktop with raid card and 4 serial SCSI's which must use the raid card to operate in this machine.

I have had the raid card replaced three times and still have the problem with the battery and have asked for a newer machine as of today or money back.

They claim that even with Apple care I am not eligible for a new machine yet they have tried to repair the problem these many times. They even replaced the core card motherboard on the first repair.

At this point they have passed on my file to their engineers to solve it and asked me to wait a week. If they cannot fix it then we negotiate but I may do small claims for the maximum amount if they are not reasonable on the fix. I have asked for money back on the drives and raid card or swap the drives for raptors as they are about as fast plus money back on the raid.

We'll see!

These cards are crap and the fact that Apple made the Mac Pro desktop drive bays in such a way that you can only use their proprietary cards is BS.

Had I known this I would not have paid Apple for 4 15k spin SCSI serial drives and the raid card as this was the only way to install fast drives in the machine at the time.

I'm really pissed.

Gary B.
Click to expand...
Ouch. :(

The sad part is, there's 3rd party cards that do work in the '08 models, and they're better cards for similar or less money.
 
R

Rick Here

macrumors member
Oct 9, 2007
60
1
Timeline said:
I bought an early 08 machine 8 core desktop with raid card and 4 serial SCSI's which must use the raid card to operate in this machine.

I have had the raid card replaced three times and still have the problem with the battery and have asked for a newer machine as of today or money back.

They claim that even with Apple care I am not eligible for a new machine yet they have tried to repair the problem these many times. They even replaced the core card motherboard on the first repair.

At this point they have passed on my file to their engineers to solve it and asked me to wait a week. If they cannot fix it then we negotiate but I may do small claims for the maximum amount if they are not reasonable on the fix. I have asked for money back on the drives and raid card or swap the drives for raptors as they are about as fast plus money back on the raid.

We'll see!

These cards are crap and the fact that Apple made the Mac Pro desktop drive bays in such a way that you can only use their proprietary cards is BS.

Had I known this I would not have paid Apple for 4 15k spin SCSI serial drives and the raid card as this was the only way to install fast drives in the machine at the time.

I'm really pissed.

Gary B.
Click to expand...

Any resolution to this RAID card problem from Apple? :apple:
 
R

Rick Here

macrumors member
Oct 9, 2007
60
1
Timeline said:
No in fact, the battery just failed to charge again!!!!
Click to expand...

Is this Apple RAID card 2007 or 2008 vintage?
I think I remember some of the 2007 cards being replaced on complaints of battery charging problems.
Or were they just mad about battery charge cycling after 3 months, hmmm.....
 
T

Timeline

macrumors newbie
Feb 11, 2005
20
0
Mine has been replaced via warrantee three times and has failed again.

It's a faulty design. Beware!
RaidFCardFAIL.jpg
 
N

nanofrog

macrumors G4
May 6, 2008
11,719
3
Timeline said:
Mine has been replaced via warrantee three times and has failed again.

It's a faulty design. Beware
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, it looks like it may be time to swap cards out for a 3rd party model. :(

3 failures is too much for a RAID card, any brand or model, IMO.
 
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