New Mac Pro on the way some questions...

[steffi]

So if you want to use eSata is the OWC card going to be much faster than say FW800 with the Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II? Is the eSata on this drives half decent?

Also, what's the best way to house an SSD in the sleds on a Mac Pro? Anything other than MaxUpgrades product? From OWC's site it didn't look like they had anything for 2010 models.

 

[bluesteel]

Also, what's the best way to house an SSD in the sleds on a Mac Pro? Anything other than MaxUpgrades product? From OWC's site it didn't look like they had anything for 2010 models.

OWC has a great product to mount SSD's in the hard drive bays of 2010 Mac Pros: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/IcyDock/MB882SP1S2B/

 

[philipma1957]

So if you want to use eSata is the OWC card going to be much faster than say FW800 with the Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II? Is the eSata on this drives half decent?......

The owc esata card does not boot. fw800 boots. your fw800 will give you 60 to 80 MB/s speed. here is a link to a low cost esata card that boots I have one that I use it gives 115MB/s speed. very few esata cards will boot and they are costly. the ebay link is for a lost cost option. I am not the seller.


http://cgi.ebay.com/PCI-E-x1-to-sin...ps=63&clkid=4914972690833138766#ht_4981wt_907

If you do not care about booting the owc card will go over 200MB/s I own one of them and use it with this gear

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...6&cm_re=rosewill_8_bay-_-16-132-016-_-Product

 

[ActionableMango]

Also, what's the best way to house an SSD in the sleds on a Mac Pro? Anything other than MaxUpgrades product? From OWC's site it didn't look like they had anything for 2010 models.

OCZ makes 3.5" SSDs. Those mount directly in the Apple HDD sleds. No need for an adapter and they also cost less than the 2.5" models.

 

[khollister]

You will get about 60-80 MB/s with FW800, 120-140 MB/s with a decent eSATA implementation assuming good 2 TB drives like WD Caviar Black or Hitachi 7k2000. A smaller drive or a WD Green series will drop the speeds, potentially to within fw800 speeds, although experience says the FW throughput will drop somewhat as well.

The 2 TB drives are quite a bit faster than the smaller ones due to higher areal density on the platters. I also have no idea how good the eSATA interface is in the WD enclosure. The OWC card is only $50, so its probably worth a try.

 

[johnnymg]

So if you want to use eSata is the OWC card going to be much faster than say FW800 with the Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II? Is the eSata on this drives half decent?

Also, what's the best way to house an SSD in the sleds on a Mac Pro? Anything other than MaxUpgrades product? From OWC's site it didn't look like they had anything for 2010 models.

I'll second the OCZ 3.5" SSD's. They mount directly in the MP sleds. Tastes great and less filling!

cheers
JohnG

 

[steffi]

Is there any 2 port version of this card?

The owc esata card does not boot. fw800 boots. your fw800 will give you 60 to 80 MB/s speed. here is a link to a low cost esata card that boots I have one that I use it gives 115MB/s speed. very few esata cards will boot and they are costly. the ebay link is for a lost cost option. I am not the seller.


http://cgi.ebay.com/PCI-E-x1-to-sin...ps=63&clkid=4914972690833138766#ht_4981wt_907

If you do not care about booting the owc card will go over 200MB/s I own one of them and use it with this gear

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...6&cm_re=rosewill_8_bay-_-16-132-016-_-Product

 

[nanofrog]

Is there any 2 port version of this card?

Non bootable 6.0Gb/s eSATA card (newertech) available at OWC (here) is a 2 port unit.

The only bootable card I'm aware of, is a Highpoint product (here), and they're not the best company to deal with (customer support is lousy, and their products are all over the place in terms of functionality). Best to avoid if you can IMO, due to the higher likelihood of dealing with an RMA.