MP 1,1-5,1 Sata III Speeds via SAS on the 2009 Raid Card?

[NC12]

I’m aware the 2009 RAID card is generally regarded as useless for hardware RAIDs but it does have a built in SAS controller. Has anyone managed to force SATA III SSD’s to run through the SAS controller instead of the built in SATA II controller. I know that on other machines SAS controllers can mount SATA drives and run them at full speed. Theoretically if you could force the RAID Card’s 6G SAS controller to mount the SATA III drives could it not run them at SATA III Speeds thus “upgrading” the internal ports to SATA III via SAS?

 

[tsialex]

Mac Pro RAID card is useless to connect SATA disks because it only supports bigger SATA HDDs up to 2.2TB.

Mac Pro RAID Card

Mac Pro RAID Cards were released by Apple for the 1st-generation Mac Pro. The PCI Express card should be installed in slot 4 of the Mac Pro and enables SAS drives as well as SATA, supporting up to 4 drives in a mirrored or striped RAID configuration for security through redundancy, or for...

apple.fandom.com

 

[NC12]

Mac Pro RAID card is useless to connect SATA disks because it only supports bigger SATA HDDs up to 2.2TB.

Mac Pro RAID Card

Mac Pro RAID Cards were released by Apple for the 1st-generation Mac Pro. The PCI Express card should be installed in slot 4 of the Mac Pro and enables SAS drives as well as SATA, supporting up to 4 drives in a mirrored or striped RAID configuration for security through redundancy, or for...

apple.fandom.com

True but would it work?

 

[NC12]

Mac Pro RAID card is useless to connect SATA disks because it only supports bigger SATA HDDs up to 2.2TB.

Mac Pro RAID Card

Mac Pro RAID Cards were released by Apple for the 1st-generation Mac Pro. The PCI Express card should be installed in slot 4 of the Mac Pro and enables SAS drives as well as SATA, supporting up to 4 drives in a mirrored or striped RAID configuration for security through redundancy, or for...

apple.fandom.com

I bought an old 2009 Raid card just for fun and turns out it does work. I was able to get SATA III speeds out of an SSD in the drive bay. Ofc I was only using a 1TB SSD but it does in fact recognize it as a 6G SAS device.

This is obviously not any better than just buying an NVME blade and adapter for a PCIE slot but it works!

 

[reader50]

Good to know. Do you have an empty 3TB SATA drive (or larger) available to test the 2.2TB limitation? I'd use an empty spare drive, just in case the test corrupts drive contents. If the drive size is recognized, I'd copy large files over until the drive was full, then try to access the files from the beginning of the test. To see if they are still there, or got overwritten by content beyond the 2.2 TB limit.

 

[NC12]

Good to know. Do you have an empty 3TB SATA drive (or larger) available to test the 2.2TB limitation? I'd use an empty spare drive, just in case the test corrupts drive contents. If the drive size is recognized, I'd copy large files over until the drive was full, then try to access the files from the beginning of the test. To see if they are still there, or got overwritten by content beyond the 2.2 TB limit.

Unfortunately the 2.2TB limit for SATA drives is true. Anything over that simply won’t mount via the RAID card.

 

[willowthewisp]

Unfortunately the 2.2TB limit for SATA drives is true. Anything over that simply won’t mount via the RAID card.

Did You try a SAS to SATA converter ?
The RAID card is very similar to the xserves RAID backplane. While the NON-RAID backplane uses a LSI 1064e, there is no equivalent for the Mac Pro.
The RAID card for the 2009 to 2012 is based on a PPC processor, ram and a custom vlsi by adaptec that can emulate a LSI1064. The card boots a Linux has a PCIe x8 (!) port but the MacPro uses only 4 lanes due to its architecture.
The card itself can be modified to use a cable harness to connect four sas/sata drives.
Never tried my 5.1 with a SAS HDD bigger than 2 TB - but… I have the SAS to SATA interposes around … 🙃

 

[NC12]

Did You try a SAS to SATA converter ?
The RAID card is very similar to the xserves RAID backplane. While the NON-RAID backplane uses a LSI 1064e, there is no equivalent for the Mac Pro.

Interesting. I'll have to pick up an interpose and test that then. I see no reason why that wouldn't work, it would actually make the raid card decently useful then.