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6gbps PCI Express SATA Card

mac_shinobi

By mac_shinobi
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mac_shinobi

mac_shinobi

Posted
Posted

Hi

 

I have seen a few around that should work with the 2008 Mac Pro ie rocket raid, LSI, 3ware etc that will allow me to use a 6gbps SSD.

 

So I am basically after either a

 

A 6Gbps SATA Card ( None raid ) OR 6gbps SAS Card plus relevant cable to convert SAS to SATA 6Gbps which will allow OS X / Windows to boot / bootable

 

Any quotes, specs, suggestions as seen a few cards that require you to shutdown for 10 - 15 seconds in order to boot into OS X without giving kernel panics etc which I think were raid cards anyway

 

I did see the rocket raid 2722, 2721, 620, 640 and some other cards

 

Am hoping it won't cost more then £200 but if it is then at least I can add it to my to get list.

mac_shinobi

mac_shinobi

Posted
  • Author
Posted
This one is Mac compatible if you don't mind external drives ;)

 

Scan.co.uk: Lycom PE-114M Low Profile PCIe 2.0 Host Adapter for Mac and Windows

 

And it's cheap!!

 

Never tried anything like that before - if I did do it that way would it still allow me to make the external drive bootable

 

Was hoping for internal as was going to purchase

 

one 6gbps ssd

one OWC Multi mount

16gb of ram

 

multi mount basically is a hard drive type bracket to allow me to fit the 2.5" ssd into the optical drive bay. Will lose one of my optical drives but I can live with that.

Dos_Box

Dos_Box

Posted
Posted

Not sure. If anyone else counld answer that? Is there a differnce between external and internal SATA (besides the connectors) it would be worth sharing.

 

These are the specs it is listing:

 

• 6Gbps eSATA III external 2 Ports

• Compliant with 5Gbps PCI Express 2.0

• Fully compliant with Serial ATA specifications 2.6

• Supports SATA III transfer rate of 6.0Gbps, 3.0Gbps 1.5Gbps

• Supports ATA and ATAPI commands

• Supports Native Command Queuing (NCQ)

• Support AES-256

• 48 bits LBA can Break Capacity-Limit to Support HDD larger than 137GB

• Low Profile PCI Form Factor

• Includes an additional Low Profile Bracket

• Hot-plug capability

• Two Pin headers on board for LED connection

• Completely with drivers for 64bit / 32bit Windows 7, Vista, XP and Server 2003

• 64bit / 32bit Windows 7 Built-in Driver support

• Fully RoHS compliant

  • Thanks 1
mac_shinobi

mac_shinobi

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
Not sure. If anyone else counld answer that? Is there a differnce between external and internal SATA (besides the connectors) it would be worth sharing.

 

These are the specs it is listing:

 

• 6Gbps eSATA III external 2 Ports

• Compliant with 5Gbps PCI Express 2.0

• Fully compliant with Serial ATA specifications 2.6

• Supports SATA III transfer rate of 6.0Gbps, 3.0Gbps 1.5Gbps

• Supports ATA and ATAPI commands

• Supports Native Command Queuing (NCQ)

• Support AES-256

• 48 bits LBA can Break Capacity-Limit to Support HDD larger than 137GB

• Low Profile PCI Form Factor

• Includes an additional Low Profile Bracket

• Hot-plug capability

• Two Pin headers on board for LED connection

• Completely with drivers for 64bit / 32bit Windows 7, Vista, XP and Server 2003

• 64bit / 32bit Windows 7 Built-in Driver support

• Fully RoHS compliant

 

Seeing as it states compatable with win / os X and I will mainly be using it for OS X assuming the eSATA cable is not too much more I might give that a go later on.

 

If anyone else has suggestions im open to them :)

 

Thanks

 

edited

 

Do they do something similar that literally has the 2 sata ports on the board itself as apposed to the external eSATA ports or is it possible to get the sata connectors and solder them on or what exactly ?

 

Also on that card page it states the following

 

64bit / 32bit OS In-box Driver support non-booting Mac 10.5, 10.6, Linux

 

What does that mean ???

 

http://www.lycom.com.tw/PE-114M.htm

Edited by mac_shinobi
Guest Guest

Guest Guest

Posted
Posted
Seeing as it states compatable with win / os X and I will mainly be using it for OS X assuming the eSATA cable is not too much more I might give that a go later on.

 

If anyone else has suggestions im open to them :)

 

Thanks

 

Seen as though just about every cheap sata3 controller I've seen comes with the Marvel 88SE9128 (or sometimes 88SE9122?) chip I would look into whether any card will work with OSX. Have a look for other peoples experiences as surely it would be better to have an internal sata if you can

mac_shinobi

mac_shinobi

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
Seen as though just about every cheap sata3 controller I've seen comes with the Marvel 88SE9128 (or sometimes 88SE9122?) chip I would look into whether any card will work with OSX. Have a look for other peoples experiences as surely it would be better to have an internal sata if you can

 

What about this one :

 

ST-163

 

Is it possible to get a SAS to SATA cable and use the above card ?

 

it is in the mac section on there site

 

The PE 115 seems similar aside from having internal onboard sata ports as apposed to esata - so curious if it supports OS X

Edited by mac_shinobi
Hedghog

Hedghog

Posted
Posted

Are you shure that your mac has an express card?

I have just done a similar thing with my daughters mac book pro.

Edit - sorry I added the "book" bit when I read the post- of course a mac pro wouldn't need an express card

SYNACK

SYNACK

Posted
Posted

To answer a few questions:

SATA and eSATA difference = none apart from the conectors which are possibly the worst designed connectors avalible today. eSATA connectors have no mandated locking mechinsum so rely on friction between the pins in the connector and the wedge on the device/adaptor. This makes them very prone to falling off, something that is not good when it holds your data. Speedwise and electricly it is the same. One thing that can be of benifit with the eSATA cards is that they actually support hot swap as the SATA spec specifies, something that far to many internal controllers lack.

 

The non boot only bit probably reffers to the issue that boot time drivers/efi hooks are not avalible to be able to boot off hard drives atached to the card directly and it is a matter of waiting until the OS has booted and loaded the runtime drivers before the drives on the controller are accessable. Go non-extencible firmware interface implemenation.

  • Thanks 1
SYNACK

SYNACK

Posted
Posted
What about this one :

 

ST-163

 

Is it possible to get a SAS to SATA cable and use the above card ?

 

it is in the mac section on there site

 

The PE 115 seems similar aside from having internal onboard sata ports as apposed to esata - so curious if it supports OS X

 

That looks like just an adapter to hook up to existing ports on your motherboard that presents them as a high density external connector so that you can use something like a high speed external drive caddy.

  • Thanks 1
mac_shinobi

mac_shinobi

Posted
  • Author
Posted
To answer a few questions:

SATA and eSATA difference = none apart from the conectors which are possibly the worst designed connectors avalible today. eSATA connectors have no mandated locking mechinsum so rely on friction between the pins in the connector and the wedge on the device/adaptor. This makes them very prone to falling off, something that is not good when it holds your data. Speedwise and electricly it is the same. One thing that can be of benifit with the eSATA cards is that they actually support hot swap as the SATA spec specifies, something that far to many internal controllers lack.

 

The non boot only bit probably reffers to the issue that boot time drivers/efi hooks are not avalible to be able to boot off hard drives atached to the card directly and it is a matter of waiting until the OS has booted and loaded the runtime drivers before the drives on the controller are accessable. Go non-extencible firmware interface implemenation.

 

That's no good to me then as I am going to use the SSD as my main boot drive

 

SSD --> PCI Express 6gbps card --> Mac Pro

 

So that the SSD is my boot drive, if the eSATA are prone to falling off thats no good either as it will be running my OS.

 

So that leaves the question of

 

Go with the rocket raid 620 ( non raid version ) for aprox £40 or what other options do I have ?

Guest Guest

Guest Guest

Posted
Posted

The esata card mentioned before and the rocketraid have the same controller... whether this mean they are both exactly the same in terms of being a bootable device etc I dont know

 

HighPoint Global website

Arthur

Arthur

Posted
Posted (edited)

I've just been looking on Areca's website and noticed the ARC-1880i supports booting on EFI Mac's. Shame about the price (£478.76). :eek:

 

The currently Mac OS X 10.X can not directly boot up from 6Gb/s SAS controller's volume (we do not support the Open Firmware) on the Power Mac G5 machine and can only use as a secondary storage. All Intel based Mac Pro machines use EFI to boot[/b] (not Open Firmware, which was used for PPC Macs) the system. Areca controller has supported the EFI BIOS on its PCIe 2.0 6Gb/s SAS RAID controller. You have other alternatively to add volume set on the Mac Pro bootable device listing. You can follow the following procedures to add PCIe 2.0 6Gb/s SAS RAID controller on the Mac Pro bootable device listing.

 

  1. Upgrade the EFI BIOS from shipping \Firmware\Mac\ directory or from the http://www.areca.com.tw, if the controllers default ship with a legacy BIOS for the PC. Please follow the Appendix A Upgrading Flash ROM Update Process to update the legacy BIOS to EFI BIOS for Mac Pro to boot up from 6Gb/s SAS RAID controller's volume.
  2. Ghost (such as Carbon Copy Cloner ghost utility) the Mac OS X 10.4.x, 10.5.x or 10.6.x system disk on the Mac Pro to the External PCIe 2.0 6Gb/s SAS RAID controller volume set. Carbon Copy Cloner is an archival type of back up software. You can take your whole Mac OS X system and make a carbon copy or clone to Areca volume set like an other hard drive.
  3. Power up the Mac Pro machine, it will take about 30 seconds for controller firmware ready. This periodic will let the boot up screen blank before Areca volume in the bootable device list.

(Source, p30)

 

You would also need a SFF-8087 to SATA cable too.

Edited by Arthur
Arthur

Arthur

Posted
Posted

What about an iMac instead? ;) New models are rumoured to be released within the next few weeks and will have at least one SATA 6Gb/s port (like the new MacBook Pro's). They also support upto 16GB DDR3 RAM which is extremely cheap at the moment.

 

Rough costs...

 

iMac 21.5"                            [url="http://store.apple.com/uk/configure/MC508B/A?mco=MTg1ODMzNTg"]£1,020.00[/url] ([url="http://store.apple.com/uk-edu/configure/MC508B/A?mco=MTg1ODMzNTg"]£958.80[/url] with Edu discount)
16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 RAM                 [url="http://goo.gl/sICf1"]£139.18[/url]
OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G 240GB SSD  [url="http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDMX6G240/"]£426[/url]

[b]Total[/b] = £1585.18

mac_shinobi

mac_shinobi

Posted
  • Author
Posted
What about an iMac instead? ;) New models are rumoured to be released within the next few weeks and will have at least one SATA 6Gb/s port (like the new MacBook Pro's). They also support upto 16GB DDR3 RAM which is extremely cheap at the moment.

 

Rough costs...

 

iMac 21.5"                            [url="http://store.apple.com/uk/configure/MC508B/A?mco=MTg1ODMzNTg"]£1,020.00[/url] ([url="http://store.apple.com/uk-edu/configure/MC508B/A?mco=MTg1ODMzNTg"]£958.80[/url] with Edu discount)
16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 RAM                 [url="http://goo.gl/sICf1"]£139.18[/url]
OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G 240GB SSD  [url="http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDMX6G240/"]£426[/url]

[b]Total[/b] = £1585.18

 

will stick to my original plan for the time being

 

one 240gb 6gbps owc ssd, 16gb ram and the owc multi mount, get OS X Lion on or about the release date and with AHCI support etc hope that they release or support more Expansion cards ie 6gbps sata or sas cards that are cheaper and will boot OS X, if not then I can always purchase that card on finance

 

An interesting thought, would I be able to ( if I get the 1880i card )

 

Use the SSD on one port for booting and the remainder of ports for a raid of disks for storage ie 3 or 4 2tb drives so they are split into 2 pools

 

If so then that would do me :)

SYNACK

SYNACK

Posted
Posted
wondering if this will change with OS X Lion ??

 

Its not about the OS its about the firmware, the EFI is simmilar to the BIOS (in fact its replacement) and to boot from a storage controller the EFI needs to be able to talk to it. With a BIOS system a card would simply offer an INT16 option that would be polled at boot for valid boot options. Unfortunatly Apples implementation of EFI does not have this and relies on higher level drivers/interface standards built into the EFI code to handle the boot sequence.

 

Lion may - possibly - change this but only because Apple has a tendancy to ship new firmware with a new OS to make sure it all gells right (which you can do when your range is like markedly three different computers).

mac_shinobi

mac_shinobi

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Its not about the OS its about the firmware, the EFI is simmilar to the BIOS (in fact its replacement) and to boot from a storage controller the EFI needs to be able to talk to it. With a BIOS system a card would simply offer an INT16 option that would be polled at boot for valid boot options. Unfortunatly Apples implementation of EFI does not have this and relies on higher level drivers/interface standards built into the EFI code to handle the boot sequence.

 

Lion may - possibly - change this but only because Apple has a tendancy to ship new firmware with a new OS to make sure it all gells right (which you can do when your range is like markedly three different computers).

 

Just found the ATTO Line

 

ATTO H608 and H644 - any confirmation on if those are bootable, found the H608 for about £300 which is cheaper then the £500 for the Arecca

 

http://www.attotech.com/products/category.php?id=1&catid=3&PHPSESSID=9bff429171b4c3d28e13e160549ef231

SYNACK

SYNACK

Posted
Posted (edited)
Just found the ATTO Line

 

ATTO H608 and H644 - any confirmation on if those are bootable, found the H608 for about £300 which is cheaper then the £500 for the Arecca

 

SAS/SATA Host Adapters | ATTO Technology, Inc.

 

Does not look like it:

i have ExpressSAS R608 - New Solution - FixYa

atto R608 is not bootable for my latest mac pro - New Solution - FixYa

 

Edit: just rechecking but the above may be different their product code is the R608 but it was the closest that google came to an answer.

 

I think Apple actually purposly makes it difficult or at least expencive to do what you are after as it messes with their preffered upgrade procedure.

I had found a way better one but youtube is now full of weak imitations like the above.

Edited by SYNACK
SYNACK

SYNACK

Posted
Posted
The cards mac_shinobi refers to are bootable. See page 15 of the manual. rEFIt needs to be used to configure some of the settings though.

 

Powered by Google Docs

 

Cool, yea I had edited the above to point out that the products may have been different due to the slightly different product number.

 

rEFIt though is a custom EFI extention and so gets around the Apple firmware limitations adding support for additional hardware by the looks of it along with the ability to choose the OS at boot time and probably other stuff.

  • Thanks 1
Arthur

Arthur

Posted
Posted
found the H608 for about £300 which is cheaper then the £500 for the Areca.

Do you think the H644 would be a better choice with its external Mini SAS connector given the price difference? :confused:

 

[b]ATTO ExpressSAS H608[/b] (P/N: [url="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ESAS-H608-00"]ESAS-H608-00[/url]) - [url="http://www.span.com/product_info.php?products_id=22576&currency=GBP"]£296.40[/url]
Connectors: 2 x SFF 8087 Internal (8 drives)

[b]ATTO ExpressSAS H644[/b] (P/N:  [url="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ESAS-H644-00"]ESAS-H644-00[/url]) - [url="http://www.span.com/product_info.php?products_id=25615&currency=GBP"]£296.40[/url]
Connectors: 1 x SFF 8087 Internal (4 drives) / 1 x SFF 8088 External (4 drives)

 

Saying that though, if you did get the H608 you could also buy a MaxConnect adapter from MaxUpgrades which would enable you to install an additional four drives in your Mac Pro. :)

mac_shinobi

mac_shinobi

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
The cards mac_shinobi refers to are bootable. See page 15 of the manual. rEFIt needs to be used to configure some of the settings though.

 

Powered by Google Docs

 

Which ATTO card(s) would you suggest, I presume either the H608 or 644 ??

 

Any chance WDAN or CPLTD or someone could give me an aprox price on each of these cards ?

Edited by mac_shinobi

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