So you wanna run an eight SATA RAID in your PCIe G5?

Hi all:

A few weeks back, we had a nice long thread about different SATA card solutions for PCIe G5s. At the time, I puchased a new, as of yet unpublicized solution from Max Upgrades. They finally went public with it and now you can buy one too. [www.maxupgrades.com]
$759.00 for the whole shmear, just add eight SATA drives and you are in business!

So far, I love mine, I am benchmarking over 500 MB per second thoughput with the RAID 60% full. Still waiting to receive my Kona 3 to give it a real workout but so far, I will give it a big thumbs up. Just realize that with this, you are finished as far as slots on a G5 so no further expansion will be possible past 8x500GB drives = a 4 TB RAID.

Slot 1 = my GE Force 7800 card
Slot 2 = Highpoint 2320
Slot 3 = proprietary daughter cards from Max Upgrades
Slot 4 = Kona 3

Will report back on performance with the Kona as soon as it arrives.

Best,

Dan

Dan,

So, what do you think of the external enclosure? I know the source of this and the PCI slot Infiniband controller and I was thinkng about the same setup. The HighPoint 2320 card has 8 SATA II ports - enough for 4 internal and 4 external SATA drives. The card using slot three PCI cover turns the other 4 ports into a single cable Infiniband connection to the external enclosure. Right now, that enclosure and the HighPoint X4 are the only two I am aware of that utilizes the Infiniband connection to maximize the use of those 8 internal SATA ports.
That is really good to know that you can sustain 500 GB/sec with 60 % filled data. 4.0 TB is sweet.

If you need more than this, then a Fiber Channel RAID is the next step at three times the cost. I'd also be interested in how you chose to power the four internal drives. I chose Seagate 500 GB 7200.9 drives which are notorious power suckers that can not be powered by the internal power supply. I added an external modular power supply and ran a power cable into the G5 to the four drives.

John

Hi John:

> Dan,
>
> So, what do you think of the external enclosure?
It looks pretty good, it's simple, clean and easy to setup.

> I know the
> source of this and the PCI slot Infiniband controller and I was
> thinkng about the same setup. The HighPoint 2320 card has 8
> SATA II ports - enough for 4 internal and 4 external SATA
> drives. The card using slot three PCI cover turns the other 4
> ports into a single cable Infiniband connection to the external
> enclosure.
That's correct

> Right now, that enclosure and the HighPoint X4 are
> the only two I am aware of that utilizes the Infiniband
> connection to maximize the use of those 8 internal SATA ports.
> That is really good to know that you can sustain 500 GB/sec
> with 60 % filled data. 4.0 TB is sweet.
My only regret is that it freaks me out a little to know that all four of my slots on G5 are filled and I am "done" as far as being able to ever add another card of any kind.

The other wish would be for some sort of software and or hardware switch to turn off the four internal drives when I am not editing. It's kind of a waste to be spinning those drives and wasting power, generating heat when using, for instance Photoshop or even when editing DV from a FW drive and not using the RAID. I would rather have gone with eight externals instead of 4 in and 4 external but the cost would undoutedly go up as well as I would have needed another slot for the second daughtercard. Sure would be sweet if they figured out a way to put a second Infiniband connector in the daughtercard, running eight externals off of the one Infiniband daughtercard.

>
> If you need more than this, then a Fiber Channel RAID is the
> next step at three times the cost.
Boy, that's the truth. I would love to have an X-RAID but they are a little too pricey because of the Steadicam Flyer, PortaJib and HVX-200 I am saving for.

> I'd also be interested in
> how you chose to power the four internal drives.
So far, just the stock power supply

> I chose
> Seagate 500 GB 7200.9 drives which are notorious power suckers
> that can not be powered by the internal power supply. I added
> an external modular power supply and ran a power cable into the
> G5 to the four drives.
I went with the WD Caviar 320 GB drives, they must not be as power hungry. I would have liked a 4 TB RAID rather than the 2.6 I have but once again, cost was a consideration. Still gotta pay for that Kona 3 too!

Dan

Thanx for the update, Dan

I am still tossing around ideas for my SATA RAID...still don't know. I do not want to use up all my slots and I am leaning towards keeping all the SATA RAID drives in a single external enclosure (for power & heat's sake inside my Quad).

What exactly is in Slot 3 (proprietary daughter cards from Max Upgrades)? Curious that you need 2 slots for your SATA RAID Config.

It would be GREAT if one of these card manufacturers released a PCIe expander box (like the older Avids - sorry...there's that word again) that added an enclosure with more PCIe slots.

Let us know how the Kona3 goes

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Here's the Infiniband converter --
[www.datoptic.com]

And here's the 4 drive SATA external enclosure--
[www.datoptic.com]

or you can convert an external enclosure of your own design to an Infiniband receiver with this--
[www.datoptic.com]

"" Sure would be sweet if they figured out a way to put a second Infiniband connector in the daughtercard, running eight externals off of the one Infiniband daughtercard.""

HighPoint is expected to release a PCIexpress version of the 2224 which is PCI-X and has one Infiniband connector on board and 4 internal ports that can be routed to a second enclosure with the Infiniband converter for the 4 internal ports. If they do, it would make it possible to use 2 PCI slot cover locations and utilize 2 x 4 drive external enclosures.

""spinning those drives and wasting power, generating heat when using,""

Also check out the review of the added 4 internal drives heat generation by AMUG on [www.barefeats.com]



Post Edited (03-19-06 18:42)

It seems that manufacturers are finally catching up with Apple's new PCI-e boxes.

How do you guys think this infiniband controller compares to the new release from Sonnet...

[www.macgurus.com]

Thanks as always,

Adam Duplay