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4Gb fiber cards on OS X 10.10?
Hi everyone,
Is there any 4Gb fibre-channel HBA that has working drivers and is known to work reliably under 10.10? (Not to mention one that is expected to work in 10.11).
Support and driver development for the venerable ATTO Celerity 4Gb cards was dropped as of 10.8.5. Do the latest ATTO drivers (4.0.1, I believe) install at all on 10.10? Has anyone tried running them in a production environment?
Yes, I’m aware the FC-81 (and 82) are current and support 4Gb connections, but those cards are $1,200 apiece and we have ten FC-41 and 42’s in here. Understandably, no one here is excited to drop $12k to get the same functionality. (We’re very happy with the 4Gb bandwidth and have no need for 8Gb.)What about the Apple/LSI 4Gb cards? Are they still supported?
What about Qlogic or other vendors?
Using MetaSAN here with a SANBox 5602, currently all systems are on 10.85. MetaSAN is fairly hardware-agnostic as long as the FC infrastructure runs smoothly.
Thanks
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20 Replies
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Hi Drew –
you do know that MetaSAN is discontinued, and the new product is –https://www.tiger-technology.com/products/tiger-series/tiger-store/
and when you say “you are full of crap, MetaSAN is not discontinued –
https://www.tiger-technology.com/products/metasan-family/just like with all excellent products from companies like Apple, Tiger Technology, ATTO, and EVERYONE else, you do not get to spend zero money – you will continue to spend money, until the day you retire, and then you will spend all your money on medical insurance. Welcome to the club.
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
Bob, you always crack me up. 🙂 Yes I’m very much aware that they ceased development. I just pulled up my notes from Sep. 2013 when I talked to Bernard Lamborelle and got the first heads up about it. And this morning I read (again) the EOL notice, they will continue to release maintenance updates to support OS updates in the end of 2015, just no new features. So 10.10 is currently supported in MetaSAN (clients only, no MDC) and even 10.11 may be.
If we were to drop $12k on new 8Gb fiber HBAs and wanted to actually enjoy the extra bandwidth, we’d need two new 5802’s ($17k), new storage (another $20k), oh wait, and we’d probably have to replace the OM2 fiber in the walls. In other words, the facility will likely be going straight to 10GbE in 2017, if we’re not all using subspace telepathy by then.
All this, and your reply (and mine) were completely off-topic. How about “the Apple 4Gb HBA still works fine in 10.10”? I’m yet to hear direct confirmation, just people excited about XSAN living strong in 10.10 and 10.11.
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You have atto fc41 and atto fc42
They have drivers up to 10.8.5
No support for 10.10 so of course no el capital supportWho was crazy enough to ever get the apple lsi cards?
Bob
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
Anyone with an XSAN 🙂 I helped support a few of those around L.A. back in 2007-2010, and while the LSI’s weren’t quite as good as the Atto’s, I don’t recall egregious issues with them. (Unlike OD binding, Promise array configuration scripts, and all that good stuff.)
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Hi Drew, I’m in the same boat as you. (went to upgrade to 10.10 and realized the drivers didn’t work) Did you end up finding a solution? Thanks!
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Hi Eric,
I do believe that the Apple/LSI cards are by far the most affordable option to have 4Gb fiber on 10.10 or 10.11.I haven’t seen it with my own eyes yet; I did recommend that route to a colleague, and he just updated me that it’s been working well for the past week and a half – new Mac Pro and the Apple/LSI card in a (Sonnet) Thunderbolt box. He did have some glitches prior to that but wasn’t able to isolate the cause, whether or not it was related to the fiber card.
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it is very important to me to point out that people like Drew that are trying to keep old 4Gig Fiber technology alive are completely crazy.
This is the link from Apple on 4G fiber cards from February 2015
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201631the world has moved on. You should not be using these products anymore. Only a fool would be using Apple/LSI 4g fiber products today in late 2015.
You need to update your system. End of story.
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
Oh Bob… I should add “fool” to my business card. To further horrify you, I’ve done consulting and system integration in a professional capacity for (happy) clients around L.A. for the past 8 years. I should contact them all to notify them about the nutcase I am.
Back on topic, 4Gb fiber was an excellent and robust technology for quite a while, and its sustained 380MB/s is at a sweet spot for online HD workflows. If a facility has it working, it’s still working. If they’re considering a multi-year upgrade plan, then of course 4Gb is obsolete. I tend to forego 8/16Gb FC and recommend 10GbE instead.
In your universe everyone has moved on. In mine, it’s an ongoing process as it is gradually phased out.
PS Reminds me of my visit to Modern Videofilm when they said they still had some Cat3 in use running 10Mb/s Ethernet. In 2010.
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Hi Drew,
I know this is an old post, but anyway follow this link, it helped loading the FC41ES drivers. https://dimig.ga/2015/10/16/atto-celerity-setup/
cheers
H
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Hi, good to know. Thanks!
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