eSata Problems with than 2 esata connections – Mac Pro

[Rainer Wirth]

First of all,
what esata cards are you using inside yout Mac Pro, and how many esata outputs are on each card. What internal slots (inside MacPro) do you use (4x,8x,16x). Are the esata cards on two seperate slots?

Rainer

factstory
Rainer Wirth
phone_0049-177-2156086
Mac pro 8core
Adobe,FCP,Avid
several raid systems

[Rainer Wirth]

My guess is,

that you use a PCIx slot x4 withg two esata devices. You need at least a x8 slot for two esata devices on one card, or you use the x16 slot for two esata devices attached to one card.
Can you configure your PCIx slots into 3 times x8 slots (depends on your 8core mac pro)?
This would be your best solution.

Rainer

factstory
Rainer Wirth
phone_0049-177-2156086
Mac pro 8core
Adobe,FCP,Avid
several raid systems

[Rainer Wirth]

My guess is,

that you use a PCIx slot x4 withg two esata devices. You need at least a x8 slot for two esata devices on one card, or you use the x16 slot for two esata devices attached to one card.
Can you configure your PCIx slots into 3 times x8 slots (depends on your 8core mac pro)?

here is the link: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/MXPCIE6GS2/
look for “Compatibility”

Rainer

factstory
Rainer Wirth
phone_0049-177-2156086
Mac pro 8core
Adobe,FCP,Avid
several raid systems

[Bob Zelin]

excellent conclusion Ranier !

If this gentleman had purchased this product, and not been such a cheap S.O.B., he would not be experiencing this problem –

https://sonnettech.com/product/temposatapro6gbpcie.html

Bob Zelin

[Errol Lazare]

Hello Rainer,

I have 2 of these cards in my system at the moment so a total of 4 esata ports. Based on what you have mentioned does the slot number make a difference in performance and utilizing different hardware? Here is what my configuration looks like in order as displayed on mac system report.

Slot 1 ATI Radeon HD 5770 – Display Controller – Yes Driver installed
Slot 2 Quadro 4000 – Display Controller – Yes Driver Installed
Slot 2 NVDA, Parent – No Driver not installed
Slot 4 pic1b4b,91a4 – IDE Controller – No driver not installed
Slot 4 pci1b4b,9123 – AHCI Controller – Yes driver installed
Slot 3 pci1103,622 – Raid Controller – Yes driver installed

Let me know if this make sense.
Cheers,

Errol X. Lazare
EXL Films
http://www.exlfilms.com

[Rainer Wirth]

Whant bandwidth are slots 2,3,4. It depends on your mac!
Normally slot 2 and 3 are 4x, slot 4 should be 16x.
So, I would put the esata card, which takes 2 devices on Slot4 and the esata card with one device on Slot 3 or 2.
But your pcix slots may be different.

Cheers rainer

factstory
Rainer Wirth
phone_0049-177-2156086
Mac pro 8core
Adobe,FCP,Avid
several raid systems

[Rainer Wirth]

yeap Bob,

but this doesn’t help our friend.

Rainer

factstory
Rainer Wirth
phone_0049-177-2156086
Mac pro 8core
Adobe,FCP,Avid
several raid systems

[Bob Zelin]

well Ranier, we are both wrong. If this gentlemen has an ATI 5770 in his computer, this means that he has an Apple Mac Pro Westmere Model Identifier 5,1. This means that slot 1 and slot 2 are fixed at x16 lanes (the ATI card and the NVidia Quadro 4000), and slot 3 and slot 4 are both fixed at x4 lanes. There is no expansion slot utility function for a 3,1 4,1 or 5,1 Mac Pro, which means that he cannot change the lane assignment on his slots.

While I dont’ have a stright answer for him, the EASIEST suggestion is to remove the dual 2 port cards, and purchase a single 4 port card from Sonnet Technology, as I have listed, put it into a x4 lane slot (slot 3 or slot 4), and everything will work fine. I have used the exact NewerTech 2 port card that he has (just one at a time) and it works just fine in the Mac Pro.

So Errol, what Mac OS are you running, by the way ?

Bob Zelin

[Rainer Wirth]

yes, Bob
replacing the card is the easiest and cheapest option.

cheers

Rainer

factstory
Rainer Wirth
phone_0049-177-2156086
Mac pro 8core
Adobe,FCP,Avid
several raid systems

[David Roth weiss]

Bob,

I think the two cards simply conflict with one another. I’ve seen the same behavior with many inexpensive controller cards such as those from both FirmTek and OWC.

DRW

David Roth Weiss
ProMax Systems
Burbank
DRW@ProMax.com

Sales | Integration | Support

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.