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Going from Highpoint to something else help
I built an 8TB RAID 5 with a RR4322 a bit back and have found it to not be what I expected in terms of customer support or stability. There was a freak failure I think if not a kernel panic and then an inability to rebuild or even recreate a new RAID of any sort without another kernel panic.
The card was finally RMA’d and if it works when I pop it in tomorrow I may keep it but I’m strongly leaning towards selling it. At this point however I haven’t really found a replacement that is both around the same specs and compatible with Mac OS X. I know about the ATTO R380 and have them at the facility I work at for our Sonnet RAIDs but I’m not really floored by the performance and the price is a big factor.
Any other cards that are like the RR4322 and ATTO R380 but perhaps fall between the price range?
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14 Replies
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there are two types of modern RAID cards – eSATA cards (some which are port multipler cards, meaning that each port can do up to 5 drives), and SAS/SATA cards.
Companies like Sonnet, Cal Digit, Dulce Systems, Firmtek, DatOptic, Addonics, and others make “port multiplier” eSATA cards. These all use the same chip set, based on Sil3124 Silicon Image chips (the guys who figured out port multiplication for eSATA in the first place). This is standard eSATA, and is considered “old school” by now. Highpoint makes these too.
Then you have modern SAS/SATA RAID 5 (or RAID6) host cards. These cards are all MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE, and require a different interface style to your drive array – it’s called miniSAS, and has got nothing to do with the old style eSATA drive arrays. This means that if you have a Cal Digit S2VR or Sonnet Fusion chassis, these new style cards WILL NOT WORK on your old drive chassis.
The companies that make the new style, more advanced SAS/SATA host adaptor cards are ATTO, Areca, LSI Logic and Highpoint. So, can you get an adaptor cable to use one of these new cards, with your old style chassis – NO, you cannot.
In my opinion, the ATTO is the best card. Sonnet’s new drive chassis use the ATTO R380. So does AVID, so does Maxx Digital, so does JMR. Dulce Systems uses the Areca series – another excellent card. The LSI Logic card is not popular, and I have only seen it packaged with Quantum DLT drive arrays. I have never seen anyone use an LSI Logic SAS/SATA card for a drive array in the video business. And then, of course, there is Highpoint.
So, does the ATTO and Areca cards cost a lot more money than say a Sonnet E4P, or Cal Digit Fasta 4e. YES IT DOES. But they are dramatically better products. Cal Digit also makes a very nice modern SAS/SATA RAID card for their drive arrays (like the HD Element product), but this too will not work with your old
eSATA drive box.Unfortunately, products like these become obsolete every few years, and everyone (including me) cries on a regular basis – “but I don’t want to buy a new array, I just want to buy a new host controller card”.
You aint’ gonna get a nice RAID 5 card for an eSATA array. Highpoint is where it stops. Cal Digit and Sonnet make much better and easier to use RAID 0 cards for eSATA arrays.
Bob Zelin
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I have my drives in an Enhance 8MS so I should be fine on the SAS front correct??
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Yes the E8-MS with SF 8088 on both ends wires. This is good right?
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yes – this is good.
Why don’t you contact Enhance Technology, that makes your chassis. Ask them if they advise you to use the ATTO R380 or Areca card.
I don’t know if you are using a split buss or a single buss in this chassis – but Enhance will be able to answer this for you.Bob Zelin
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James, did you get an answer from Enhance? I have the ProAvio 8MS Mini-SAS (which is basically the same company/enclosure) and also have the Highpoint 4322. I’d love to hear which card they suggested you switch to. No problems (yet) with my highpoint card, but I’d rather abandon ship before I hit the iceberg, so to speak.
Thanks!
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It is split bus. They said the Areca 1680 would work as well. I think they are mainly pro Rocketraid. The card I just got from the RMA is on ebay and if it doesn’t sell I’m gonna try and re install it and hopefully recreate my RAID. If that doesn’t work then I am screwed
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Got the card and it didn’t sell on ebay so I tried to create a RAID again with it. It fails when initializing a RAID 5 and the RAID 0 stripes and gets formatted by OS X but the cards freezes after a bit of transferring. Ugh!
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Have you swapped out cables? I’ve had issues with cables/connectors causing similar RAID issues. Now that is the very first thing I try unless it is an obvious problem.
TC -
Really? I knew playing with the cables helped but getting a different brand?
I have tried to get them as straight as possible and not touching any other wires and still no go. Perhaps I’ll try a bit more.
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