Hands down best PCIe eSATA card?

[Bob Zelin]

I don’t know the answer to your question. The very first SATA host controllers I used were the original Firmtek SATA I host controllers (the 2 port PCI-X cards). From the photo on the Firmtek website, the “older” SeriTek 2SE4 appears to be the typical 4 port PCI-X port multiplier card (that looks identical to the CalDigit Fasta4x, Sonnet X4P, and DatOptic port multiplier card) that used the Sil 3124. This “older” card was only released last year, as Firmtek was late in the game with port multiplers.

However, the card you refer to, the Firmtek Seritek 2SE2-E is a TWO port card (not 4 port card), and I ASSUME that it supports port multiplication, even though it does not say this on the website. If you look at the Firmtek Seritek /5PM, which is their 5 bay port multiplier SATA chassis, the specs say that is works with the Seritek 2SE2-E. Although I don’t know this for a fact, I bet you money there is a Sil3124 chipset in this box, because it says that it works with the
“older” 2SE4 PCI-X card. Please remember that even if it has the Marvell chip on it (which is used by Sonnet and Highpoint), it still communicates with the 3124 in the box, and this is where the problem lies.

Like I said, I have clients that have NEVER EVER had a problem with their Sonnet or Cal Digit port multiplier RAID 0 systems, but I have had too many problems to be comftorable with this these days, with newer choices on the market, coming from companies that include Cal Digit, Sonnet, Dulce, and Maxx Digital. And just for the record, I have NEVER EVER seen a Firmtek (non port multipler) product ever fail.

Bob Zelin

[Winston A. cely]

I just wanted to give everyone a big shout out of thanks!!! It’s been a big help and learning experience on this type of technology.

I’m unfortunately not able to get everything all at once, and have to build my suite a little bit at a time. The good is that I’m not willing to sacrifice quality to save a few bucks. The bad is that sometimes technology comes and goes too quickly for me to be able to utilize it effectively. Fortunately, I’ve always received great advice from the members of the Cow, and this thread is a terrific example of that. I now feel confident to go forth and conquer!

The email is coming to you shortly, Bob! 😀

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

“If God could do the tricks we can do, He’d be a happy Man.” – Peter O’Toole – “The Stuntman”

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Bob Zelin] “I have suffered enough to join the crowd”

Holy shi*t Bob. I can’t believe it. Seriously I am totally shocked. Glad, but shocked.

Did I spell that correctly?

[Francois Stark]

Hi Bob

Have a look at this barefeats review of the Highpoint Rocketraid 3522, with Raid 5; and the Intel IOP341 running at 800MHz with Multiple ADMA engines. It has 256MB DDR2 cache memory with ECC (533MHz). This “core” provides enhanced RAID 5 and 6 performance as well as improved overall Mac Pro performance due to less host CPU utilization.

https://www.barefeats.com/hard100.html

Unfortunately the mad scientists only tested raid 0 – it is the raid 5 info we want in this business!!!

It does not use port multiplication: It has special SAS connectors, and with a special cable can connect up to 8 sata drives seperately, each on their own sata channel! The drive enclosure needs to have one eSata port per drive.

Regards
Francois

Regards
Francois

[Daniel Wilkinson]

I have a Venus T5 5 bay enclosure with a Griffin eSata 2 port express card. I am having a problem with the Raid drive not showing up or ejecting for no reason. I have four of the drives stripped and one as a media drive. The media drive is where I save my FCPro Documents. I have been having problem with the raid drive ejecting all the sudden. I have upgraded to Leopard and now the problem is worse. It has Sil4726. My questions are why is the raid drive failing? Is the chipset of the raid controller in the back of the VenusT5 box? Can you just replace the controller if so? Do I need a better PCI express card? Could one drive failing cause the whole volume to eject? The T5 is less than a year old.

MacBookPro 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2
6 GB Ram
FCP2

[David Roth weiss]

Welcome to the Cow Daniel. For the record, it makes no sense to tack a new post onto a thread that is over a year old. I just happened to notice it because I receive all posts in thread to which I previously responded.

In any case, most cards with the Sil4726 chips have had issues eventually. Snow Leopard is even worse, but Leopard should not be a problem. In any case, you should first try to determine if the controller card has newer updated drivers and/or firmware. If so, by all means uninstall the current drivers and reinstall. Test that first… Then, consider updating the firmware.

Also, do you have Disk Warrior? If not get it, it’s essential for all FCP editors and all power users on Macs. Run it on all drives, including your raid. In addition, fix permissions using the Apple Disk Utility.

Finally, if a single drive in your raid goes bad, yes, it will bring down the entire raid.

And one last thing, Griffin is not a commonly used controller card. I’ve never heard of it being used by any FCP users ever before. You might in fact consider another brand. If you go that way I have some inexpensive solutions for you.

Good luck,
David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Daniel Wilkinson]

I did not notice the date. Thanks for responding. I had the current drivers. I deleted the drivers to see if reinstalling them would help. Now I cant load the drivers. Either from the CD or the web, It tells me to contact the manufacture. I have read in other threads that their is no support after that question is asked. but the strange thing is it will turn on and show up, but then crash the whole computer after 5 mins. The strange thing is it will turn on and show up, but then crash the whole computer after 5 mins. What I don’t want to do is lose the data I have. I will get another Express card and see if that will help. Any suggestions?