HP Ultruim 3000 SAS on a Hackintosh

[Bruce Schultz]

Forgot to mention the computer is running newest version OS X Mavericks

Bruce Schultz
http://www.hollywooddit.com

[Bob Zelin]

“Will switching to a different Atto brand controller card make this setup work”

Oh Bruce –
first, I will not assure you of anything on a Hackintosh. Did you really save money by building this instead of going to ebay and buying a used Mac Pro for $1000 ?
So, with that said, will the ATTO H680 driver load and work on your Hackinosh ? Who knows – maybe. But on a Mac Pro, you buy the ATTO H680, which costs you a WHOPPING $325 at any mail order company (wow, $300 bucks – that’s my rate for the week !) – and run Tolis BRU, and you have a working system. Now, there is other software that is teriffic – ImagineProducts PreRoll Post (same price at BRU), but I can tell you that the last time I did this, was for a client that wanted to spend ZERO money – so we did the free HP StorOpen software install, and it was a mess, so I got them to buy PreRoll Post, and it didn’t work. Now, I knew that PreRoll post worked just fine, so I had to WIPE THE BOOT DRIVE, and completely reinstall the Mac OS X, and then loaded PreRoll Post, and then everything worked.
So, because you already loaded HP StorOpen – I can’t promise you anything right now – especially because you are on a Hackintosh.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
maxavid@cfl.rr.com

[Tim Jones]

Bob’s right about the Hackintosh questionability, but we have seen success with a few users. The only guidance is that you must retrieve and install the latest ATTO drivers from ATTOTECH.com (that applies to real Mac’s as well). For some reason, Apple’s default driver kext for the ATTO ExpressSAS cards in Mavericks is a very old version. By updating to at lease 3.20 for the R cards or 2.25 for the H cards, you should be OK so far as the ExpressSAS driver is concerned.

HTH,

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Bruce Schultz]

Why does everyone think that building a hackintosh is always about saving money? In 2013 I needed a Thunderbolt enabled MacPro which didn’t exist. I had to build one so that I could outboard my Red Rocket card in an external unit so it could be used with a desktop as well as a MacBook Pro laptop – of which I own three. I make no excuses for being able to build a better computer than Apple (at least until the new MP’s arrived earlier this year), and up until this LTO install there hasn’t been a single hardware or software issue with my built unit. The “debate” is really over about this since Apple moved to Intel – it’s a done deal, hacks are here to stay. Somewhere in my garage is a box with an old Apple II in it. That was the last Apple computer to “officially” allow third party devices to be installed in it., until the very latest MPro’s. No GUI, 8 bit, but it started the revolution. Unfortunately for Apple, Scully closed all the next generations of Apple IIC, Lisa, and most Mac’s and it cost them a market share drop from over 40% to less than 5%. They are making a comeback with those numbers, but accepting that people will use their (now free) OS for purposes other than what they imagined should be something that Apple accepts and embraces. It’s not about saving money, it’s about making a better computer. I’ve built about a dozen of these hacks based on Intel architecture, each one better than the last and more stable, with features that Apple hadn’t included in theirs.

About the Atto cards then. It appears from these first two posts that I will need to switch to a dual connection Atto Express H680 card to make the LTO work. After that I will try the BRU software because it seems like the most recommended and stable LTO software available.

Bruce Schultz
http://www.hollywooddit.com

[Frank Gothmann]

Since you’re already using a Hackintosh you may as well try booting under windows. HP’s LTFS and LTO drives work ok with your card under Win7.
LTFS also works on the Mac, it’s just not great and slow to use because of the way the OSX finder handles things (wanting to generate thumbnails for your files, under Win this feature is disabled for LTFS volumes so navigating folders is a breeze).

——
“You also agree that you will not use these products for… the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.”
iTunes End User Licence Agreement

[Bruce Schultz]

Not all Frankintosh computers are dual boot. I’ve built plenty that were, but since this one is using mostly OSX software as a DIT workstation ( Pomfort LiveGrade & Silverstack among them), I didn’t build it as dual boot nor did I intend to add that capability.

I’ve ordered the Atto card as recommended and I’ll replace my existing one with it to try and make all this work under OSX. I’ll post results when I get that done. If it turns out that Windows works better then I’ll reconsider adding a Win 7/8 boot drive to the system.

Bruce Schultz
http://www.hollywooddit.com

[Tim Jones]

Hi Bruce,

As I mentioned before, be sure to update the device drivers on the system for the ATTO card that you get. I recommend downloading from https://www.attotech.com rather than using the one on the CD that comes with the card.

I look forward to your results.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Bruce Schultz]

I will do that Tim. The Atto card is arriving later this week and I’ll be installing then so I’ll post my results here.

Thanks for all the good tips.

Bruce Schultz
http://www.hollywooddit.com

[Bruce Schultz]

Atto H680 was installed and shows up in Sys Info as a valid SAS device & PCI device.

The HP LTO is recognized by HP Standalone software and dropping files onto the mounted cartridge is working. Reading those files on the cartridge is also working properly.

Switching to an Atto card is what worked for me.

Question: What is the advantage of using the software tools like BRU Producers or PreRoll Post vs the HP Standalone software? Aren’t the files all recognizable by the OS once they are written to the drive? Is it for a more robust indexing and for better recovery options? Is there an issue with reading a cartridge written to by say OS X on a Windows machine?

Curious about this. If I were to just use HP Standalone to copy R3D or other video files to the cartridge, would there be a potential problem on the read side on another computer later in time? Lastly, are files written to the LTO cartridge by either BRU or PreRoll Post only accessible to be read later using those programs, or are they readable and recoverable without the client having either one installed?

I don’t have an issue with buying either one of these programs, just wondering what the main advantage to them is.

Bruce Schultz
http://www.hollywooddit.com

[Tim Jones]

Hi Bruce,

Great news on the ATTO HBA and the system.

I can’t speak to Preroll Post, but I would invite you to read this blog entry:

What’s the big deal with how an LTO (or other) tape is written?

Also, My answers to Bob Cole’s questions below the original blog post can help you understand what we’re (TOLIS Group and BRU) doing to insure your data is recoverable far into the future.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!