Recommended Raid Card for Macpro 3,1 with future updates in mind

[Bob Zelin]

As long as you continue to put price as the #1 thing that is important to you, you will continue to have problems. Other World Computing has an eSATA card for $49 that supports 6g drives. You tell me – how will that compare to a $1000 host adaptor from ATTO (RR680) or Areca (ARC-1882x).

You have already seen what happens when you stick with the Highpoint. And buy yourself some normal drives from Hitachi, Western Digital or Seagate, and an external drive enclosure. Do you want this to actually work ?

Bob ZElin

[John Mcdonald]

Thanks. I concur although I was using an 8-bay SAS external enclosure from ProAvio which seems to have a reasonable reputation. John

[Bob Zelin]

you can continue to use your Proavio enclosure.

Bob

[Jon Schilling]

John,

Should you have any questions, feel free to contact us.

Jonathan Schilling
Vertical Sales Manager
ProAvio
12221 Florence Ave.
Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670
Dir: 562-777-3498
Main: 562-777-3488 X106
Fax: 562-777-3499
Email: jon@proavio.com

[John Mcdonald]

Thanks! This enclosure has a 3 g/b SAS bus, I believe, so I am going to go with the Caldigit Raid card which will allow me to use only one Raid card, replacing the poorly supported Apple Raid card and the HPT 3522 and retain ability to use 8 drives. I started down this path because only the apple raid card and the hpt supported the Macpro 3,1 initially.

John

[Jon Schilling]

John,

We’ll have a 6Gb/s backplane on the EB800MS enclosure in the future.

Be aware that with external expansion with the CalDigit RAID card that only the CalDigit HDElement product is supported.

Jonathan Schilling
Vertical Sales Manager
ProAvio
12221 Florence Ave.
Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670
Dir: 562-777-3498
Main: 562-777-3488 X106
Fax: 562-777-3499
Email: jon@proavio.com

[Bob Zelin]

John –
use an ATTO card. Everyone does (Sonnet, Maxx Digital, G-Tech, Small Tree, JMR).

Bob Zelin

[John Mcdonald]

Thanks, I called Caldigit and received this information. John

[John Davidson]

Highpoint has no support and a confusing web interface which you’re aware of already.

The Areca has kind of a weird terminal app you have to run before you can get into the web interface to manage the RAID.

ATTO is good on support, but updating their drivers and firmware is kind of a pain.

They’re all different, but I do suggest getting 6Gbs drives and RAID card. Right now I’m liking the Areca 1882x. The benefit to the areca over the ATTO is that it has a built-in fan on the card and doesn’t get as blazing hot as the R680. I’ll be upgrading our enclosure to the 6Gbps one when ProAvio puts it out.

Here’s a real world test for you.
ATTO R380 (3Gbps)
Eight 16 2Tb WD Caviar Blacks (3Gps)
ProAvio 8ms (3Gpbs)
Speeds about 600 Mbps read/write.

Areca 1882x (6Gbps)
Eight Hitachi Deskstars (6gps)
ProAvio 8ms (3Gbps)
Speeds at 930 Mbps read/write.

I can only imagine the faster enclosure coming from ProAvio will increase my speeds even more, especially if I daisy chain two of them, which seems to be possible with the Areca 1882x. Each 6Gpbs drive reads/writes at about 120-140 Mbps alone, so the Areca is absolutely maximizing the speed of seven drives in RAID5 (the 8th drive being redundant, obviously).

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Mcdonald]

Thanks. I have ordered an Areca 1882xi12, so I can replace my Apple raid card as well as drive the 8 drive ProAvio enclosure (using an 8087 to 8088 cable for one external port – hopefully won’t have to use two such cables because of timing issues). Every question I asked of Areca was answered within 24 hrs, even though I don’t own the product. That gave me some confidence that support was forthcoming.

Appreciate everyones feedback on this and other CC forums. Let’s hope HD prices return to previous levels.

John