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SATA card for MacPro
Anyone using a rock solid SATA PCIe card that has port-multiplier on it. I have a couple of the Sonnet E4P cards and they really seem to be flakey. There tech support is the opposite of AJA so I’m looking to replace the card.
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7 Replies
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My Sonnet E4P has been rock solid in my Intel Pro 2.66. Not one issue. How has your’s been ‘flakey’?
Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
I have a 10-bay connected to 2 ports and then single drives to 2 other ports. When this is connected the finder can do to a crawl, drive read/write problems. Sometimes the drives do not show up on restart. I have tried different drive scenarios and always problems.
It maybe a bad card but the support is the worse, as with most people it is hard to go down for any length of time. But since I can normally get it to work with just the 10-drive/2 ports I make due. Sonnet doesn’t seem want to look at it, this card has been in 3 system all the same problem. So I just want to replace it but not with another Sonnet card.
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I’ve been using 3-Sonnet E4P in G5s and Quad Intels for over a year with no problems. But I’m only using Sonnet 5 bay raids with Seagate Baracuda 500GB drives.
Who makes your 10 bay and single drives? Maybe you should look at a eSATA card from the manufacturer of the 10 bay. I’ve heard of issues were drive and card mismatches have had issues.
Another issue could be the raid striping. Apple’s Disk Utility leave a lot to be desired for striping raid configurations. A friend of mine bought I think its called Soft Raid and was able to re-stripe his raid without loosing any media. It solved his throughput problems.
cheers,
greg -
Good point. I only use the Sonnet Fusion 500’s with the E4P card. They might be more compatible with each other. And I use SoftRaid.
Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
I too have have the e4p card on a Mac Pro.
Every once in awhile I have trouble cloning to one of the OWC eSATA single drive enclosures, where everything just freezes up and I have to do a hard boot. I have since connected the OWC drive via FW800 without incident.
The F500 bays have been fine.
We did buy (2) bays that started making a high pitch whine as more drives were loaded. Neal at Sonnet Tech said there were some bays with problem power supplies and they advance replaced both F500 bays.
So, I have had great success dealing with Neal at Sonnet Tech Support.
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RJ,
Do you have both F500 bays striped together as one 10 drive RAID or two 5 drive RAIDS?
Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
Because I am still working mostly in DVC Pro 50, I have only been building (2) drive RAIDs, which are more than fast enough to stay ahead of any bottle necks.
My limited use of the e4p and F500 bays may not expose problems others might having when they push the edge.
RJ
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