System freezes with the Sonnet Tempo-X eSATA 4+4 controller card

[Sean Oneil]

I lost a weeks worth of work thanks to them. I’d bet good money that if you buy a pair of Firmtek cards, your problems will dissapear. You don’t have Maxtor drives by any chance do you?

Sean

[David Smith]

Sorry to hear that Sean. Their fix, as described above, seems to be working fine including being able to sleep the system using the Sleep command.

I’m using Hitachi SATA-II drives (although I haven’t put them into a pc yet to run the dos program that allows you to set them to SATA-II mode.) I chose the Sonnet card because of it’s 8 ports and plan to add the Firmtek four drive Hot Swappable box in the future. They seem to make top notch stuff so I’m sure you’re right about their controller cards. Thanks for the advice!

David

[Francois Xavier]

Sean,

what about maxtor drives ?

Documentary Director & Editor
Paris /France

[Mark Maness]

I have not had any problems yet. I’ve been using a Sonnet Tempo-X card for about 7 months… no problems. Its hooked up to a ProMax 2T Raid Array.

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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions

[David Smith]

[Wayne Carey] “I have not had any problems yet. I’ve been using a Sonnet Tempo-X card for about 7 months… no problems. Its hooked up to a ProMax 2T Raid Array.”

That’s interesting Wayne…. perhaps the problem is only with the eSATA card. I’m guessing yours must be a SATA card as the eSATA wasn’t out seven months ago as far as I know.

[Sean Oneil]

[Francois X] “what about maxtor drives ?”

Don’t use them with a Sonnet card if you want to keep your sanity. It’s too long of a story. Call Firmtek and I’m sure they’ll happily explain it.

Sean

[Francois Xavier]

[Sean ONeil] “what about maxtor drives ?”

Don’t use them with a Sonnet card if you want to keep your sanity”

that’s exactly what I was about to do !
second thoughts… I’ll take your word for it

any brand recommended ?

Documentary Director & Editor
Paris /France

[Sean Oneil]

I reccomend Firmtek cards. They only have 4 ports, but you can get two of them if you have an extra slot (AJA or Decklink in Slot 4, Firmtek cards in slots 2 and 3). You can’t go wrong.

To be fair to what I said, my nightmare experience was with Sonnet’s 1.1 firmware which was new at the time. I see they now have 1.2 which may or may not have fixed the issues with the particular version of the Maxline Maxtors (the good but cheap ones that Newegg sells).

Appearantly, the drives have a very sensitive timing which Sonnet did not account for when making the 1.1 firmware. They worked fine with the Firmtek cards and with the G5’s internal SATA ports. But with the Sonnet cards running v1.1 and these Maxtors connected externally, they will blow up your machine. Badly.

It happened when I updated to 1.1 the day it was released. It was a nightmare. And I was throurough in my troubleshooting. I tried more than 1 card, more than 1 G5, and more than one set of drives. I also spent a week talking everyday on the phone with Sonnet tech support. At first they treated me like an idiot, saying my SATA cables must not be secured well or some garbage (believe me, I tried many different cables – I even tried different power outlets I was so desperate).

After a few days they said other were having the same problem and that they ALL had Maxtor drives. But get this (I’m not making this up), the guy started BRAGGING to me about what a low percentage of people had problems with 1.1. I couldn’t believe this jerk.

Their solution to my problem was to email me a package installer that would put the card back to 1.0. It didn’t work and it still said 1.1. I called and told them it didn’t work. He asked how long the installer took to run, and based on what I told him, he said my card was hosed from trying to go back to 1.0.

The next day, they temporarilly removed 1.1 from their website. Shortly thereafter, they put it back and did not mention ANYWHERE that there were known issues with Maxtor drives. It remained this way for a long time, possibly a year until 1.2 was released recently (which still may not work). That’s the kind of company they are.

Luckilly I discovered Firmtek who explained why the Sonnets didn’t work right with my particular drives and why Firmtek’s products will. I took a chance and bought some of their cards. Magically, our arrays were back and worked great They still do.

Even if Sonnet’s 1.2 update fixed it, or if the newer Maxtor revisions are more stable, I wouldn’t go with Sonnet for anything. I’ve had bad experiences with more than one of their products.

Sean

[Mark Maness]

Well, all I can say is that I recieved this system in May and have been using since that time. And yes, I do have a Sonnet Tempo-X eSATA 8 card. All eight of my ports are being used. Now…. the drives that ProMax uses are Hitachti drives.

I do know without a fact, that Hitachti drives are the best all around drives for this kind of work. More reliable than any other.

If Sonnet is having problems with Maxtor drives…. its Sonnet’s problem and they need to fix it because I have been using Maxtor drives as my system drives for the last 15 years without any problems what so ever. It’s not like that Maxtor is an off brand drive that nobody has heard of…

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions

[Francois Xavier]

yes the story was long
thank you for your advice

Documentary Director & Editor
Paris /France