Estimated random IOPS for NL-SAS drives?

Hopefully simple question. I've seen generally accepted values for random IOPS of different speed drives (~80 for 7.2k SATA, ~140 for 2.5'' 10k SAS, ~200 for 2.5'' 15k SAS, etc.).
What is the generally accepted IOPS value for 7.2k NL-SAS drives? I would have figured it would be about the same as 7.2k SATA, but I've been educated through a previous post that NL-SAS can achieve better IOPS through deeper queues? I can't seem to find an IOPS estimate specific to NL-SAS in my googling though.
What value would you use for estimating potential raw capability of an array?
This topic first appeared in the Spiceworks Community

Hopefully simple question. I've seen generally accepted values for random IOPS of different speed drives (~80 for 7.2k SATA, ~140 for 2.5'' 10k SAS, ~200 for 2.5'' 15k SAS, etc.).
What is the generally accepted IOPS value for 7.2k NL-SAS drives? I would have figured it would be about the same as 7.2k SATA, but I've been educated through a previous post that NL-SAS can achieve better IOPS through deeper queues? I can't seem to find an IOPS estimate specific to NL-SAS in my googling though.
What value would you use for estimating potential raw capability of an array?
This topic first appeared in the Spiceworks Community

Similar Messages

  • Slow Dream Machine Quadro 5600/SAS Drives et (Be careful what you wish for)

    Well I received my dream machine yesterday. I went ALL out– 8 Core 3.2ghz, Quadro 5600, 32GB Ram (Crucial), Apple Raid Card with four 300GB 15,000 rpm SAS drives configured in a RAID 0. I upgraded from a less exotic 3.0Ghz 8 core with a X1900 card, 16GB, and no Raid. This machine was solely bought with speeding Motion up as much as possible because I primarily do video/ motion graphics work.
    The result? I believe slower performance. I can barely muster 5-8fps with a reasonably simple Motion animation. I have not done back to back timings but it certainly does NOT have the massive improvement I was expecting. I have found Bare Feats.com had done some testing (too late for me) and they found the issues with the new Nvidia video cards and I think this is where my bottleneck is as well. I went with the 5600 for it's massive 1.5gb of vram to drive two 30" monitors and the work station grade graphics (prioritizing quality over performance). I have also been getting on screen video artifacts intermittently to boot.
    I would gladly sent it back and go with my old one, but alas it was obviously a custom configuration so that's not a option. My only hope is **much** improved video drivers to finally unlock the huge potential the card has.
    Any other suggestions?

    It could be other things too. When Macworld did the benchmark test's for the new Mac Pro 2.8 the
    slow down for it was the hard drive they put a hard drive in from last years Mac Pro and the speed
    went up 12 or 15% so hang in there.

  • 13" Macbook pro random freezing after upgrading hard drive.

    i have a 2010 mbp 13" 2.4
    I upgraded the hhd from the 250 to a 320 5400 RPM drive i cleared the cache did a clean install of osx 10.6 grabbed all the updates and then rolled my time machine to restore all my files.
    But now it randomly freezes for about 4-7 seconds. It's extremely annoying and i can't figure out why. Short of a clean install any ideas on what might fix this?
    Thanks

    The AHT does test the graphics chips. Run the extended version and see if anything shows up in the form of an error code. Also, there may be a crash log in Console. Try to run something processor intensive so the Mac freezes, and then run the AHT. Heat could be a factor.
    Do you have access to an Apple Store? If so, make an appointment at the Genius Bar and bring in your Mac for evaluation. They would probably have a more comprehensive hardware test they could run. If you get any error codes, bring those along.
    It sounds like you could have some sort of hardware problem here. Since you are under warranty, it might be time to let Apple diagnose and fix it. It sounds like you may have had video issues during the first week of ownership with the original hard drive, and these may actually be independent of the hard drive.
    Good luck!
    Good luck!

  • Xserve Crash - Now won't boot off either SAS Drive

    Hi all,
    My Xserve (2008) just crashed about an hour ago - turning on the screen connected to the Xserve showed the entire thing had ground to a halt, meaning I had to hold the power button down, thinking it just needed a reboot.
    Upon re-booting, it just started flashing the "No OS" ?-inside-a-folder icon.
    Booting off the system DVD doesn't seem to work, it loads as far as the first blue screen and gets stuck.
    I've successfully managed to boot off a MacBook Pro via Target Disk Mode, and upon startup was presented with two dialogue boxes saying the disks I had inserted were unreadable by the system.
    Can it really be true that BOTH my SAS drives have failed at the same time?
    One was the boot drive, the other a cloned backup updated every other day.
    Unfortunately I don't have a backup of the backup, though somewhat luckily this is just the OS. All the 'data' is stored in RAID5 arrays.
    Any ideas what might be happening? Something inside the Xserve itself?
    I'm currently installing Snow Leopard Server onto a LaCie FW800 drive through a Mac Mini, should be done in about 25 minutes. I'll then plug that into the Xserve and try to alt-boot off that, see if I can get to DiskWarrior.
    Any help is appreciated,
    -Robert

    Nicolas, welcome, did you boot from OS 9.1 or 9.2 for the firmware update. And exactly what happens when you attempt to boot from the external.
    Joe
    Power Mac G4 Gigabit Ethernet   Mac OS X (10.3.9)  

  • OVM  local drives not seen - SAS drive issue

    OVM 3.1.1
    Dell R510 12 SAS Drives in Raid 5
    I'm trying to set up an r510 for a test env, and after reading through the forums, I found that it says SAS drives can't be used.
    6.4.3. Local SAS Hard Disks Not Supported for Storage
    But that seems crazy. They are in Raid 5. I'm not trying to access them individually. They show up as a Physical Disk, but they don't show up when I create repository.
    I've went through this note:
    Oracle VM 3.0.3 - Using several local disks
    and cleaned up everything. Deleted the 1 partition, ensured multipathing worked, and the storage disk array appears.
    Doesn't make since that a RAID 5 volume whether SAS or IDE would viewed differently. The "drive" is presented through the controller. It could be my controller. I've heard others said it works. Some say it works with 3.0.3.
    Edited by: ABD - DBA on Oct 19, 2012 10:04 AM

    Ok, I finally go it to show up. When I created the server pool, I didn't notice that it had issues adding the server with local disks. Had a hostname lookup issue. Anyway, I can see the disk now, but have the following error:
    Fri Oct 19 14:15:41 EDT 2012] OVMAPI_4010E Attempt to send command: storage_plugin_createFileSystem to server: oravms02 failed. OVMAPI_4004E Server Failed Command: storage_plugin_createFileSystem oracle.ocfs2.OCFS2.OCFS2Plugin 0004fb000005000033f2d7b408ba45eb /dev/mapper/36782bcb0630d4700181325fb07f3792e 0, Status: org.apache.xmlrpc.XmlRpcException: OSCPlugin.InvalidValueEx:'The backing device /dev/mapper/36782bcb0630d4700181325fb07f3792e is not allowed to contain partitions'
    If I run fdisk /dev/sdb and issue print command, there are no partitions displayed.
    I look in /dev/mapper and see the following
    brw-rw---- 1 root disk 252, 0 Oct 18 16:44 36782bcb0630d4700181325fb07f3792e
    brw-rw---- 1 root disk 252, 1 Oct 18 16:44 36782bcb0630d4700181325fb07f3792ep1
    I used "dmsetup remove /dev/mapper/36782bcb0630d4700181325fb07f3792ep1"
    Now, I can create the repository.
    Edited by: ABD - DBA on Oct 19, 2012 2:25 PM

  • MacPro Raid Card w/ SAS Drives is battery required?

    We have a MacPro (early 2008) dual 2.8 Quad with Mac Raid Card and 4 300g SAS drives. The battery became an issue early on it was always showing low on start-ups. Now it shows failed. I am now running system with 3 drives striped raid 0. Is the battery required to be replaced? I like this system for the speed it gives us on short HD, using my original media as the back-up. I am a little out of my league with the SAS drives so any opperation tips would be a plus! Thanx in advance....

    The RAID card allows for the use of SAS drives or for the use of RAID 5 (which requires checksum calculation on writes and for data re-creation after a failure).
    The battery assures that the data will be held in the RAID card's RAM until it can be written to the drives, even if a power failure occurs just after the data are written to the card (but before they are re-written to the drives).
    Not using that feature? You don't need the battery.
    Not using RAID 5 or SAS drives? You don't need the Apple RAID card. Disk Utility can set up Striped or Mirrored RAID sets.

  • MacPro Raid ?.  Can I stripe 3 promise 450gb SAS drives.

    I'm thinking about ordering a new MacPro Quad core 3.33ghz. Along with the raid card and 3 Promise 450GB SAS drives. Can I stripe across 3 drives or does it half to be 2 or 4.
    Secondly can I put a SATA drive in the 4th bay and install OSX and use bootcamp to install windows? Then of course I would occas boot into windows.
    Thanks for the help in advance.
    Ray

    Most people find the Apple RAID card too much trouble.
    You want to check the Apple support pages for RAID card, too.
    Can't mix SATA and SAS.
    Can't run Windows natively (VM only).
    Changes sleep behavior.
    I'd invest in SSD or high speed SATA.
    Having run 2.66 / 3.0 / 3.4GHz it really depends if it is worth the extra cost, but in any event, wait for Xeon 5600/3600s to come out.
    http://www.apple.com/support/macpro/

  • Server 2012 and 2012 R2 do not allow access to all 7 optical SAS drives?

    The following problem occurs with Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 and 2012 R2, Datacenter or Standard. 
    I have an external SAS enclosure with seven optical drives and one hot-swap SAS/SATA bay that connects using two SFF-8088 connectors (no internal SAS expander, etc.).  The purpose is to use the seven bluray writers to write multiple copies of a large
    database simultaneously.  The optical drives are also occasionally used to read datasets that come on multiple discs (usually 8-12 per dataset and up to 15 datasets at a time).  Because of the volume, more optical drives are definitely better. 
    Regardless of the type of SAS controller used to connect this enclosure, some significant functionality is always missing.
    For writing, it is best to connect directly to the optical drives (which do their own buffering) so a HBA would seem better than a hardware RAID controller.  I have tried several HBAs, including LSI-9211, LSI-9240-IT, Dell H310-IT.  In all cases,
    Windows only sees four DVD drives and the hot-swap bay.  The drives Windows sees work perfectly for reading and writing.  MegaRAID Storage Manager (LSI controller software) sees all seven optical drives and the hot-swap bay.  LSI says this
    must be a Windows problem.  Strangely, if I remove (any) three optical drives and replace them with hot-swap bays, all eight devices are recognized by Windows.
    If I use a true RAID controller (tried LSI-9260, Dell H800, Dell H810, HP 812P, IBM 5015), windows and MSM see all seven drives and the hot-swap bay, reads from the optical drives are fine, but writing large discs times out (presumably because of buffering
    by the RAID card) so I can't write DVDs.
    Is there a way to get Server to recognize all seven optical drives on an HBA?  Ideally, I'd like to add several of these enclosures but I can't even get one working properly!
    The system is a Tyan (Dell) MB with dual Xeon E5-2620s and 64Gb RDIMM.  Currently includes LSI-9260 (2Tb SAS 10k in RAID 0), Dell H810 (32Tb SAS in RAID 6), and LSI-9211 (optical enclosure + 3Tb hot-swap).  Just installed Server 2012 R2 Datacenter
    for testing.
    Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    I've had the experience of working as a validation engineer for Intel, who at the time was developing a SAS/SATA storage controller chipset for thier new xeon processors. The chipset was included in their motherboard offerings. I validated the linux driver,
    which is now included in the linux kernel as of the 3.x series kernel.
    My first question is, what type of SAS enclosure are you using for your optical drives/hot swap bay? You will be surprised at how many enclosures don't actually provide a 100% direct-attached storage configuration, and instead opt to work as a mini expander
    instead. In our validation, we tested several SAS enclosures, and we found several that even though they were advertised as direct-attached enclosures, by inspecting the data transmission with a SAS protocol analyzer we found communication over SMP (Serial
    Management Protocol).
    To ensure it is NOT the enclosure causing the anomaly, i'd connect the 7 optical drives directly to each storage controller unit (or sff-8087). These cards can support around 256 devices via expander attached configuration, as that is how many sas addresses
    the scu's can support. Either way, they can only support a maximum of 8 devices direct-attached (4 per SCU). I would use a multi-line SFF-8087 SATA breakout cable to directly connect your optical drives to the HBA, 4 on SCU0 and the other 3 on SCU1.
    I find it strange that LSI's storage manager can see all of the drives, but windows cannot. Since the SAS protocol allows for the ATAPI cmd set to be sent via scsi commands, the only thing I can think of is if windows can only recognize a certain amount
    of SAS-addresses utilizing the ATAPI cmd set. Technically, it should only be limited by the number of devices the hba can support, and in either LSI thats 256. Otherwise the enclosure may be doing something funny with the initiator (SCU), where one initiator
    may take precedence over the other. Again, testing a direct connection with a SFF-8087 SATA breakout cable will eliminate the enclosure as a factor.
    I can understand from a developer perspective for the desire to have windows recognize the devices instead of relying on the lsi storage app. Firstly, that app is monstrous and unwieldy. Secondly, it does not allow for customized solutions/scripting to fully
    access the optical devices, since you have to interact w/ lsi's storage mgr. 3rd, this should simply work if MS is fully compliant with the SAS protocol.
    Finally, I want to make sure everyone is aware that a fully compliant 6G SAS compliant device will support SSP (Serial SCSI protocol), SMP (Serial Management Protocol), and STP (Sata Tunneling Protocol). STP basically defines how SATA devices can inter-operate
    within the sas fabric by tunneling ATA commands via the SCSI cmd set. This is a basic functionality guaranteed within the overall SAS protocol; if your HBA supports SAS & SATA, it will support SSP, SMP, and STP frames (this is usually always listed on
    the HBA), and therefore it will fully support SATA devices. A SAS device will support SSP & SMP. A SATA-only HBA will support the ATA cmd set only (and thus, cannot inter-operate within a SAS fabric).
    Please note that at the very least, a direct-attached configuration should provide the number of Storage Controller Units x 4 fully working SATA devices (generally each internal SFF-8087 is a scu, most HBA's have a min of 2 SCU's, and 4 directly addressable
    devices per SCU (8 direct attached devices total). Generally, any issues that will arise from SATA devices will be the result of expander-attached configurations. There are many points a SATA device can experience errors in a expander-attached configuration,
    from the routing mechanism being utilized (table vs subtractive), to the type of expander being used (fan-out vs edge expander). Expanders will generally at least support 1 method of routing, if not both, and may or may not support multi-level configurations
    (this is specifically dependent on the hba). It was not uncommon in our testing to come across expanders that would work great w/ SAS & SATA w/ 1 level expander, but fail to communicate with SATA devices past 2 or more levels. This falls on the responsibility
    of the HBA, specifically the driver for the OS.
    More Info on SATA Tunneling Protocol (STP): 
    http://www.serialstoragewire.net/Articles/2004_0225/developer_article_2_feb.html

  • Is it possible to upgrade the Mac Pro with SCSI/SAS drives?

    Hi guys I am considering to move on to a Mac Pro from my old PC.
    The Mac Pro enclosure is quite unique in its hard drive holders as no cables are used and all drives are connected with a plugin mechanism.
    So I am curious if that will allow me to upgrade to a SCSI/SAS storage system which requires cable connections between drives and the SCSI/SAS card on the PCI-E slot. I dont know if this will be possible with the Mac Pro enclosure.
    Has anyone tried to do this？
    Btw is there any Ultra320 or SAS(preferably) interface card available for Mac OS X?

    The connectors for SATA drives can be used with SAS drives. However, the controller needs to be SAS compatible. I have never installed a SAS drive in the Mac Pro bay to see what happens. If some one has a SAS drive and wants to try this I would be interested in the results.
    My guess is that the Mac Pro would not see the drive.
    Areca sells the Mac Pro PCIe bootable ARC-1680 SAS controller in several configurations. This controller allows the user to utilize SAS or SATA hard drives connected to the card. The ARC-1680x comes with two external mini SAS connectors that can support eight direct connect hard drives or up to 128 devices (in theory) when used with SAS expanders.
    The ARC-1680LP has one internal mini SAS port and one external mini SAS port. I looked at the Mac Pro internal SATA connectors and they can unscrew from the frame but there is only about 1/2" of clearance in that area of the case. In addition, I would want the hot swap bays to still operate and I did not see an easy way to patch into the existing SATA connectors. It would be nice if the Mac Pro factory connectors used snap on SATA connector on the back of the backplane so that users could interface the 4 SATA bays with an internal PCie controller. However, its hard wired in the existing configuration. With the new Mac Pro PCIe RAID 5 card on the market there must be alternative connectors that allow this type of installation to work properly.
    Based on the ease at which the Areca SAS controller can be added as an external using the ARC-1680x I went with that option. I am using it with eight direct connect SATA hard drives now. I plan to expand the storage by adding a SAS expander in the form of a hub or an enclosure with SAS capabilities. I have been looking at a 16 bay SAS enclosure but I am not sure how loud it will be
    Details on the ARC-1680 can be found here:
    http://www.areca.com.tw/products/pcietosas1680series.htm
    Its very cool to have SAS or SATA capability along with a bootable card that can support tons of hard drives and RAID levels 0, 1,1E, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60 or JBOD . I booted the Mac Pro with a 2TB Mac OS X 10.4.10 RAID 6 volume and ran Xbench. It shows a 400MB/sec. hard drive setup and raises the overall Xbench score substantially.
    While I doubt I will boot the Mac Pro from the RAID 6 volume much, it is very cool that that function is available. This is the only PCIe host adapter I have found with boot capabilities besides Apples new $999 4 port SATA internal card. SAS has lots of expansion capabilities. Users that want pretty much unlimited hard drive connectivity will enjoy the new ARC-1680x.
    Have fun!

  • Plz Help sas drive What should i do?

    So I have an awesome late 2009 macbook pro 13.3", with a 2.53 GHz intel core duo processor, 500GB 5400rpm HDD, 4GB ram. I just ordered an 8GB ram upgrade from newegg, because a lot of stuff I do with my computer takes ALOT of resources. Im also looking at HDD upgrades as well, to speed up that end. I was looking at a 7200 rpm until I came across an SAS drive. It's 2.5", looks identical to SATA but at 15,000 rpm!! upon looking at my system profiler I noticed an area labeled SAS. When I looked into it, it just said that no SAS "devices" are attached. So does that mean my computer does in fact have an SAS controller? Can I use an SAS drive instead of my SATA? Please anything is helpful, I am a tiny but time constrained.

    SSD sounds really nice, and ive even found one cheaper than the hdd i was planning on getting. Now i realize its only a 40GB SSD but it would only be for my OS. My question is would this fit in my computer?
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227610&cmre=2.5%22_ssd_sata-_-20-227-610--Product
    It says its SATA II, is that what im looking for? or am i looking for SATA III? or SATA

  • Please help with SAS driver issue S10 6483

    I am going crazy and hope someone here can help.
    I am trying to load Windows 7 on a S10 6483 which has a SAS hard drive.
    While instaling, the system does not see the drive and asks for a driver.
    I can not find a SAS driver for windos 7 any where.
    Can some one help me figure this out?
    Thank you!
    Bill
    Solved!
    Go to Solution.

    welcome to the forum!
    have you tried this driver?   http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?&LegacyDocID=MIGR-69206
    otherwise, you could try one of the following from LSI:
    http://www.lsi.com/downloads/Public/Host%20Bus%20Adapters/Host%20Bus%20Adapters%20Common%20Files/SAS...
    or
    http://www.lsi.com/downloads/Public/MegaRAID%20Common%20Files/5.1.112_Windows_Signed_Driver.zip
    ThinkStation C20
    ThinkPad X1C · X220 · X60T · s30 · 600

  • Xserve (early 2008) with SAS drives

    Greeting All,
    Can Xserve (early 2008) add SAS driver in any bay of the chassis? Or it will like MacPro need add RAID card in it.
    Thanks,
    Spin

    Yes, SAS and SATA Apple Drive Modules (ADMs) can be mixed in Xserve.
    If you want hardware RAID, you need the add-on card.
    Quoth the current Xserve technical page "Three independent hot-plug drive bays with support for SATA or SAS drives; support for up to 3TB of hot-plug internal storage using the following Apple Drive Modules:
    80GB 7200-rpm SATA with 8MB disk cache
    1TB 7200-rpm SATA with 32MB disk cache
    73GB 15,000-rpm SAS with 16MB disk cache
    300GB 15,000-rpm SAS with 16MB disk cache"
    And here's the obligatory official [ADM compatibility article link|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1219].
    Other potential expansion options include outboard direct attached storage (DAS) via SCSI or SAS and a PCI-X or PCIe controller, outboard storage via Network Attached Storage (NAS), or outboard storage via Fibre Channel (FC) Storage Area Network (SAN) storage via PCIe controller. If you're looking at SAS disks here specifically for performance, I'd tend to go to DAS SAS or FC SAN storage as potential alternatives; they're toward the higher end.

  • How to restore saved image to my SAS drive

    Hi all,
    I'm sure this has been discussed before but I haven't found an applicable thread yet.  
    I have Windows 7 Pro on a Thinkstation S20 with a SAS drive (not a SATA drive).  I am unable to restore my drive with my backup because the SAS drive is not detected.  What is the solution for this?  Any help is much appreciated.
    Thank you.
    Solved!
    Go to Solution.

    Ok, I found this (from you, when you helped someone else) and it worked!  Woohoo!
    1.  Download CDSAS09WS17.exe from the Lenovo site.  For your case, I would download it again and start completely fresh.  I downloaded directly to a USB key, and then ran the .exe from the key and extracted the contents to a folder on the key.
    2.  Boot your system to the win7 install disc, run through the prompts (make sure you're not choosing upgrade).
    3.  When you get to the drive selection screen, click "load driver".
    4.  Point windows to where you extraced the Marvell driver files on your key.  Note that for 64 bit you should point it to the "amd64" folder.  Click OK.
    5.  Allow windows to load the driver.  Once it's done, it should come up with mv64xx.inf file.  Make sure the "hide devices that are not compatible with this HW is checked".  This way only a single driver should show.  Click OK.
    6.  Let windows install the driver.  Your drives should now be accessible.

  • S20 15K SAS Drive noise

    Hi,
    I have purchased the following:
    Lenovo ThinkStation S20 Xeon W3550 Quad-Core Processor (3.06GHz 1066MHz 8MB) 4gb (2 x 2gb) udimm ddr3 1333MHz, 300GB SAS (15k) with SAS Controller Card NVIDIA Quadro 2000
    This is a brand new system and its really noisy the case itself is fine, all the noise comes from the SAS drive. I've used other SAS drives before and there quiet like a normal HDD is the SAS drive broken or is it meant to sound like there is a little jack hammer inside the case everytime the drive reads or writes?
    The performance seems fine, the drive has the following part number: Hitachi HUS156030VLS60 SAS 15KRpm 6Gb/s 3.5"
    Here is a image of the performance from HD Tune:
    Solved!
    Go to Solution.

    jdeb - my current setup is a 160GB intel 320-series SSD for OS, swap space, and scratch disk.   for data storage i use two 1TB WD10JPVT 2.5" notebook drives in RAID 1.   i have a third WD10JPVT inside for daily backups.   then, i have an external thinkpad eSATA+USB secure HDD enclosure with a fourth WD10JPVT inside.
    i use windows server 2008 R2 SP1 enterprise edition as my OS.   backup is handled via windows server backup performed twice daily using a custom shell script triggered by the task scheduler.   backups run at noon and 6pm, imaging both the SSD and 1TB data array.   the only drive at risk is the SSD since it's not in RAID 1 with another unit.   i've been waiting for intel to introduce an RST driver capable of handling RAID+TRIM.   currently there are two 6-hour windows where the drive could fail and recent data might not be backed up.   otherwise i have multiple images for recovery.
    the SSD is silent and the WD10JPVT drives idle at 22db with 25db seek acoustics and minuscule heat output.   you can hear the drives when they seek but it's very subtle.   otherwise the C20 is imperceptible in my environment.
    for a personal workstation deployment i'm done with noisy SAS drives.   at slightly more than 100MB/sec sequential transfer speeds, the WD10JPVT drives are great.   any files needed more quickly can go on an SSD if the need arises.
    ThinkStation C20
    ThinkPad X1C · X220 · X60T · s30 · 600

  • Booting Mac Pro in Windows from SAS drive - has anyone else done this?

    I'm trying to boot both Windows (Vista 64bit) and Mac OS X.5 from an internal SAS drive (I don't need RAID). I've done some research and discovered that the following options won't work:
    Apple RAID card: (bootable, supports SAS, but no support for Windows)
    CalDigit RAID card: (bootable in Mac and Windows, but no SAS support)
    HighPoint RAID/SAS card: (not bootable in Mac Pro)
    At present I've installed an Atto 308H SAS controller, but can't get it to boot.
    Has anyone else successfully used the Atto card (or anything else)? If so, how did you do it?
    Bryce.

    Further to the above: I have now managed to install and boot Vista64 from the SAS drive.
    For those interested, I booted into OS X (on a SATA drive) and installed the drivers for the Atto card, then flashed the card with the latest firmware (as at 13/9/08). After rebooting, I could see the SAS drive in either Mac or Windows - although I still couldn't boot from it, or install an OS to it.
    I used the Atto "MakeDisk" utility to create a Windows driver folder on a USB Flash drive.
    Then I attempted to install Vista (loading drivers from USB as approprate), but it wouldn't install to the SAS drive becuase it was a "GPT Style partition".
    I rebooted into WinXP and used DiskPart (from the command prompt) to change the SAS drive from a GPT to an MBR disk.
    After this I could install Vista sucessfully (still had to load drivers from the USB).
    I've now created a second MBR partition on the SAS drive, and tomorrow I'm going to install the BootCamp drivers in Windows and then see if I can install OS X.5 on that partion.
    I'm pretty happy, as even if I have to run OS X from a SATA drive, I've got what I wanted - a quiet, good-looking and realatively cheap high-end dual-boot PhotoShop machine (I use PhotoShop on Windows).

Maybe you are looking for