MacPro RAID card - best drives?

Hey, anybody have any experience they'd like to share on a good set of drives to go with the Apple RAID card? I want to get 4 and I'm looking for maximum speed, but I can't break the bank, so no Raptors.
cheers,
-r

Well, save your $$ and just DON'T! get the Apple RAID card, then you could afford some decent drives.
600GB 10K VRs $279 x 2
OWC SSD 100GB x 2
As for what drives, bare in mind -
If you read the Apple Support Mac Pro link to RAID card FAQ:
Question: *Which drives does Apple support for the Mac Pro RAID Card and the Xserve RAID Card?*
Answer: Only Apple SATA drives and Promise 450GB SAS Drive modules sold through the Apple Store are supported for use with the Mac Pro RAID Card (Early 2009) and the Xserve RAID Card (Early 2009). Apple 300GB SAS Drive modules are supported with the Mac Pro RAID Card (Late 2007) and Xserve RAID Card (Early 2007). Drives must be either all Serial ATA (SATA) or all Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drives. SSD drive modules are not recommended for the Apple RAID Card because these drives use their own on-disk cache and cannot take advantage of the protection provided by the battery-backed cache on the RAID card.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1346#faq8
People do try and use retail SATA drives, with mixed results. I have never seen anyone mix SAS and SATA.

Similar Messages

MacPro Raid Card single drive size limit

OK this is a follow up to a previous question about the upper size limit of a single HD that the Macpro Raid card can address.
It was pointed out to me that "The Apple RAID card cannot address more than 2.2TB of a drive" by Mr. Grant Bennet-Alder. So I am assuming that a 2TB SAS will work.
I plan to RMA the 4TB drive (that was not recognised), so my question is will this drive work instead?
Seagate Constellation ES 2TB 6GB/S SAS 7200RPM 3.5in (ST2000NM0001) Hard Drive - setup as JBOD.
It's not that I don't believe what Grant has said, it's just that I don't want to RMA this drive as well, using the old wood working philosophy of 'measure twice, cut once.'
And I spent 2 hr looking for this info on Apple's support site without any luck.
SYS INFO
MacPro 5,1
2 X 6 Core 2.93 GHz Xeon
Mac Pro RAID Card
Bay 1: 450GB Seagate Cheetah SAS -JBOD
Bay 2: 450GB Seagate Cheetah SAS - Raid set 1
Bay 3: 450GB Seagate Cheetah SAS - Raid set 1
Bay 4: 2TB Seagate Constellation (potential drive) to be JBOD
Raid set 1: Raid 0 - 900GB
OWC Mercury Accelsior 240GB
ATI Radeon HD 5870
Mac OS X 10.6.8
All software updates current and applied
Thanks
-Robert
Previous thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/21675625#21675625

If a Disk Fails If a RAID set or volume becomes degraded because a disk has failed, you can use RAID Utility to identify the disk that needs to be replaced.
Note: If your RAID setup includes a spare drive, it is automatically incorporated into the RAID set, and the set switches from degraded to good as soon as the recovery process finishes. If there is no spare, the set will remain degraded until you replace the failed drive, and if a second drive fails before you replace the first, you could lose data.
To replace a failed disk:
1 Open RAID Utility, select the RAID set or volume that is displaying a problem status indicator, and look for a drive bay with a red status indicator. The bay numbers in RAID Utility correspond to the numbered drive bays in your Mac Pro or Xserve.
2 Replace the bad drive module.
3 Use the Make Spare command to set up the new drive as a global spare. If no spare was available when the original drive failed, the RAID card uses the new spare immediately to rebuild the affected RAID set and volumes. If a spare was available at the time of the failure, it is already incorporated into the affected RAID set, and the new spare remains available until it is needed.
https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/0/MA318/en_US/RAID_Utility_User_Guide.pdf

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 card not initiating recovery after defective drive replaced

One of my artists is using an Early 2009 Mac Pro on 10.9.5 (13F1077). On Saturday morning, while he was not in the office, Drive 1 warned that SMART was reporting early signs of failure. The RAID card degraded the RAID set. I replaced Drive 1 and marked it as a global spare; but recovery is not initiating. I have, subsequent to installing the drive and marking it as a global spare, rebooted the Mac Pro; but the RAID Utility is not showing any Tasks running, and especially nothing about rebuilding the RAID set. As of now, the RAID set and RAID volume are not available. It appears that I can either try to preserve the data on the drives, or I can attempt to manually rebuild the RAID set; but not both. Unfortunately, the artist had all of his projects on the RAID and had not backed them up to servers at the time of the failure.

If a Disk Fails If a RAID set or volume becomes degraded because a disk has failed, you can use RAID Utility to identify the disk that needs to be replaced.
Note: If your RAID setup includes a spare drive, it is automatically incorporated into the RAID set, and the set switches from degraded to good as soon as the recovery process finishes. If there is no spare, the set will remain degraded until you replace the failed drive, and if a second drive fails before you replace the first, you could lose data.
To replace a failed disk:
1 Open RAID Utility, select the RAID set or volume that is displaying a problem status indicator, and look for a drive bay with a red status indicator. The bay numbers in RAID Utility correspond to the numbered drive bays in your Mac Pro or Xserve.
2 Replace the bad drive module.
3 Use the Make Spare command to set up the new drive as a global spare. If no spare was available when the original drive failed, the RAID card uses the new spare immediately to rebuild the affected RAID set and volumes. If a spare was available at the time of the failure, it is already incorporated into the affected RAID set, and the new spare remains available until it is needed.
https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/0/MA318/en_US/RAID_Utility_User_Guide.pdf

Erase old error messages of MacPro RAID Card?

Hi there.
I changed HDDs in my MacPro, they were configured as an RAID 1 using Apples RAID Card.
After mirroring the old System to the new (RAID 5) System, there are several error messages left in RAID Utility - where are they located to delete them?
Maybe I was wrong simply to change the HDDs, but is there a chance to solve that issue?
Thanks in advance.

Get someone on ebay to buy your over priced under supported card.
Or accept the 2.2TB (some people only got the 800GB portion which needs to be set as free space).
Or use 2TB drives.
Or external RAID but watch out for ATTO SAS and their Java program that doesn't work.
WD RED 3TB drives are designed for NAS RAID, firmware to support RAID TLER.
SoftRAID 4 makes a nice software RAID and does a good mirror with three drives in stripe reads (mirror only begins with minimum of two).
NO Apple just won't can't whatever offer a card and firmware. Odd with all their GUID support for large volumes isn't it.
It is designed for smaller SAS drives in today's world. And for RAID5 on 3TB and issues with battery... POS throw it up on ebay!

RAID Card or Drive Failure ? ?

My Mac Pro with Apple RAID card will not boot to external FW800 or original install DVD if drives 2, 3, 4 are installed at the same time in any of the bays (i.e. gray screen, no apple, nothing).
If I remove or replace any one, or more, or remove all of drives 2, 3, 4 Mac Pro will boot to anything with an OS on it via Opt. key. I'm thinking if any one of drives 2, 3, 4 were bad and drawing too much power the same problem would present when drive 1 (J+ w/ OS) is substituted for any one of 2, 3, 4.
Replaced battery on RAID card no effect on problem. Passed Hardware Diagnostic on original Installer DVD. I'm thinking this has to be a RAID card issue. Do they go bad? Any opinions / suggestions would be greatly appreciated - Thank you,
John
My other related posts that document history of problem:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13165862#13165862
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13165864#13165864

In hindsight... this was posted as part of 10.6.7 release fixes...
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3631

RAID card or drive?

My Mac Pro with Apple RAID card will not boot to external FW800 or original install DVD if drives 2, 3, 4 are installed at the same time in any of the bays (i.e. gray screen, no apple, nothing). If I remove or replace any one, or more, or remove all of drives 2, 3, 4 Mac Pro will boot to anything with an OS on it via Opt. key. I'm thinking if any one of drives 2, 3, 4 were bad and drawing too much power the same problem would present when drive 1 (J+ w/ OS) is substituted for any one of 2, 3, 4. Replaced battery on RAID card no effect on problem. Passed Hardware Diagnostic on original Installer DVD. I'm thinking this has to be a RAID card issue. Do they go bad? Any opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Software RAID?
No, I have an the Apple RAID card that came with the Mac Pro, factory installed. RAID set was created with Apple RAID Utility. About testing, D-Genius only does a random/sustained read/write. I like the looks of intech's suite, but just spent $$ on new, replacement SAS drive, they're still not cheap, even with the advent of SSDs. Anyway, I had saved a profile of the DG benchtest on the previous RAID volume. When I ran the new disk the results very closely parallel the previous profile very closely. Odd thing is that I'm not sure it was a hardware problem (bad disk). Once I introduced the new disk into the mix, I was able to also re-introduce the old suspected bad disk and it worked. Maybe a RAID fluke??? Maybe the disk was intermittently failing causing the RAID set to fall over? Maybe I'm just cursed....
If you're really board you can check out all the associated posts from when this debacle began:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13165864#13165864
Anyhow, thanks for your help!
J.

Macpro raid card(Battery is Missing)

MacPro 2010
I bought a raid card a month ago.
But I got a message "But Battery is missing".
My Raid Card is Corrupt?
Could you teach me the reason?

google translate says:
My macpro 2010 have the same problem, replace the battery to repair the same problem after the new battery Month 3 Months generated.

Apple Raid Card, multiple drives and volumes

Hallo,
my xserve (early-2008) has an Apple Raid Card and two 300GB SAS-drives installed (mirroring).
Is it possible to install a third disk (300GB SAS) and to use it as a separate Volume ?
Disk 1 (300GB SAS) - Apple Raid Card mirroring: Volume 1 (300GB)
Disk 2 (300GB SAS) - Apple Raid Card mirroring: Volume 1 (300GB)
Disk 3 (300GB SAS) - Volume 2 (300GB)
How do I have to set this up using Apple Raid Utility ?
Thanks for your help !

Is it possible to install a third disk (300GB SAS) and to use it as a separate Volume ?
Yes. Of course.
How do I have to set this up using Apple Raid Utility ?
No. A third drive should just appear on the desktop. You only need RAID utility if you want to add that drive to an array, which doesn't sound like the case here.

Apple RAID Card, All Drives RAID?

For those of you who have the Apple RAID card, I was wondering if all the drives are configured into one RAID set? Or can you have say a single boot drive, a third data drive and then have the remaining two drives set up as a RAID 0?

I was interested in using the RAID card for 2 drives only, for storing captured video.
I don't want to use the RAID for my boot/data drive.

XServe Early 2008 (MA882LL/A) + RAID card SAS drive capacity question

I've tried searching the web and support forums, but haven't been able to find a clear answer to the following question:
I have an XServe Early 2008 (MA882LL/A) with the Apple RAID card and three 73GB SAS ADMs. It's been working great for the last two years. I'm about to upgrade it to 10.6 Server, and if possible would like to swap in larger drives at the same time (since it'll be down for an afternoon anyway). However, only 73GB and 300GB SAS ADMs were ever offered for this model, and Apple says that the Promise 450GB ADM is not compatible with it. What I can't determine is whether I can put a larger drive (notably, a Seagate ST32000444SS) into the Apple ADM sled. The RAID controller seems to have no problem with large SATA drives in the SATA sleds, which seems like a good sign, but I'd rather not order $1K worth of new drives and discover in the data center that they don't work.
Does anyone know definitively whether or not larger drives will work in SAS ADMs with this model of XServe? The RAID controller firmware is current (hardware rev 1.0.0, firmware rev M-2.0.3.3), if that makes a difference. I've read all the docs I can fine--I'd be happiest with an "I tried it and it did/didn't work" kind of answer .
Thanks much,
Amanda Walker
Reston, VA

Good morning
I am watching this thread as well. I have two of the same servers (without the RAID card) and have wondered the same thing as I migrate to Snow Leopard and as my data drives continue to fill up. Apple techs and local service techs have not been willing to endorse Amanda's solution for me and have stuck to the Apple Drive Compatibility chart which certifies 73 and 300 GB SAS drives only for this model XServe.
Thanks for any info you might provide.
Greg
PS Amanda, I would be interested in one of your 73GB SAS drives in an ADM as a boot drive should you decide to surplus one or two of your drives.

MacPro RAID Card - working with SSDs in 2nd optical bay?

I am planning to get a MP wit the Apple RAID card in order to configure 4 internal HDs as a RAID5. Does anyone have experience whether this setup would be compatible with one (or two) additional SSDs (boot drive) which will be connected via the 2nd optical bay.
Does this work at all - I understand the RAID card changes from SATA to SAS ports. I am not interested to include the SSDs in the RAID setup but would like to know whether this would work at all or whether I should better plan without the RAID card.
Thanks
Tobias

I am planning to get a MP wit the Apple RAID card in order to configure 4 internal HDs as a RAID5. Does anyone have experience whether this setup would be compatible with one (or two) additional SSDs (boot drive) which will be connected via the 2nd optical bay.
Does this work at all - I understand the RAID card changes from SATA to SAS ports. I am not interested to include the SSDs in the RAID setup but would like to know whether this would work at all or whether I should better plan without the RAID card.
Thanks
Tobias

Mac Pro with Apple Raid Card - 1 drive OSX (JBOD) + 1 drive Vista?

Can anyone walk me through what I'd need to do to set up an early 2008 model Mac Pro with the Apple Raid Card pre-installed and 2 500 gig drives, so that I can have OSX on the first drive and Vista on the second?
I know it defeats the purpose of the raid card, but...
What I've done so far is:
1. Removed drive #2
2. Install and using Raid Utility, add the first drive as a JBOD set/volume
3. After install, shut down the machine
4. Re-add drive #2
5. Restart
6. Use disk utility to add drive #2
I tried to use bootcamp, but it only wants to put windows on the first drive - which won't work because it is RAID.

Run Vista off an ATA interface in the 2nd optical drive. There is an SATA 2 ATA adapter.
I think you can boot Vista off some RAID controllers, check out Highpoint RocketRAIDs. Should be able to configure the RR.
Boot Vista off USB is a stretch.

What happens if the Raid card battery goes dead?

I just got my MacPro, Raid card, and 3 SAS drive. I set it up as Raid 0. The battery in the Raid card is good for 72 hrs. And that is to save the raid cache. So what happens if I leave the MacPro unplugged for longer then 3 days and the battery goes dead? Do I loose all my data?
Thanks-Ray

With an orderly shutdown prior to disconnecting the power, no problems should arise.

What is a RAID card?

I was looking around and saw a MacPro RAID card on the apple store page it says what it does and stuff, but what is it for? Does it improve your computer ?
thanks,
(http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB845Z/A/mac-pro-raid-card?fnode=58)

RAID allows you to set up a team of Disk Drives to act as one. There are configurations that provide additional capacity, additional speed, and additional redundancy, as well as combinations. Many common configurations do not requires any special Hardware.
RAID optimized for speed gets additional speed by overlapping the read of the next block with the data transfer from the previous block. This only provides an improvement in speed when the larger operation is not interrupted by ANY stray reads or writes at other areas of the Disk. Setting up a single RAID for reading and writing data at the same time does NOT provide a measurable speedup.
Some versions of RAID (e.g., RAID 5) calculate and store check blocks that can provide some redundancy across three or more drives. If one drive fails, the remaining data and the check blocks can be combined to recreate the missing data. This requires that check blocks be calculated and checked as data go by, which requires additional Hardware assistance to be adequately speedy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
The Apple RAID card is showing signs of advanced age, and has not been updated in quite a while. Many here consider it a poor investment at this time. It limits you to 2.2TB per drive. Its battery has been a source of major problems.
You can use Disk Utility to create Mirrored RAID, Striped RAID, and JBOD RAID without a need for any card.

MacPro RAID card - best drives?

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