PCIe eSATA Sonnet + Fusion 500p

I am planning on getting the Sonnet e4P SATA card and the Fusion 500p expansion enclosure. I like the features of the enclosure and quietness. However i am aware that going direct connect is typically faster than using Port Multiplication when the drives are <80% full. Is anyone using this rig and is anyone getting it to run direct connected in any way ?

Hate to bump this, i will let it wither if no responses.

Similar Messages

2 Filled Sonnet Fusion 500P enclosures; RAID 0/1, or RAID 5?

I currently have a Sonnet Fusion 500P loaded with 5 WD 500GB RE2 drives; all running individually and not RAIDed; this box is connected to a Sonnet Tempo E2P in my MacPro.
I'm interested in getting a 2nd identical enclosure and drives, and creating a RAID system using 10 drives. I also plan on upgrading the E2P to the E4P, since it will provide increased RAID performance that the E2P does not.
I've been reading the various posts on RAID on these forums, and also have looked through the AMUG articles and reviews, and I have a couple of questions.
First, can I stripe the 5 drives in each enclosure, and then mirror the two enclosures? This RAID setup will be used for Final Cut Pro capture and editing, and also for DVD Studio Pro files. Basically, I would have 2.5TB of high speed storage, and a duplicate of that.
Second question-can I do this with Disk Utility, or would I need additional software/hardware to accomplish it?
And finally, I'm a little vague about RAID 5 setups, but would it be better to create a RAID 5 with one enclosure and 5 drives, using 4 for storage and one for parity information? From my limited knowledge of this, I think that if the RAID 5 failed, it could be rebuilt using the info on the 5th drive? Is this correct?
What would be the best way to go here, taking into account the hardware I already have? If I'm off base, I'm open to suggestions for a different setup that would have comparable storage space, speed, and backup.
Thanks for any advice anyone can give.

Dear Mike,
It sounds like you want more RAID capabilities than Disk Utility can easily provide. Since you are looking for a new host adapter card anyway, you might as well get one that can provide RAID 0, 1, 5 and 1/0. I would suggest the HighPoint RocketRAID 2314 if you want to stay with individual eSATA cables. The AMUG review can be found here:
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/highpoint/2314/
If you would rather have a card with a single cable and do not mind purchasing an extra cable, I really like the HighPoint RocketRAID 2314MS which is the same card with a different cable system. Here is that AMUG review and a link to the cable you would need:
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/highpoint/2314ms/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000JQ51CM/arizomacinusergr
The Sonnet E4P is a good card but it cannot support RAID 5, 10 or 50 and the HighPoint cards can.
The HighPoint cards also provide just as good or better performance with a 10 drive SATA PM configuration like the one you are considering.
It sounds like the main reason for the second SATA PM enclosure is mainly backup. Please understand that a RAID 5, 10 or 50 configuration adds redundancy to your hard disk array but it is not a guarantee that you will recover from directory corruption or user errors. If the directory is corrupted on a RAID 10 it can easily write the same corrupted data on the mirror copy of the drive.
If you truly want a backup, I would consider using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner at the end of each day to backup the work on the first SATA PM RAID to the RAID in the 2nd SATA PM enclosure. Having your backup off-line when not in use is the best way to be ensure the backup data will be intact when you need it.
Have fun!

Setting Up Dual Sonnet Fusion/WD RE2 RAID 0 Arrays in Disk Utility

I've just received my 2nd Sonnet Fusion 500P enclosure, 5 500GB WD RE2s, and the Sonnet Tempo E4P card. See this earlier thread for more info:
[http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6034612&#6034612]
I assembled everything with no trouble; drives into trays, trays into the enclosure, card into the Mac Pro, etc.; all went well.
Next, in Disk Utility I initialized the 5 drives, and set up a striped RAID O array. I used the largest RAID block size of 256K. And again, everything worked perfectly; I now have a 2.3 TB RAID setup mounted on my desktop.
Next, I created 2 folders on the RAID, one for all of my Final Cut Pro media files, and another for all my DVD Studio Pro media files. These files are currently stored on the individual (not RAIDed) drives in my first Sonnet Fusion enclosure. I'm now in the process of copying over all of the files to the new RAID.
When that's finished, my plan is this: I will shut down, and power down the original Sonnet enclosure. When I start up again, one by one, I will open up my FCP and DVDSP projects (the project files themselves are stored on my internal boot drive, and backed up to another internal drive) and when the media can't be found, I'll reconnect the project to the media on the RAID.
If this all goes well, I will then erase the individual drives in the first enclosure, and build a 2nd RAID 0; I'll copy/clone everything from the first RAID enclosure to the 2nd.
If you're still reading, does this sound like a safe way to do things? I want to reconnect everything while I still have 2 copies of all of the media files; once I have the 2nd RAID built, and everything is copied back to it, I'll have a backup of everything again. If there is a better, more secure way to do it, I'm open to suggestions.
And being somewhat new to RAID, one more question I have is, are drives in a RAID system more prone to failure than if they are running as stand-alone drives? I've used the WD RE2s a lot, and I like them; they seem very reliable. (I now have 14 of them, in total). But does the RAID system itself put the drives more at risk?
Thanks to those with the patience to read through this, and hopefully offer some advice.

Always have two backups or sets of data. If you are going to erase one set... then for a stretch of time you only have the one good copy I take it? I guess the originals would be one good set, so you are safe.
You realize you can unmount drives connected on Sonnet controllers, right? No need to shutdown your computer, just the enclosure(s). Couldn't tell if that is what you said anyway.
I don't use internal drives for backups, just external SATA and at least one on FireWire. One backup is always off line at any time. And enough juice on the UPS to carry me through what I am doing or can safely get past.
I just read one of AMUG/michael's post on a controller that supports hardware RAID and ability to map out bad sectors "on the fly" which is about the only time I worry about a failure. That, and UPS, and beware of OS patches and updates (one security update affected SeriTek on some G4/5s).
I'd say you've done a lot for being new to RAID - and using the same make/model/revision for all your drives helps a lot. Buying together, and having at least one 'spare' if one fails, is also good insurance.
Some poeple use 4 drives in a 5-drive enclosure. For heat and ventilation and because sometimes it might be ideal for performance. Never used or seen the 500P up close but I suspect it is well built.
You could build a 2nd 500P and either increase performance or capacity or use 2nd as backup. If you don't need to copy 1GB per minute, then a concatenated RAID fills drive A before putting data on B and is more secure than a stripped RAID but still shows up as one large volume.

New, larger drives for Sonnet Fusion RAIDs

Hello-
I got some great advice here a couple of years ago in regards to building my two 5-drive RAID systems with Sonnet Fusion 500Ps and WD RE2 500GB enterprise drives. They have performed flawlessly, and I've never had a single glitch. (They are connected to my 2006 MacPro and are used almost exclusively for video capture).
Now, however, I'm in need of more storage; I want to either add a 3rd enclosure (I'm considering the FirmTek SeriTek 5-bay enclosure) or replace the 500GB drives I have with larger ones. Perhaps eventually I'll do both; I have a Sonnet E4P with two SATA ports still available.
Either way, I'm looking for larger drive recommendations for these boxes. I use a striped RAID 1 configuration for the 500Ps I have, and then backup/clone one box to the other.
I've been considering the WD 1.0TB Caviar Black Enterprise drives, but I might want to go with 1.5TB drives, such as the Seagate 7200.11. The price on these is right, but I've heard that early versions of this model had problems in RAID configurations; it's also not a 5 yr. warranty/enterprise class drive.
Any suggestions? I got valuable help last time from mbean and hatter; perhaps they will contribute again, but I'd appreciate any advice I can get before purchasing 10 new drives, or 5 additional drives and a new enclosure.

Thanks for the reply and the recommendation. The Samsung is pretty new; I wonder how reliable it is. MacSales (OWC) has a Samsung 1TB model HD103UJ (The U replaces the S) and it is more expensive.
Hi,
The Samsung F1 HD103UJ is the older model. AMUG has 18 of these that were used in RAID tests for the last year. They are a great HD - but for blazing speed the new Samsung F3 model HD103SJ is the next replacement and about 20% faster.
I have never found "Enterprise" hard disks worth the extra money. The reason is that most standard hard disks will reliably last 3 years and the enterprise versions are almost never faster than the standard version they were developed from. After 3 years all of my hard disks are ancient technology.
Three years ago the hot hard drive to own was a 300GB with 65MB/sec performance. We thought that was great. Now its in the junk heap or delegated to backup duty on a notebook
Hard disk technology is increasing much faster than most of us can keep up with and prices are very reasonable for new 1TB hard disks. Sure there will be a few buyers who think they need to pay the 2TB premium but most users will wait until these hard disks are under $130.
Buying hard disks at premium prices can be painful especially when you realize that a new set will probably be required every 3 years.
Have fun!

Port Multiplication: Sonnet Fusion 400 vs 500P

I spend a lot of time on the Bare Feats website. I really appreciate what Rob has done and the tests he performs. Sometimes I have a little trouble interpreting his results, but maybe that's just me. Anyhow he has done some tests of 500 GB drives and the new PCIe SATA controller from Sonnet. Can anyone give me a feel as to the performance differences in some real world setups. Assuming using the same drives (a 500 GB WD or Hitachi for instance)how will perfomance compare:
Internal controller SATA I vs Sonnet SATA II controller and a single drive in a Fusion 400 enclosure.
A single drive in a Fusion 400 vs a single drive in a 500P.
Raid 0 in a full Fusion 400 vs a full 500P.

Anyhow he has done some tests of 500 GB drives and
the new PCIe SATA controller from Sonnet. Can anyone
give me a feel as to the performance differences in
some real world setups. Assuming using the same
drives (a 500 GB WD or Hitachi for instance)how will
perfomance compare:
The WD 500 will perform faster than the Hitachi 500 in single drive uses whether it is installed in the PowerMac G5 dual-core internal bay or in a Fusion 500P port multiplier enclosure.
A 5 drive SATA PM enclosure will provide about 200MB/sec
performance using an E4P and a dual-core or Quad PowerMac G5. 10 drives will provide about 400MB/sec and so on. You can see very detailed performance charts and comparisons in the AMUG Sonnet E4P review found here:
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/sonnet/e4p/
Internal controller SATA I vs Sonnet SATA II
controller and a single drive in a Fusion 400
enclosure.
No SATA I controllers exist for the Dual-core Qual except the internal PowerMac G5 interface. All PCIe SATA cards are SATA II. SATA II cards will perform a little faster but typically within 5% difference for an individual drive.
A single drive in a Fusion 400 vs a single drive in a
500P.
Raid 0 in a full Fusion 400 vs a full 500P.
A single drive in a Fusion 400 direct connect enclosure will perform at about the same speed as the same drive in a Fusion 500P.
The limitation of SATA PM is the sharing of a single cable for all data. Typically, writes are limited to 200MB/sec on a PCIe PowerMac and 227MB/sec on a PCI-X PowerMac.
A four drive Fusion 400 can do 270MB/sec using Maxtor SATA II hard drives. A 500P SATA PM solution will provide about 20-25% less speed when empty but will provide nice performance when full.
You might also want to see the AMUG Addonics 5X1 eSATA review as these PM enclosures perform about the same. Both of them use the Silicon Image 3726 PM chip.
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/addonics/5x1/
Between these two articles you will find plenty of details to answer your questions.
Hope this helps,
Michael

PCIe eSATA controller and drive case

Can someone recommend the best external backup to purchase? I don't quite understand the difference between a regular external hard drive, like something that WD makes, versus an PCIe eSATA controller and drive case. What is all of that? Do I really need such a thing, and is it better?
Thanks.

Can someone recommend the best external backup to purchase? I don't quite understand the difference between a regular external hard drive, like something that WD makes, versus an PCIe eSATA controller and drive case. What is all of that? Do I really need such a thing, and is it better?
Dear kpdesigns,
No one knows what you need or want but you. I can provide some ideas of various external storage options that are available for the Mac Pro. The various storage protocols differ in performance, expansion and reliability characteristics.
1. USB - external USB drives are cheap and readily available. They work good for backing up small amounts of data (10-50GB). The performance of a USB drive on a Mac Pro is limited to approximately 17-18MB/sec. This translates into long backup periods when trying to copy 100GB of data to a USB device. FireWire 400, 800 and eSATA enclosures are all faster.
2. FireWire 400 - external FW400 drives are little more expensive than USB 2.0 enclosures but they provide approximately 32-38MB/sec transfer rates which is almost twice as fast as USB 2.0 on a Mac Pro. FW400 provides adequate speed for most backup situations where less than 100GB of data is in play.
3. FireWire 800 - external FW800 drives can provide 52-60MB/sec. transfer speeds. This method works well as a backup drive for a Mac Pro as the FW800 ports are built in. It also works well as a boot drive if necessary. However, when using more than one FW800 drive, speeds can be lower and many users end up resorting to PCIe expansion cards when adding more than three FW800 drives. FW800 does not provide the RAID performance that external SATA solutions can provide.
4. eSATA - external SATA hard drives can provide 57-70MB/sec. This is the fastest method for adding external storage to a Mac Pro. In addition to the Mac Pro SATA 4-bay tray system, there are also two more SATA ports on the Mac Pro motherboard (just under the front fan assembly). These ports are marked as "ODD SATA" on the motherboard. Users can install SATA cables on these ports and run them out of the back of the Mac Pro to SATA->eSATA converters like the Addonics model AASA2SAP15C. OWC also sells a kit that accomplishes this.
Ecternal 2-Port PCIe Cards
The next level of external SATA on the Mac Pro is a two port card that utilizes the SiI-3132 chip. These PCIe cards provide great individual and dual SATA hard drive performance but are limited to approx. 125MB/sec when used with a SATA PM multi-drive setup in a RAID configuration. Examples of cards in this category include:
Addonics PCIe 2-Port model ADSA3GPX1-2EM ($39.99)
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/addonics/adsa3gpx1-2em/
FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E ($99.95)
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/firmtek/2se2e/
External 4-Port PCIe eSATA Cards
The next step up of SATA controllers for the Mac Pro includes 4-port external eSATA cards that provide very good RAID performance and support port multiplier (SATA PM) and direct connect enclosures. These cards can support up to 20 hard drives using 4 SATA PM 5-bay enclosures and can provide 200-700MB/sec performance in RAID 0 configurations with 5-20 hard drives. Examples of Mac Pro host adapters that fall into this category include:
Addonics ADSA3GPX8-4EM ($199)
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/addonics/adsa3gpx8-4em/
DAT Optic eSATA_PCIe8 ($189)
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/datoptic/pcie8/
NORCO-4629 ($189.99)
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/norco/4629/
RocketRAID 2314 ($200)
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/highpoint/2314/
Sonnet Tempo E4P ($299
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/sonnet/mac-pro/
SATA PCIe RAID Controllers
The next step up for Mac Pro SATA host adapters is high performance RAID 5 and RAID 6 controllers that provide redundancy. Performance for this group using 8 drives in a RAID 5 configuration is 420MB/sec on average. Using RAID 6 performance is 350-380MB/sec on average. Mac Pro host adapters that fall into this category include:
Apple RAID 5 internal 4-port card ($999)
HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 RAID 5 Controller ($299)
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/enhance/e8/
Areca ARC-1221x RAID 6 SATA Controller ($680)
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/areca/1221x/
RAID 6 SAS Controllers
The next upgrade for external Mac Pro SATA/SAS hard drive users is the new SAS RAID 6 controllers. These cards provide 8-12 ports that work with either SATA hard drives or SAS drives. They also have the capability to support up to 128 devices using SAS Expanders. This new category of external storage provides almost unlimited expansion capability with a single Mac Pro PCIe host adapter. An example of this category is the bootable Areca ARC-1680x SAS RAID 6 SATA Controller ($845). AMUG is currently reviewing this card and the review should be available soon.
As you can see the Mac Pro supports a wide range of external storage options. Users simply need to decide how much storage they need and what performance level they desire. Typically, as the volume of data being maniplulated grows higher the need for higher performance also grows higher. Users working with uncompressed HD video will find large high performance RAID systems provide a great platform for video editing.
Have fun!

Driverless eSata (NewerTech MAXPower 6G PCI eSATA Controller. 2 x eSATA ports)

Hello,
In my Mac Pro I have installed a NewerTech MAXPower 6G PCIe eSATA Controller. 2 x eSATA ports. This is to connect my external disk enclosure to the computer. The problem I am experiencing is that if the extermnal disk array is powered off during I boot my Mac or login to it after sleep - the external disks are not mounted. In order to get ones mounted to my Mac Pro I put my Mac to sleep, switch the external disk array on, wait until it boots and then wake up my Mac and login to the OS. Sometimes it requires more than one time to repeat it to get disks mounted.
Is there any way (terminal command, automator script etc...) to force a Mac to iniciate/activate or load drivers to the PCI eSATA Controller that I would be able to mount these disk without putting my Mac to sleep or taking any other special actions?
Thank you for your time.

I use The ARCTICROC 4T http://www.rocstor.com/products/arcticroc-4t.html
grep for MaxPower returns nothing.
grep for AHCI returns 4 lines
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily (2.0.7) <5 4 3 1>
com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort (2.2.0) <34 9 5 4 3 1>
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCISerialATAPI (2.0.1) <43 34 5 4 3 1>
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIBlockStorage (2.0.1) <34 12 5 4 3 1>
It is realy strange that putting Mac to sleep and waking it up forces external eSATA discs to appear. Most probably it is related to enclosure behaviors as the NewerTechnology Voyager connected to the second same card's eSATA port does not require any magic moves or actions to get mounted if a disk is inserted in to it.
This problem annoys me ..... especially when it is related to Microsoft Office. During MS Office activation the external eSATA disks were connected and Office included it in it's hardware description for authorization. Therefore if I run some MS Office products when the eSATA disks are off, the Office requests for a key. If I enter an activation key and next tiome I run MS Office with disk connected it sees it as a different computer and requests for a key....&^%*&^%
I talked to Microsoft about the problem and they told that they know it and working on solution. However, I believe that this problem priority is very low on MSoft side as there are comparably small amount of users having similar problems.

G5 Dual Core 10.4 - Finally a PCIe eSATA card that works!

Happy Holidays!
I recently posted a few queries/complaints about FirmTek's PCIe cards used in an older Dual Core 2.0. Unfortunately my personal experience has not been a good one. Poor communication and initial refusal of RMA; the list is lengthy. After months of tedious thorough testing, I can only conclude the drivers on their web site, are incompatible with 10.4.11. But thanx to OWC, and DAT Optic, I finally found a PCIe eSATA card that works. In fact I'm using a DAT Optic 2 port card and 4 port card in total harmony with each other.
In my opinion, the SeriTek 2ME4-E-4 design emphasis was probably geared more toward use in a Mac Pro with 10.5 and above. After two system formats, and the failure of two different FirmTek PCIe cards, that was enough for me.
Final success came with; http://eshop.macsales.com/item/DAT+Optic/ESATAPCIE21B/ (and) http://eshop.macsales.com/item/DAT%20Optic/ESATAPCIE8/
One BIG advantage with DAT Optic are the numerous readily available drivers directly from the Silicon Image web site. And their tech support is first class.
All of this is good news for users of older Power Mac G5's.
Enjoy!
Mike

Hi Chris
Whatever the situation was with 10.4.10, or 10.4.11, I had to conclude that FirmTek's drivers were not doing the job for 10.4.11 - The condescending technician was basically ignoring my remark that this card just doesn't work with my set up. Neither could their 2 port card work.
I had to argue my point repeatedly, (shouldn't have to do that).
In any event, I'm rolling pretty good with these 2 bay OWC clearance eSATA enclosures, (got 4 of them). No bridge, just good ole eSATA connections. Sure took long enough to get to this place.
Happy Holidays
Mike

Recommendations for reliable PCIe eSATA HBAs on Lion

Hi folks; we're looking for a realiable professional-level (support) eSATA 3G or 6G PCIe HBA for Mac Pros running Lion that supports port multiplication.
Currently we have two Mac Pro edit suites. One uses a Sonnet Technologies E2P which is reliable, but very slow on port-multiplied enclosures. The other uses a Sonnet Technologuies E4P which is shocking faster than it's 2-port counterpart but the drivers have been causing consistent kernel panics on Lion and Sonnet seems unable to do anything about it. Annectodal online research shows the E4P is causing issues for many other users on Lion.
Ultimately, the card has proved too unreliable to continue working with - at this point it's just costing more money to deal with than to replace.
One of the Mac Pros (the one with the unreliable E4P) also has an ATTO R680 SAS RAID adapter which works faultlessly but we're looking for eSATA recommendations as many drives that are brought into our suites are eSATA/USB/FW combos.
Thanks for your time!

Lots of good compatible enclosures
http://www.macsales.com/firewire
- they may even have 2.5" drives
I keep a couple spare drives that I can pop internally, with some extra Apple type drive sleds.
Hook up the ODD ports and run NewerTech kit which are bootable. I keep my TimeMachine drive hooked up to one of those ports and have a small 50GB OS X partition on it so the drive does double duty.
When you get a DVD, make a copy and only use the copy, never the original disk.

Uncompres10bit HD w/ Sonnet Fusion D500P

anyone using 2 Fusion D500P enclosures raid together at raid0 to get 10bitHD capture & playback? I have 2 of those connect to sonnet 4ep sata card (**** caldigit ran out of their card so I have to use sonnet).
anyhow, raid 2 boxes together at raid0 doesn't work for me. I'm using the seagate enterprise 1TB drives (10 of them) but somehow during capture or Render long sequence the boxes just goes offline.
so, I raid only 1 box w/ 5drives & it can capture proRES(HQ) HD but sometimes the boxes goes offline too but better than 2 boxes together. I thought more is better but not. Called sonnet & they said it has to do w/the drives not the box so i'm thinking of swaping the new drives from owc.
any suggestion? can't afford their D800P box. trying to cut corner here.
J

Drives went offline would be caused by:
1. hard drive.
2. sonnet e4p driver.
3. your system or FCP.
4. Unreliable software RAID setting.
I am not sure if one fusion d500p with sonnet e4p can handle 10bit uncompress? it's slower than the requirement and not sustained.
Getting 2 fusion d500p and sonnet card and 10 drives and dealing with software stripe through disk utility is no fun at all, with the same price tag with no significant additional costs, you actually can buy just one single Caldigit HDOne or cheaper & smaller HDelement to do 10bitHD capture & playback, and they are all hardware RAID so more reliable than os stripe.

Looking For PCI ESATA Card For G5

it will be running in both leopard and tiger
can anyone recommend one and where to buy?
i bought a rocstor 2ue drive and currently using it usb mode which is very slow.
thank you

since you don't say dual core G5 i assume you will need a PCI-X card (i'm pretty sure only dual core G5 use PCI-Express).
the firmTek is a nice card and has the ability to boot from attached drives. it does have the disadvantage of only supporting SATA I i.e. 1.5Gbs and is on the expensive side (approaching $200), where as many of the cheaper cards (~$80-90) almost all use Silicon Image chipset support SATA II i.e. 3Gbps but don't have ability to boot from attached drives..
so it kind of depends on your needs.. if you don't need to boot from the attached drives you can get a less expensive card, with faster SATA II capabilities for $80-90.
just do a google search for pci-x esata card... owc is a good place to start as well.. i can confirm that multi-interface externals can be a bad choice as well... i got slower than USB 2 speeds from a Seagate Free agent triple interface drive and got transfer speeds faster than my internal drive by taking same drive out of the Seagate enclosure and putting it into an OWC esata only enclosure (dual drive enclosure for $67).. i have a norco, 4 port, pci-x estat card.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133002
http://www.cooldrives.com/saii3g4espcc.html
http://pc.pcconnection.com/1/1/4316-addonics-technologies-esata-ii-pci-x-4-port- raid-controller-raid5-jbod-ads3gx4r5-e.html

Serial ATA2 (Silicon3124) card won't work

Hi,
I just bought a Serial ATA2 card, which is Silicon 3124 chipset, 3 internal and 1 external.
After I have plug in the card, it won't recognize any PCI card installed.
It come with 0.42 driver but I cannot use due to the file corrupted. I have downloaded their newest driver 1.1.0. After installed, it can shown "Other Mass Storage Controller", but still cannot recognize any harddisk it connected.
I search whole system but cannot found where the driver installed.
Do anyone of here have the card and no problem? Please help me!!!
Thanks!
Kent

Go to the chipset maker website...
http://www.siliconimage.com/support/
or go directly here:
http://www.siliconimage.com/support/supportsearchresul
ts.aspx?pid=27&cid=3&ctid=2&osid=3&
download the SATA RAID5 tools
Dear Kent,
I went to the Silicon Image site and downloaded the latest
driver which is version 1.1.0 posted 3/23/2006.
I was using SiI3124 0.42.4.pkg in the past. The new driver appears to be an update. I loaded it on and tried it with the Sonnet Fusion 500P which uses SATA PM. It worked well. It is a tiny bit slower than when using the Sonnet Tempo X4P with a PowerMac G5 with PCI-X.
I also tried using it with a single drive as you were hoping to do. I had no luck mounting any SATA hard drive with a direct connection using the SATA300 SiI 3124 card. I believe the Sil 3124 requires that the connected enclosure has to have a Sil-3726 SATA PM chip to mount the hard drive(s).
I would suggest you consider getting a SATA PM enclosure to work with this card or you might want to get a FirmTek SeriTek/1eVE4 Host Adapter which does not require a SATA PM enclosure and will work with direct connect drives. You can see a review here:
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/firmtek/1eve4/
Have fun,
Michael
===========

Faster Hard Drives seem to make a difference

Hello,
I just swapped out Apple's stock Maxtor 250gig SATA I drive that came with my quad with a Seagate 750gig SATA II drive. Aperture seems a little faster. I don't know if anyone has posted on this but it makes sense. The faster the comp can read in the files the faster it can display them.
Has anyone else experienced this?
Luke

I have been reviewing my storage needs and thinking about how best to expand. Looks like a sonnet eSATA e4P & Fusion 500P for me, just need to find a good price in the UK. Anyhow i was checking hard drive perfromances/specs and noticed my default drive was specified pretty slowly compared to current options. So i'm also considering changing my boot drive for a raptor 150 and move the old one into the drive enclosure for backup.
One point when comparing, if your stock 250GB was near-full, it will significantly slow down. To be optimal drives should be kept to ~75% capacity or less. I now find that impossible hence i need more giglar blites of space.

Quality Issues with Video Footage

Hello all
I'm not sure if this is the correct forum to post this question
I'm having trouble with the quality of my footage on export to DVD and I'm wondering if this is due to my settings in FCP or my workflow.
The problem is that I am getting gradient separations in my footage. It looks like the Posterize effect in Adobe Photoshop.
I have 2 samples here....
http://www.arohajourney.com.au/Sample/sample%201.jpg
http://www.arohajourney.com.au/Sample/sample%202.jpg
When I start editing the problem in minimal when viewing in my output monitor but by the time I get my project to my DVD player it is very noticeable. Especially in disolves to black.
*This is my workflow*
Shoot on Sony Z1 in HDV format
Capture to FCP 5.1.4 using Decklink HD Extreme.
Connections are via the camera's component connections directly to the Decklink card via BNC
Codecs are Blackmagic DVCPRO HD 1080i50 or AIC
Edit
Render
Export via Quicktime Conversion > 10 Bit Uncompressed resized to 720 x 576 Pal 16:9
Compress for DVD via Compressor 2.3
Settings: MPEG 2 - CBR 6.2 Motion Est=Better
Import to DVD Studio Pro 4.1.2 to create DVD elements
Burn
Then I cry
Effects used in the samples are Mis Fire Vignette
*My Mac*
PowerPC G5 Dual Core 2.0
2.5 Memory
GeForce 6600LE 128mb
2 X 500Gb sata drives
Sonnets Fusion 500p external enclosure with 4 x 500gb SATAII Drives
OSX 10.4.10
I can't seem to figure this out so if anyone knows this problem or can point me in the right direction I will be very greatfull
Cheers

Hi Javabob
I've tried that, the gradient issue is still there and i get the added joy of watching pixelated titles.
I thought that maybe losing that step using the original footage to compress for DVD may work but it didn't...
thanks for your response though

Need HD advice

I got the fever! I wanna make my MacPro better...
I have a Gen 1 8-Core 3.0 MacPro w/X1900 and I want to upgrade it a bit. It came with 4gig of RAM and I already ordered another 4gigs. Now I am looking into my hard drives. I would like to upgrade the "stock" 500gig drive to something better. Mind you, actual storage space is not an issue. I want to do the upgrade to improve the performance. I have a lot of pictures that I work with in Photoshop and I am an avid World Of Warcraft player.
I read about SSD's and Raids and I want to hear the Guru's advice on what I can do to improve the performance of my Mac Pro. Once again, storage space is not an issue. Ideally, 1TB of space is all I would ever need. I want my OS X to work faster.
Also, if you can point me in the right direction to read and learn about RAID setups I would greatly appreciate it.
TIA!

Check out the Photoshop Storage Acceleration Guide
http://www.macgurus.com
They have a link to articles on the left side, there is a Photoshop Graphics forum, and there is a benchtest utility. There is also an article just on Storage Acceleration and Performance, too.
A fast boot drive would be 10K Raptor or 750GB model.
http://www.barefeats.com has a review of 10 drives in Mac Pro
Scratch disk(s) 2+ and you could add two external with NewerTech kit and a $67 dual SATA drive kit from OWC http://www.macsales.com where you can also pick up drives. There are two SATA ports that are hard to get at, but can be plugged in to give you two more drive channels before you have to look at a SATA RAID controller.
For more serious RAID performance consider the Sonnet Tempo E4P and 4+ drives to get 300MB/sec. P for "PM" = Port Multiplier where 5-drive case on one channel and multiple cases.
Sonnet Fusion 500P or SeriTek has excellent cases.
http://www.amug.com has some really serious review articles on any and all of the above.
I built a 4 drive RAID and 200-300MB/sec and 1.5TB storage (320GB drives would be fine and cheaper, not all drives do well in RAID or with all controllers so read the reviews).
If you work with 1GB files, you want RAID and even a boot RAID.
Boot RAID with 2 drives.
Data can also be on RAID for faster writing and loading.
Scratch needs to be at least one dedicated drive or up to "n."
And all of this needs redundant backups.
Disable Spotlight on your scratch and editing drives, it hurts.
I think there are some issues that Apple and Adobe are working on regarding Leopard and CS3.
Makes a big difference having a dedicated slim and mean system on its own drive, along with the other items.
CS3 under Leopard will use memory very well as cache before writing to or using scratch disks. Under Tiger you need to use the Enable VMBuffer plug-in I think (from Adobe).
edited by hatter

PCIe eSATA Sonnet + Fusion 500p

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