Raid card and scratch disk setup for FCP

Hi Guys
Can anybody tell me what is the correct way to set up a raid card and scratch disk for FCP if you have 3 x 2TB internal hard drives, with the OS on HD1 and drives 2 and 3 dedicated for FCP
Also with this i also have all my documents i.e work stuff, invoices, pictures, music ect from my old windows PC and used to have them stored on HD2 with the Windows 7 OS on HD1 - i have been told that it is fine if i put this on the same drives as FCP is this correct...?
i only ask this as i have been told how to do it in different ways by 3 people......

Thanks John, although i'm rather embarrassed to admit that I am a complete newbie when it comes to technical/computer hardware terms (i.e. I have no idea about different types of disks, other than a HDD and a SSD, or even what the difference is between your media cache and a scratch disk).
This means that after reading all the links you so helpfully provided hasn't done much other than making me feel even more stupid!
The best that I can conclude from what I think that i've understood is that I will use:
Intel 530 Series 120GB SSD for O/S, Programs (and Pagefile?? No idea what this is, sorry)
Samsung 840BW 500GB - Scratch Disk (is this the media cache?) and preview
Seagate Barracuda 3TB HDD - media, projects, and exports
Please tell me if i've got something around the wrong way....
Thanks again.

Similar Messages

Setting up RAID 0 and scratch disk from blank drives?

Folks,
Howdy again from NC. I've been setting up an AMD Phenom II 955 to handle PPro CS5 as well as possible, within limits. I built four of these machines for my math class, and am going to give CS5 a go on one of them before caving in and migrating my Production Premium to an i7/X58 platform. Maybe I'll get lucky and find this computer works acceptably with PPro, especially if I transcode my T2i AVCHD footage (likely Neoscene).
I put three new disks into my build yesterday and would like some pointers on setting them up, if I may ask. I have read through a number of posts on this, but don't find direct answers, unfortunately. I've never set up a RAID and want to get it right.
I have two Caviar Black drives for my RAID and a Hitachi Deskstar for my scratch disk. The Blacks are new out of the pack and the Hitachi has had zeros written to the drive. How to begin?
Anticipated issues:
* Do I need to format the drives in a certain way? I had planned on going into Disk Management and setting up a volume on each as my first move. Right now, they aren't even recognized under My Computer. Under Disk Management, all three show as unallocated.
From memory, I right click in the unallocated space and select an option for setting up the volume. Prior to this I only used straight-up drives, no RAID, and after writing zeros to a drive selected "New Simple Volume". It seems to me this is the move to make on the single scratch disk.
But how about the two RAIDed drives? We also have options to set up as "New Striped Volume" or "New Spanned Volume". If the answer is to set as as "New Striped Volume" for the RAID 0 I have planned, do I do this before or after installing the RAID software?
* My documentation for setting up the RAID on my motherboard doesn't indicate when to change my BIOS setting for the two SATA channels from IDE to RAID. Should I do this before or after running the software to set up the RAID? Do I need to go into the software setup with the two SATA channels already configured as RAID?
Right now, all SATA channels are configured as IDE.
* After getting my disks set up, I'd like to optimize my system for editing (turning off unwanted features, etc.). I've been looking all over for a link to an outside site I had bookmarked from a prior post, but lost it on re-install. Anyone recall what the favored link was? It started as a long page of instructions in simple typeface.
In the end, my disks are as follows (unless someone makes a case to use them differently):
OS/Programs - 1TB Caviar Green. Yes, I know the deal on green drives, but I needed to use this drive somewhere. I figured using it as the OS drive would be the best spot for the slowest drive. Maybe I botched this and should have used the following drive for the OS? I had transfer rates in mind and thought the Scratch drive should be faster?
Scratch - 750GB Deskstar 7K100 series. This drive was tops 18 months back when I bought it.
RAID 0 - Two 640GB Caviar Blacks (32 meg cache, twin processors). A bit older in the Black lineup, but the drive charts show them working quickly.
To ask one dumb last question, which will really show my newbieness, I use the scratch drive for page files (right? and what else?) and the RAID for holding any media to be worked upon and for encoding the final project?
I've been reading on this forum for over a month and am amazed that as I have the drives for a RAID, I can't find good links to tell me what to do. I know I am asking redundant questions here but have already spent two hours with the search engine and am only getting tangential anwers (ha! math joke).
Sorry to be asking such newbie questions all over again, but my luck with the search engine hasn't been so good of late. Maybe Bill's idea of creating a sticky section for common questions is a good idea.

about 75-80% of the systems we ship, ship with this config (others would be bigger arrays or no array)
1)OS
2) project drive 2 x raid 0
3) render to/export drive 2 x raid 0
4) back up (pick your poison)
while i cant speak to the older WDs (we have not used them for 3-4 yrs until now)
i can tell you with Seagate and now WD we have not seen the issue that applies to this inRaid 0
we are aware of the timeout issue this happens with controller cards and seagate or WD with large raid 5/6
simple answer use enterprise drives for raid 5/6
if you look at all the external raid resellers Sonnet etc they all use enterprise drives (mostly seagate)
so do we for large raids.
(drobo does not so buyer beware (green), we like to sell drobo without drives in it and use ours)
again BACK UP do not assume your raid 3/5/6/10/1 whatever is bullet proof, trust me its not
so even if you have a loss it should be at best nominal
something i dont think i have seen mentioned enough either
the single most common cause of drive failure (or any component failure) is Dirty Power!
dirty power can be spikes but are usually brown outs (very common in large older cities) or even low voltage coming into the home/office
this is the most common.
rather than a clean 120v you could see it as low as 105v
the other is being on a circuit with a large appliance.
ever see your lilghts flicker when the AC kicks on?
buy a good inline filter UPS. add 20% MORE wattage than your power supply
dont forget to add accessories LCDs, Audio interfaces, speakers/studio monitors etc.
Scott
ADK

Optimum program and scratch disk setup

Hi - I am about to upgrade to Premiere Elements 7 (from 2.0) to accomodate AVCHD from a new camcorder. I also just put together a new eSATA RAID array with 2 10k RPM disks cannablized from another machine. My question is what is the best place to load program and define scratch disks. System description is:
Vista OS on C: drive, 230GB 7200 RPM SATA, quad core processor
E: drive 7200 RPM SATA, 250 GB - this one is basically empty now
L: drive 2x 10k RPM eSATA 138GB total, in a striped RAID config
Currently I have Premiere ELements 2.0 and Photoshop CS2 on C: drive with L: = first scratch for photoshop and E: as secondary scratch drive.
I'm pretty sure I want the fast RAID drive for scratch in any case, but would it be better to load the programs onto the E: drive and use C: as secondary scratch? Or would it in fact be better to put the programs on the fastest RAID drive L: and use E: and C: as primary and secondary scratch drives?
If there's any point in defining even more scratch disks I have a 320G striped RAID made from 4 80GB 7200 RPM drives on another computer (IEEE1394 connecting that drive to the other computer), via wired ethernet, and will soon also have a NAS box on the network in a mirrored RAID for backup storage. But I'm thinking the local drives on the main computer above should be adequate for good performance editng video and photo.
thanks!

If you have not looked at the links in THIS ARTICLE, you will find a lot of useful info on the setup and utilization of your HDD's. While it's written with PrPro in mind, most applies directly to PE, as well.
Good luck,
Hunt

What's the Best Photoshop CS5 Scratch Disk Setup for New MacPro 12 Core?

Hello all...
I'm awaiting delivery of a new MacPro 12 Core with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD drive (Bay1) + 2TB (Bay2) + 2TB (Bay3). Normally I would partition about 60GB of one of the 2TB drives to make an exclusive scratch disk for Photoshop to ensure optimum performance.... with the new spec MacPro and especially the new 512GB SSD, do I still need to do this..?
Any suggestions of comments most welcome... as I want to try to get my new machine set up as best I can before I start copying over my existing data and filling hard drives etc. Photoshop CS5 and Quark Express 8 are my two core apps that I use daily.
Regards,
Anthony MacCarthy
Irish MacUser and MacAddict

ScarCrow 28 wrote:
…Well yes, technically you've got me on that I will admit. I'll try to rephrase to be a bit more accurate. The best scratch disk is one you don't need to rely on performance wise, by having enough RAM to handle the data performance needy tasks that would otherwise be sent to the scratch disk, when enough RAM can't be accessed by Photoshop…
…Hows that?
Still wrong, alas.
The scratch disk is used always.
See this very short (two-message) thread:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2847996#2847996
Excerpt:
[Chris Cox writes:]
…Photoshop needs to allocate scratch space for data, in case it needs to
write that data to disk later -- otherwise you would randomly fail with
"out of scratch space" in the MIDDLE of an operation…
Furthermore, Photoshop sets the size of the scratch disk ahead of time—the instant you open an image file or create a new document—basing it on assumptions the application makes taking into account your usual, past workflow practices, your settings and the pixel dimensions of the document.
Bottom line: the scratch disk always plays a part.
Do a forum search filtering the options with Chris Cox in the "Who" box, "scratch" as key word, and Photoshop Macintosh as the forum. You'll find some enlightening reading. Examples:
http://forums.adobe.com/search.jspa?q=scratch&resultTypes=MESSAGE&resultTypes=COMMUNITY&pe opleEnabled=true&dateRange=all&communityID=3341&username=Chris+Cox&numResults=15&rankBy=10 001
I'm not just insisting on arguing; I honestly want you and others to have a better Photoshop experience. Really.
Wo Tai Lao Le
我太老了

What's the optimum Scratch disk setup for a Macbook Pro?

Hello Everyone,
I'm starting to edit video on my Macbook Pro. I'm going to need a scratch disk. Should I get a dedicated 3.5" scratch disk or should I spend the same money on a new HD for my Macbook pro and just use the stock 200gb drive as the scratch disk? It's a mutiuse system... If you were in my shoes, would you put the newer, faster HD inside my computer or use it as a scratch disk?

Just to jump in on this, and add to the orignal post. I have a Macbook (not pro) and I need to get a external HD. I'll obviously go for Firewire, the only problem I can forsee is importing footage from my DV camera, which is also Firewire. My Macbook only has a single Firewire port. I know most externals have a Firewire Hub built in, enabling you to connect through there, but is that sufficient, will the transfer rates be ok for DV capture, as it seems like the footage would have to go from the camera, to the external Hard Disk, to the Macbook, and back to the Hard Disk, seems like a big effort, which could lead to dropped frames.
I'm sure this has been encountered before, just asking another question to add to the original post, and also to help me decide.
One other thing, if it is ok with DV, would it be ok with Hi Def, as I plan to upgrade the camera some time soon, so I wouldn't like to pick something, that would soon be useless.

Need airport extreme card (and installation disk?) for OS X 10.2.4

So when I got my emac in 2003 it didn't come with an airport extreme card. but now I need to get online and am unable to hook up with a landline to our current, only wireless, router. I can't upgrade my OS X and spend tons of money for ram and the new card. So I'm looking for the card that would work with my version of OS X. Please give me any info or websites, I haven't had any luck myself!

LaurieP, Welcome to the discussion area!
The version of OS X installed has nothing to do with which card you need.
The original eMacs require the original AirPort card. That is the only card compatible with the internal slot.
Later eMacs require the AirPort Extreme card. That is the only card compatible with the internal slot.
You can determine which eMac you have by using KB 86325, eMac: How to locate the serial number and identify your model. The "eMac (ATI Graphics)", "eMac (USB 2.0)", and "eMac (2005)" all require the AirPort Extreme card.

Workflow and scratch disk setting

To improve the speed on editing and rendering, what would be the best workflow and scratch disk setting for follows?!
1) video files create by Canon 5D mark II on CF card
2) Video files create by JVC HM700 (in HD, .mov format)
Above 2 formats I usually work with FCP on follow hardware ,
iMac 3.4G i7
8G RAM
Primary drive, 256G SSD
Secondary, 1T harddrive
For each project, video material most likely around 120G.
i) What would be the best setting for the scratch disk in order to boot the speed on editing and rendering?!
II) to save up the disk space on SSD, should I set the video storage on the 1T harddrive and the video n audio rending path to the SSD?!
iii) anything setting should I care while transfer both video format to FCP for a better speed for editing n rendering?
Pls advice!

don't put ANY media on your startup drive-- that would include renders. I'm guessing this is an imac with the ssd and a 1TB? what I do is have one drive for media, one for renders and a third for exports. That lightens the load considerably on any one drive at a time and arguably gives marginally faster throughput.
1TB seems like a lot, but these days it really isn't. I've got 10tb hooked up to my machine, with 3 x 1TB ready to drop into a drive dock for archives-- and I'm always out of room.
You've got to pay attention to the codec your cameras shoot in. Dunno about the JVE, but it's likely an h.264 variant of mpeg4-- do NOT try to edit with this. convert all your footage to prores LT or prores. HQ is definitely overkill.

Best Setup for FCP X

So...I have a Mac Pro, Dual 2.8 Quad Core with 24 GB of RAM. I beefed up the video card and the RAM just for FCP X....but I swear, it runs painfully slow. I'm about to boot this thing and go for portability. Will the high end Macbook Pro deliver what I think FCP X should be like?

I feel your pain sszeto. I still have my old MAC Clone. Remember the UMAX 900? I have that in my sailboat and I'm still using it. Kinda useless but it does the job.
I still feel that going SSD is the way to go. Clinton might back me up on this one.
I believe, and still do that desktop are faster than laptops. I have a 4 year old i7 920 Windows desktop that is faster in Photoshop than my late 2011 MB Pro. I just went portable because I travel too much and I hate lugging around my desktop.
My suggestion: try out the SSD on your Mac PRO and if you feel that it's not helping, when you get your new MB Pro, you can install that SSD in your MB Pro and really see the difference in speed.
Makes sense?

What size for OS/apps SSD and scratch disk SSD ?

Hi !
I need a SSD for my OS with the full CS6 Cloud and few others apps (but no games, pictures, songs or other personnal stuff),
that's mean between 70 and 80Gb. So I think I'll need only a 128Gb for that.
I also need a scratch disk, so despite I prefer a fast and large disk like the Barracuda 3Tb, I read it will be better to take a SSD.
My workstation is a 6x core, with 64Gb RAM, and 6x HDD for projects, render and footage (4K R3D and 1080p PRORES).
My questions are :
1) OS/apps SSD :
Even if I only need 80Gb (or a few more like 90Gb max) of storage, do I need to take more than 128Gb ?
Is it possible that the OS fill my disk with lots of temporary files ?
And the same for Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects or others apps ?
I know those apps will use the scratch disk, but maybe others temporary files will be write on this OS/apps drive ?
2) scratch disk SSD :
Like I said, I prefer larger drives, but as I understood, SSD will be better for preview and temp files,
and actually I'm working with 4K R3D footages and 1080p PRORES.
So do you think 128Gb will be enough for a scratch disk, to use with CS6, Blackmagic Resolve, and others 3D apps, like Maya ?
Of course I can empty them regularly.............. but is it enough ? Or 256Gb, or higher will be better ?
Or just a fast WD Velociraptor 1Tb or even a cheaper Barracuda 3Tb hard drive will be good enough ?
Thanks guys.

Thanks for your fast reply.
But, I'm confused.... if the OS and the apps can fill my disk with lots of temp files, how a 128Gb can be enough ??
Maybe you mean that those apps will fill the SSD with "hidden" files, but not reach the limit of 128Gb ?
About Windows, I didn't knew I could make a scratch disk only for this temp files.
Do I have to put the Windows temp files in the scratch disk also ?
And you don't think a Velociraptor with 1Tb will be a good solution between the speed of a SSD and the size of a HDD ?
My drives (alone or in RAID 0) are directly connected from the motherboard P9X79 PRO, trought the X79 chipset, and the Marvell chipset.
But I read that the Marvell chipset has only 500Mb/s in total bandwitch divided between the 2 drives..... I'm not really sure....
but even if it's true, I don't think the OS/apps will take a lot of bandwitch (except when I'll start an apps),
and it will surelly let the full bandwitch for the scratch disk. Don't you think ?
4 drives are connected to the X79 chipset :
- 1x SATA 6Gb/s - Barracuda 3Tb (projects)
- 1x SATA 6Gb/s - Barracuda 3Tb (renders)
- 2x SATA 3Gb/s / RAID 0 - Barracuda 3Tb (footages)
- 2x SATA 3Gb/s / RAID 0 - Barracuda 3Tb (footages)
2 drives will be connected to the Marvell chipset :
- 1x SATA 6Gb/s - SSD (OS/apps)
- 1x SATA 6Gb/s - SSD or HDD (scratch disk for CS6 and other "video" apps)

Ideal disk setup for MDFs, LDFs, TempDB, and cube files?

I'm about to build an enterprise SQL Server that will run both OLTP and our data warehouse (OLAP). What is the proper disk setup for data files, please? Is it something like:
1 for MDFs
1 for LDFs
1 for TempDB
1 for OLAP files
Or something close to that?
Thanks for any guidance.

Please take a look at these URLs:
How to configure the hard disks for optimal performance?
Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server
SQL Server Storage Best Practices
T-SQL Articles
T-SQL e-book by TechNet Wiki Community
T-SQL blog

Optimal Scratch Disk Setting for Notebook/Macbook Pro Users

After doing a ton of research, I came across THIS guidline for different scratch disk setups but I am still not sure what would be the best setup for me.
Here is what I am working with for my Current Projects Work Station
2011 i7 Macbook Pro with SSD as my main drive and 750GB 5400rpm HD in the optical bay.
OWC Elite Mini and Dual Mini in Raid0 for Media Storage. Both 7200rpm Drives
Currently I have my scratch disk set to the following:
SSD: Startup drive, OS, Programs, Project Files and Exports
750GB HD: Partitioned - 250GB to Backup SSD and 500GB for Photo storage and PP Scratch Disk Video, Audio and Previews
OWC Minis: Media Storage for Current Projects
My question is, what can I do to optimize my premiere pro settings?
Should I move my scratch disk to my external HD since its a faster drive?

I have a very similar setup but am using a couple pieces of new gear. Wondering if Harm or any of the rest of you have any advice.
2011 i7 Macbook Pro with 500GB SSD as my main drive and 750GB 5400rpm HD in the optical bay. The SSD is a new
Samsung Electronics 840 Pro Series 2.5-Inch 512 SATA_6_0_gb Solid State Drive MZ-7PD512BW
4th-generation 3-Core Samsung MDX Controller ensures sustained performance under the most punishing conditions
Backed by an industry-leading five-year limited warranty
I have various LaCie drives that contain projects, media, exports connected via LaCie Tbolt esata adapter. So these are drives I've had for years that are now running at 3G esata speeds.
I'm not using the 2nd internal drive for anything since it is 5400rpm. I just use it for backups, photo, music storage.
So I ususally work small projects with the projects, media, exports, renders all pointing back to the esata connected external LaCies.
Should I point media cache to the 500GB SSD my internal c drive? The answer to this is still confusing since I've read many conflicting posts in various places.
Any other suggestions for now with this setup? (External Tbolt connected raid not yet in my budget.)

Disk Setup for CS4

Hello All,
Looking for some recommendations on disk setup for CS4. Some quick specs. XP Pro 64 bit,Intel i7 extreme, 12GB DDR3 RAM, and 8 Velociraptor 300 GB Drives.
I orginally had it setup as a single Array (RAID 5 with online spare) with two partitions ( One for OS and program files, and one for storage and Scratch and Page file)on the array. I wasnt getting very good performance so I decided to wipe and reconfigure.
Would I be better off with 2 arrays? One array of 2 drives RAID 0(600 GB) for OS, Program Files, and Scratch Space. and the second array of 6 drives at RAID 5 (1.3 TB) for storage?
Or maybe even go with a single drive for OS and Program Files (300 GB). A single drive for Scratch Space (300 GB). and then the 6 Drives in RAID 5 for storage?
Also where would be the best loacation for the paging file?
Thanks in advance for the help

The speed of a 7-disk raid5 is far higher than a single disk. The speed degradation from a 7-disk to 6-disk raid may not outbalance the addition of a single disk for scratch.
I am seriously considering to move 2 single disks to my raid array, so I end up with 2 x 7 disks in a Raid30.

Best disk setup for Premiere CS6

Hello,
I want to improve my disk setup for Adobe Premiere CS6 because I got long loading times.
My current setup:
Crucial RealSSD C300 60GB SSD for the program
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB HDD for media and Media Cache Files
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB HDD for projects and exports
My planed setup:
new: Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB SSD for the program
Crucial RealSSD C300 60GB SSD for Media Cache Files
2x Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB HDD with Raid 1 for media
new: Seagate Barracuda 2 TB HDD for projects and exports
Is this the best solution to improve the performance?
Thanks
Tim

What is the advantage of getting an extra HDD for the exports?
None from a performance point of view.
And should I use the 60GB SDD for the Media Cache Files?
That is much too small. Depending on your projects, you will need at least 256 GB, but possibly even more.
With only 350 GB of media and projects, my media cache is already 72 GB.
Read Harm's articles on disk setup, raids and balanced systems here: Tweakers Page

Mac Pro RAID Card and Western Digital drives

I'm having huge troubles with these items.
I first installed four WD7500AYYS (Raid Edition) to build a RAID 5 and install Leopard on it. At this point, one of the drives was probably DOA and didn't show up in the bay. I then reinstalled the Seagate that shipped with the machine, then proceeded to create another enhanced JBOD raid with one of the WD drives. After a couple of seconds, RAID utility reported an error (disk about to fail and such). I then tried with another one. The process ended with a kernel panic after two hours, while RAID utility was still marking the drive for enhanced JBOD. That disk never show up again, in any bay.
At this point, I'm left with two WD drives. I can't get past the creation of a RAID set with them, no matter what. Either RAID utility reports an error, or it says the disk has been ejected, or it keeps create the RAID for hours... The later usually ends with a "force quit", or a force shutdown. During these attemps, the RAID card went missing once, then it appeared again on the following reboot. The RAID battery, which was fully charged at first, is now being "repaired" (charging ?).
I then ran AHT to see whether there was something wrong. No errors reported.
Because all four drives were Raid Edition, I thought this could be the root of the problems. So I bought a Caviar SE16 (WD5000AAKS). To no avail. It fails too, in the very same way. And now it no longer appears in any bay.
The last step I took was to remove the RAID card (connecting the iPass connector to the motherboard). Out of the five WD drives, only two RE2 (the two that still show up with the RAID card) do appear in disk utility. But disk utility never ends "writing the partition map" or "preparing for initialization".
By now, I end up with five WD drives that appear to be just dead, as if they were killed by the RAID card trying to RAID them. The only drive that works, with or without the RAID card, in any bay, is the Seagate. I didn't try to fiddle with it though (I'm reluctant to format it just to see whether I can create an enhanced JBOD raid with it).
So the question is, are Western Digital drives compatible with this RAID card ? If they do, then how a RAID card can kill them in such a way while keeping the Seagate alive ?
I'm lost in conjectures. I don't even know if/how I can bring all the WD drives back to life. I'm not sure the RAID card is faulty, I've already lost a lot of time and money, I'm not willing to buy yet another drive to see it fail too, and my Mac Pro is kind of useless as I don't want to spend time on installing/configuring everything I need on a drive that is bound to be replaced by a larger RAID 5 array.
Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

Someone yesterday or Friday, had a system with 4 x 1TB drives and Pro RAID, but in their case, it was determined later Saturday that drive bay #1 was not functioning.
Hopefully these fully retail drives, not OEMs, and I would think they are fine. They are what I would use (Sonnet Tempo only supports RE of the WD drives). Someone else, Danish?, had 3 out of 4 WD drives were DOA.
I've never had trouble buying over a dozen from OWC, so it does seem odd.
If you have SoftRAID 3.6.6 I would use that to zero the first and last 100 sectors, or you can begin to zero the whole drive and cancel at any time, just to check the health of the drive and that it can zero and not produce I/O errors.
There are two other methods for accessing and managing Mac Pro RAID, ARD and CLI
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306231
Originally, only Apple drives were supported. My understanding was that this changed. But the only article I found in KB dates back to Aug '07:
Question: What drives does Apple support with the Mac Pro RAID Card and the Xserve RAID Card?
Answer: +Only Apple drives are supported with the Mac Pro RAID Card and the Xserve RAID Card.+
My understanding that 3rd party retail drives such as WD RE2 750GB, Seagate, Hitachi were supported as well since the article was written - and I can't find where I read that, but sure that I did, as this was discussed in the past.
I'd like to find an official article. Even my friend Google was helpless

Apple RAID Card and 3TB Drives only show 2.2 TB

I tried a 3TB Seagate Barracuda XT drive in the July 2010 Mac Pro (and a Jan 2008 Mac Pro) on the RAID Card that came with the machines (so one is the RAID Card now shipping) and both show a maximum of 2.2 TB with a 3TB drive.
I'm curious if anyone else has tried this with different results. Any luck in getting the RAID Card to see the full 3TB in the drives?
By the way, without the RAID Card, the Mac (OS 10.6.4) sees the full 3TB, but not with it.
Anyone else seeing this?

Okay. Seems Apple didn't plan for or certify 3TB.
However, Apple doesn't support using 3rd party drives. Some do, and in some situations, drives you would think work don't, or they work but only briefly.
When I said read FAQ I was thinking of all the points like this:
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
http://www.apple.com/support/macpro/
Apple Knowledge Base: recent changes:
http://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=articles

Raid card and scratch disk setup for FCP

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