Should I Get A PCI Sata Card For Internal Drives

I'm transferring Files from old G4 to a new G5 and it's taking forever. The sata drives seem to work slower. When I transfer the same way(Firewire)on my G4 it's much faster. Someone said to get a PCI sata card and hook up my internals to that instead of the factory connection. That it's faster that way. I'm going to have to burn to dvd and transfer that way, but it seems to defeat the purpose. Any suggestions are appreciated.
G5 Dual Core 2.0 with 2.5 GB and 2 250 Drives

Come to think of it, the last time I needed to transfer some media from my G4 to G5, the quickest and easiest way (mind you they are in separate rooms), was to pop out the G4 drive and use one of these cheap IDE USB adapters. Since the G5 is USB2, the process was pretty quick.
My guess about the G5 in target mode is there must be some kind of overhead, but the SATA is FAR and away faster than the FW connection between them, so a SATA card won't help.
Shane Ross and I are currently using "popsicle stick" internal RAIDs in our G5s. See this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/click.jspa?searchID=-1&messageID=2162848
Patrick

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PCIe SATA Cards for RAID for video: Seritek 2ME4-E vs Sonnet Tempo E4P

Hey Folks,
I'm just about to purchase bigger, faster RAID system for my video editing needs. I've already purchased 1TB Barracudas for the drives and I have decided on the Burly dual PM for the enclosure. http://www.burlystorage.com/ccp0-catshow/burlydualpm.html
The questions is which card? I've had a seritek 2 port card and also their expresscard for years without a problem. But some tests I've seen indicate that the Sonnet is a bit faster. Then again, I know that some people had problems with the firmware at least as recently as last spring.
What do people say? Hatter and Japamac, I'm hoping to hear from you.

FirmTek:
If you would like the ability to support port multiplier enclosures and 3rd party SMART applications, the FirmTek SeriTek/e6G would be my choice for a low cost 2-port 6G controller with these features. This card features hot swap and is also able to hot plug Oxford 936/946 based enclosures without the need for a restart. Installation is easy.
I use the SeriTek/e6G in the 2009 Mac Pro with Mac OS X 10.6.5. The PCIe 2.0 slots in the 2009 model provide optimized performance. >
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-e6g/
You want a 4x or above card usually, one that has more bandwidth and performance, than those low end 1x 2-port cards that can't drive enough MB/sec to make using multiple drives / multiple enclosures.
Well, seeing you went with Seagate, not my cup of tea, I would have said WD Black Caviar 2TB drives instead.
Sonnet 4-port E4P is what I have used but it or its drivers may be an issue, totally unsure.
PM today is limited by today's drives. When it came out drives were slow by comparison, a mere 75MB/sec while today one drive can shovel 90-125MB/sec or half of what a PM can handle. You only get in real world about 250MB/sec maybe (overhead takes away from that 300MB/sec per port). That means while 6Gb is great, PM enclosures like FirmTek5PM need a new faster PM chip. Again, no idea where that is or when we will see it.
Maybe you should ask about SAS and be looking at even higher end RAID controllers from Areca perhaps.

3rd Party SATA raid cards for internal drives?

All --
Apart from the discussion as to if RAID actually benefits a home desktop system, I am wondering if anyone has the lowdown on using 3rd party SATA raid cards to support the INTERNAL hard drives on the Mac Pro series?
My Mac Pro is still slated to be built at Apple and for now I have the minimum memory and HD spec being requested at Apple, with the plan to upgrade the memory and drives from OWC or another vendor.
I've toyed with the idea of utilizing Disk Utility's software RAID features (e.g. RAID 0 for scratch disks, RAID 1 for boot, RAID 0+1 for all else.) I've also toyed with the notion of searching for a hardware raid solution which would allow me to transfer the internal SATA cable runs from the motherboard to a host adapter card for an internal multi-channel experience (with options to create and break mirrors to external devices for backup purposes.)
So....
Has anyone experience or utilized 3rd party hardware raid controllers which can connect to the internal HD bays? Are there limitations to this (ie, does the boot drive HAVE to reside off the internal motherboard controllers, or can an internal hardware controller successfully boot the system) of which ought be noted?
Finally, in the event that a host adapter card cannot drive the interna bays, can anyone give feedback to hardware SATA cards to power external drive bays with support for Disk Utility (to allow RAID1 pairings of internal drives to external snapshot-backup drives)?
Thanks for your time,
Ian Poulin
Richmond, Va

I am wondering if anyone has the lowdown on using 3rd party SATA raid cards to support the INTERNAL hard drives on the Mac Pro series?
There are many 3rd party controllers that support the internal HDs if an internal iPass connector is used. The problem is that some are bootable but most are not.
The Areca ARC-1680ix-12 and the HighPoint RocketRAID 4320 are bootable. However, the system cannot be installed via the Apple DVD. Instead the user needs to clone a boot drive with the proper drivers to the boot volume on the controller and then boot from the 3rd party controller.
The other issue I found is that these controllers do not support Boot Camp. If Boot Camp is desired, my recommendation would be to leave the internal HDs on the Mac Pro internal bus intact and use the 3rd party controller for external storage. This method provides four internal bays that are bootable, support Boot Camp and can be used for system backups. I use the 3rd party controller for external storage for large RAID sets and hot swapping hard disks.
With the internal bays intact and external hot swap RAID storage available the user can support Boot Camp, multiple system volumes and large external RAID sets. From my experience using a 3rd party controller with the internal HD bays always has some limitations. The user usually does not realize it unit later when Boot Camp does not work or the computer fails on a system upgrade or the controller does not work at all with a new version of Mac OS X.
Staying with the standard internal Mac Pro bay configuration will be the best configuration to avoid compatibility issues with future versions of Mac OS X. It is rumored that the new Snow Leopard may require 64-bit drivers. If that is the case, I would expect most if not all existing 3rd party controller drivers to fail. Some drivers will be upgraded after a few months while others may not. Having the internal Mac Pro SATA controller intact should at least allow the Mac Pro to boot if my guess about compatibility issues is correct.
can anyone give feedback to hardware SATA cards to power external drive bays with support for Disk Utility (to allow RAID1 pairings of internal drives to external snapshot-backup drives)?
There are a large number of external controllers that work with Disk Utility. Here are some of my favorites.
1. FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E and the SeriTek/5PM
http://firmtek.stores.yahoo.net/sata5pm2se2.html
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/firmtek/5pm/
2. Sonnet Tempo E4P
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/sonnet/mac-pro/
3. DAT Optic eSATA_PCIe8
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/datoptic/pcie8/
Have fun!

Which PCI SATA card for B&W G3?

I just picked up a 400GB Seagate SATA drive and I would like to install it into my B&W G3. Does anyone have any recommendations on which SATA PCI card to buy? I have found prices from $22 to over $100. Most of those on the low end when you look at the specs always reference the minimum requirements for a PC, but nothing for a Mac.
If the card is PCI compliant, shouldn't it just be plug and play?

SIIG's SC-MP4A12 UltraATA 133/100 Pro is what I went with - should retail about 65-100$. Be careful with lower priced models as the bus speed may be lower (in my head, this being the speed at which data is transfered through the harddrive into the system and back. Slower might be OK but there's little point in getting a drive that you are at pains to get info to and from. And the card MUST be mac compatible - no it isn't just plug and play (I learned that the hard way assuming a Belkin would be since they make so much mac stuff). Others to look for include ACard. Also keep in mind there are serial ATA and ultra ATA cards - get a drive that matches the card and vice versa.
So far the SIIG card works but I'm having some hiccups and kernal panics (probably an addressing issue - it takes a bit longer to start up the computer as it looks for the OS across all the drives and something might be mismatched by me right now). Also, leave your OS-based drive attached/connected to the motherboard connection (though you can have back up startup disks attached to the IDE controller - that's another name for the card, right) since it looks there first on start-up it appears. Hope that helps.
Andy

Where can I get a PCI USB card for OSX 10.5 that will coat as little as one for a common PC?

Every accessory for an Apple product cost way more than it should! I want to find a PCI USB hub that has a OSX driver, so I can install it in my G$ AGP 400Mhz, upgraded to a 1.6 Ghz with 1.25 Gb memory

Here's some info...
https://discussions.apple.com/message/12022564#12022564
https://discussions.apple.com/message/11978748#11978748
https://discussions.apple.com/message/11203859#11203859
http://jcsenterprises.com/Japamacs_Page/Blog/B8B574BC-BB45-4B3E-9D9B-F97EBB3230B C.html

Suggestions for: external SATA array with a PCIe SATA card??

Seems like this would be a good idea but have no idea what hardware to be considering.
external SATA array with a PCIe SATA card
Thanks
John

Seems like this would be a good idea but have no idea
what hardware to be considering.
external SATA array with a PCIe SATA card
Thanks
John
I purchased and internal raid kit, Rocket Raid 2320 card and Maxupgrades kit. This guy will help you get your equipment running with over the phone with personal customer service. He has external configs also.
http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category _id=313&CFID=3649947&CFTOKEN=58951206
Good Luck
Z1&V1user

What is the best e-Sata PCI RAID card for Mavericks.

What is the best e-Sata PCI RAID card for Mavericks. Bought a new MAC PRO with Mavericks and the older PCI 1095,3124 that I used on older MAC Pro does not work. The MAC sees it, but the drivers never show up as being installed. If I could find drivers that work or a recommended PCI card it would be appreciated.
Thanks

PM made sense - 6 yrs ago when disk drives were much slower. Today it is a bottleneck.
SAS makes more sense. Outside of SSD, no disk drive maxes out by itself one PM interface (an SSD will) but it also means just two drives are enough to do so. So check out why to avoid PM:
www.macperformanceguide.com

SATA Card for G4 DA

I've got a PowerMac G4 533 DA and I'd like to put a large hard drive in it for storage. I'd like to know if you have to get a specifically labeled Mac compatible PCI SATA card or will others work (like for PCs). The Sonnet ones are just so expensive compared to essentially the same hardware for PCs. I do not need it to be bootable, this would only be for expanded storage over the tiny IDE drives already in use.
I am running Leopard on it after creating a custom Leopard disk to avoid the clock speed limitation (incase Leopard supports a wider variety of cards than Tiger).

You'd have to weigh up all the factors but you could also just get a large ATA/PATA drive and then get a software solution for the drive size limitations.
SpeedTools ATA Hi-Cap Support Driver: Allows the use of extended capacity ATA drives (drives greater than 128 Gigabytes in size) on older (Pre Mirrored Door) G4 and G3 Macintoshes running MacOS X versions 10.2 and later. http://www.speedtools2.com/ATA6.html
[Overdrive|http://mac.profusehost.net/overdrive/index.html] - free utility to use >128GB drives in old computers. Read warnings about beta releases in general.

How do I get my PCI-CAN card to work in my Dell computer?

I am trying to get a PCI-CAN card working in a Dell GX110 computer. The computer quits right after the initial Dell spalsh screen goes away. After that point, I only get a flashing cursor in the top left corner. NI support suggested a bios upgrade, but the computer is already at the latest bios rev. When I remove the card, the computer boots fine. What do I try next?
Lars

The problem may be related to a specific chip ( MITE) on the PCI CAN card. Please call us at 512-795-8248 with the part no and the serial of the PCI CAN card, so that we can verify whether the CAN card may have a hardware problem and have you send the card back to us for repair or to get a replacement.

I'm looking for a PCI UMTS card for Portege M700

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Thanks apologize in advance

Hi
You need a 3G broadband module?
As far as I know some of the M700 Portege series have been equipped with the 3G module I think its from Novatel but Im not quit sure
However, if you need an part for the Toshiba notebook which would be compatible for sure, then the best place for buying such part is your ASP.
The guys could check what parts are compatible and could order it from Toshiba if this would be really necessary
Greets

Boot MEGA 180 from PCI Sata card

My onboard IDE controller has given up the ghost so I have purchased a PCI sata card to use a spare sata disk, the problem is I can't see any way to get the 180 to boot from the PCI card. Anyone any ideas?

Yep - I disabled the PATA ports.
No - the card has no bios - I guess this is the problem.

SATA Card for G5 Dual 1.8Ghz

I'm looking for an internal SATA card for my PowerMac G5 Dual 1.8Ghz. I've got a couple hard drives laying around that I wanted to RAID together with my Time Machine Backup drive. Instead of spending hours looking on Google, I figured I'd poll the masses.
Newegg.com has a ton but I want to make sure I get one that is compatible with my hardware.
Thanks in advance!

The only sure thing is the Firmtek Seritek cards.
They are also the only ones that support boot to the connected drives.
Native OS X support is also an important point.
Firmtek also provides excellent tech support
After that, Highpoint has compatibles, and non compatibles.
They don't support boot, and, but can perform well enough.
If you take the path less taken, and get a card that uses generic Silicon Images drivers, then OS X support, and successful use, is highly variable (to say the least).

Are there PCI thunderbolt cards for mac pro 3.1?

are there PCI thunderbolt cards for mac pro 3.1?

DCWinton wrote:
Rick
It's that last sentence I'm curious about. "However a MacPro already has much more capability already built in than Thunderbolt can add."
I'm thinking of getting a Mac Pro, but see that it doesn't seem to have Thunderbolt. I'm not sure if I care. The reason for the Mac Pro is that I'm topping out my 8gb RAM 27" iMac capacity with the volume of work going through it, and my tech tells me I'm pushing it too hard. I use it to run a small law office, but usually have about 15 apps open, with lots going on in the network in the background.
Is there any reason to wait until Apple puts Thunderbolt into the Mac Pro?
Thunderbolt will not increase the performance capability of the MacPro. It will add a bus that can be convenient, especially later on when Thunderbolt devices become more common, more mature and better supported - oh, and with more common will come less costly. From a pure performance standpoint the existing PCIe slots are much more capable and cheaper to implement. You would be giving up nothing with a current MacPro.
My opinion. Thunderbolt is really a great move forward in the long run - needed something to replace Firewire and this is it. But there is no reason to wait on Thunderbolt on MacPro - it is redundant.
Rick

[nForce] PCI SATA Card...Will it work?

I'm planning on installing a PCI Sata card to run 2 WD 80Gb drives...My question is, will I run into any problems when trying to install Xp??? I know that the card came with a CD, but will windows recognize the card and load the drivers automatically? Thanks in advance and sorry if this a noob question!

if you look on the CD that comes with the card, there maybe some drivers that you have to copy to a floppy disk, for windows xp
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maybe if you tell us what SATA card you have / intend to buy, someone can offer better advice...

Anybody using MOTU PCI 424e card for 2408 with new MacPro Cylinder?

I upgraded my older Mac PRO tower which accepted multiple PCI 424e cards for the new Mac Pro cylinder. I purchased from Magma their Express card cage with Thunderbold output in anticipation. Computer arrived and I removed the card and inserted into the card cage, directed audio to the card but no go. iTunes, for example freezes when the card is selected. My MOTU Digital Performer also does not allow Analog in or out with the card.
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My studio is dead in the water until I solve this OR I need to go back to the slower old MacPro.
Thanks in advance.

Did you install the FCS suite onto the new computer by using the original disks?
You should. Don't forget to run all updates, repair permissions and restart.
Or did you migrate the applications from the older Mac? You should not do this.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2113535

Should I Get A PCI Sata Card For Internal Drives

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