Third party RAID card. . .

Greetings. 3 questions (with by-questions added).
1. I have "read" that you can't use third-party RAID cards with apple HDD or Apple RAID with third-party HDD because of formatting from Apple. Is this true?
a) I've also "read" that there aren't any third-party RAID cards available for the "new" 2009> Mac Pros. Is this true
b) If question 'a' is false and it IS possible to install or "adapt" a third-party RAID card to the Pro, how would one go about it?
2. If I kept the OS running off of the 640GB HDD from apple, would I have to also add ONLY apple HDD?
3. Is it true that software RAID can only do RAID0 and 1? I'm planning on adding 2x 500GB drives for my video editing needs, which should be plenty to start out with; the answer to the question will help allow me to plan for when I should start saving for a RAID card.
Of course, I plan on playing and exploring the "RAID world" before actually working with it, but these questions still needed answering.
Thanks. Links are welcome if they help me understand your answers to my questions!

If you only want a Video editing striped RAID pair and a System drive:
a) You do not need the frighteningly expensive RAID card with its 72-hour backup battery.
b) Apple software RAID (built into Disk Utility) is perfectly adequate for most uses. There is other software you can buy, and it also works just fine.
c) You can use whatever SATA drives please you, but "Green" drives are for economy, not performance.
d) You do not need to keep that 640GB as your System Drive. You can replace it with a smaller drive and use the 640GB as half the RAID, if you wish.

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Hello,
I have a new P700 30A90012US with a 650W PSU and that didn't come with a video card. I am planning to use it as a DAW and for occasional gaming via a dual boot.
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Help With Third Party Wireless Cards

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Third-party networking card in 17" PowerBook?

I have a 1.67MHz 17" G4 with Airport connection problems. I want to test it by installing a third-party wireless card to see if it's the built-in Airport or the network.
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When testing third party wireless cards then you should disable built in airport as some devices can be damaged if they are in too closer proximity to another wireless device.
The card is a BuffaloTech g54 and I am using it in my 867MHz G4 since Apple didn't make an Airport Extreme card for my model [boo hiss].
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Third Party WiFi Card

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Netboot via third party ethernet card

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Cabling for 3rd Party RAID Card

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3rd Party RAID Card options - must make a decision

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Hi,
I find installing a RAID 5 inside the Mac Pro has too many limitations. I would rather keep the boot drive in its own internal bay and be able to mount a boot camp disk or other backup disks internally when needed.
A better solution for most users is to mount the RAID 5 externally. The FirmTek SeriTek/5PM enclosure and the HighPoint RocketRAID 2314 combination provides a high quality external RAID 5 solution that is quiet, fast and dependable. You can learn more about it here:
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/firmtek/5pm/
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-5pm/
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/highpoint/2314/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000NAXGIU/arizomacinusergr
There are other solutions that work well too. However, the controllers tend to be much more expensive. RAID 5 users looking for a quality solution at a very reasonable price will find the SeriTek/5PM and RR2314 combination works well.
If you don't mind paying more the Areca ARC-1680ix-12 SAS controller reviewed by AMUG is another high performance option that works well with SATA direct connect enclosures. You can read more about it here:
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/areca/1680ix12/
Have fun!

Expanding third party Raid on Mac OS X Server 10.4.10

We have an ACNC SCSI Raid connected to a G4 tower via an ATTO UL4S Ultra 320 SCSI card. The G4 is running Mac OS X Server 10.4.10 with the latest ATTO drivers and firmware. The ACNC Raid has four 500GB drives for a 1.5TB volume. We want to expand this with two more 500GB drives. The instructions from ACNC show to first add the two drives to the existing array which migrates the data across all drives. Next we modify the volume set to have the new 2.5TB capacity. Finally they say we must "stretch" the partition on the filesystem. They provide instructions for doing this on Windows and on Linux but on Mac OS X. Will this final step be possible on Mac OS X or have I hit a major problem? If I have, is my only solution to back this data up and rebuild the array and they bring the data back?

There is a product called VolumeWorks that is supposed to do this. I looked at the demo, but I could not get it to see the extra space so I ended up backing it all up and erasing the Raid and doing a block copy with Carbon Copy Cloner.

ThinkStation P700 - adding a third-party video card: supplementary power connectors?

Hi all,
I have recently purchased a ThinkStation P700 to replace my ageing setup and hopefully serve me for many years to come - It has not yet arrived (that's a different story altogether...).
I have a bit of a dillema regarding the video card I purchased for it. For my work I need CPU, much less so GPU, and especially not a Quadro. So for pure pleasure I added a GeForce GTX Titan Black (yes, I know that Lenovo will will not provide support for stability issues caused by this, etc, etc). I have the card already - here's my problem:
The card uses external power - it has one 8-pin and one 6-pin PCIe power connector on top of the board. With adapters I can get this to three 6-pin or multiple Molex, etc. The motherboard and the PSU in the P700 however, are so well designed and modular, that they almost seem too modular... I looked up the motherboard layout in the manual, and there are only 4-pin (?) connectors on the board, which are supposedly meant to be used with video cards. After a very long session with google it seems that hardly anyone has even heard of 4-pin power connectors for PCIe. Looking at pictures of the chassis available online, everything seems completely self-contained - the PSU slots into the board, and there are no free-hanging cables available whatsoever - am I right? Also pictures showing two full-size video cards installed, do not show power cables at all - maybe they're just cute marketing pics - the Quadros have power ports at the back - I simply can't see power cables in those pics, and the motherboard sockets are free. Obviously I know that the 4-pin, 6-pin and 8-pin are only combinations of 12V rails and ground.
So my questions are:
- are there any 6-pin or 8-pin connectors or Molex available anywhere at all?
- is there a spare part in the form of a 4-pin to 6-pin adapter? Is it perhaps bundled with the P700?
- how are the Lenovo-integrated video cards powered - surely with how thin the PCIE tracks are, they can't be powered only from the board - or can they?
- is this perhaps a joke on me / catch to make sure I only buy the pre-approved cards?
Thank you in advance.
Regards,
owczi
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Hi,
Now THAT was lots of info, and more. Much appreciated.
1. Power connectors - Indeed, Titan (Black) is 8 + 6 - so I'm happy with the info I got from you guys so far.
2. Specs listing dual K6000 - this site (looks like a Lenovo site?): http://thinkstation-specs.com/thinkstation-p700/ - there's a PDF with the same info there. This even says 3 x K6000 in SLI. I mean the board physically has three long slots, and three of those 4-pin ports that according to the manual have something to do with power - but I can't see this working. The psref site says K6000 (one) but the online shop will not let you configure the P700 with one - unless some other options preclude it and that's why I didn't see it.
3. CPU - I have no need for dual CPUs right now so I went for a single E5-1650v3 - I bought the P700 not P500 just so that I have an upgrade option, I may not use the second socket in the end but who knows.
4. Yes, I got the 9364-8i card (plus supercap module) - is this a Lenovo-specific model? Hard to find anything about it online - or is it just new? The blind mate assemblies are good news. So not much different to server-type drive caddies in the end - minus hot swap maybe.
5. Regarding the drives - are the internal (not front - the bottom ones) drive bays also referred to as FLEX bays? Theye are four of them and I intend to use four drives only ( 2x 240G SSD RAID 1 pre-installed + 2 x 4TB RAID 1 mine) - so why do I need to stick two drives into one tray - or is this just if I wanted to maximise the number of drives usable? The 4TB drives are HGST UltraStar 7k4000 - standard, full-thickness 3.5". The SSDs are Lenovo's whatever - the "240G SSD" option - Intel I think, looking at psref.
6. Shipping delays - see, this is the sort of concrete info I was looking for and I'm immensely thankful for this.
The rest is a rant/vent someone from Lenovo should read.
So - in the meantime I started giving Lenovo UK & Ireland some abuse over Twitter (sorry, but well deserved IMO) - name and shame does wonders in the age of social media.
Had I been told something along the lines of "sorry, new product, build issues, we're working on it", I would have (reluctantly) shut up and waited for my turn. I'm an engineer myself, supporting systems where minutes of downtime cost hundreds of thousands, and working with vendors a lot. Delays and issues happen, when an engineer tells me there's an issue and I don't sense B/S, I accept it.
If the product is still wet, don't open it for orders or say it's pre-order. I can see that in the US the P700 is still "coming soon", in the UK it suddenly became available so I ordered it.
However, the process here is broken: Lenovo UKI (is it the same in the US?) uses DigitalRiver as the shop/shipping/support front end. That's all well and good, outsourcing does work in some cases. BUT there's no way to view the estimated shipping dates - only customer support can retrieve them from Lenovo (why can't they just make this info available online - to avoid people over-relying on it?)
The Customer Support cannot tell me anything. The only thing they can do is pull an estimated shipping date out of some magic 8-ball. Two weeks pass since order, I ask CS, they give me Dec 18th shipping date. I call them on the 22nd, on the call with me they tell me it's now magically the 22nd. Come on...
Throughout all this time I got zero notifications about anything happening with the order, as far as the Lenovo site is concerned, it's "in process" since Nov 29. Do you know that when I order a Domino's pizza from round the corner, I get a live animated progress screen from order through assembly, baking, QA and delivery?
Yes, it costs money and yes, businesses pushing more consumer grade disposable **bleep** than anything else, don't care about customer loyalty anymore, but why don't you at least show the high-end customers some respect - why can't you implement a tracking process for custom builds, or at least keep people updated?
I specifically chose the Lenovo P-series because I have no doubt that they are the best on the market. Dell don't offer the same storage options and customisation options. HP are not up there either. Fujitsu Siemens make great machines with straightforward hinged doors and drive bays behind them, but they have a **bleep** distribution model i.e. via specialised resellers only, making it near-impossible for a regular mortal to buy - at least in the UK. So the sad thing here is that I will most likely just wait and you'll still get my money - but if the official channels keep treating me like an idiot, I am very tempted to take my $4k somewhere else.

Acquiring 24-bit sound with a third-party sound card... truncation issues.

I am having a very strange problem when using LabVIEW to acquire audio
data via the Windows API from a Creative Professional E-MU 1616m sound
card. The goal is to acquire sound in 24-bit resolution.
When capturing sound in 16-bit mode (as set in the LabVIEW software),
the E-MU 1616m behaves as expected, with a 105dB SNR and approximately
-130dB noise floor, after dithering. However, when switching to
24-bit capture mode, a very severe truncation occurs. This sends
the harmonic distortion and noise through the roof. After
investigating fairly deeply in our LabVIEW code, I am wondering what
might be the problem.
I have compiled a number of screenshots which showcase the problem in more detail.
Here is a background of the experiment:
For these tests, both the analog and digital audio was generated by an
Audio Precision System Two system, and was passed directly into the
respective line-level or digital audio inputs. Digital audio was
tested using both coax and optical cable. In the sound card
control software, the audio was sent directly from the input channel
into the WAVE IN L/R (via the Windows API, I assume). The
sampling rate for the profile was 96kHz.
The sampling rate in all LabVIEW functions was set to 96kHz. The sample rate set in the AP Digital generator was 96kHz.
ANALOG 20dBu 96kHz 16bit.jpg
In this test, everything looks fine. The audio input is at
Full-scale for the E-mu's ADCs. It is exhibiting expected 16-bit
performance (with dithering).
ANALOG 20dBu 96kHz 24bit.jpg
Now we instruct the driver to capture sound in 24 bits. Notice
that the noise floor and THD+N go up considerably. Effects of
truncation become visible on the time-domain display.
ANALOG -20dBu 96kHz 16bit.jpg
Now we drop the input level to -20dBu. The performance
starts to look a little messy but is still acceptable. Note,
however, the high peaks on the odd harmonics.
ANALOG -20dBu 96kHz 24bit.jpg
Now we try to capture at 24 bits. The effects of truncation are extreme at this low signal level.
ANALOG -60dBu 96kHz 16bit.jpg
Now we are at extremely low signal levels. Individual
quantization levels can be seen on the signal. Dither is also
present. Performance is still good.
ANALOG -60dBu 96kHz 24bit.jpg
However, when increasing the resolution to 24 (which should increase
the number of quantization levels), our signal is reduced to a square
wave. Obviously something is wrong.
DIGITAL 0dB 16bit 96kHz 16bit.jpg
Now on to the digital tests. We start with full-scale. We
used an AP outputting a properly dithered 16-bit signal over an optical
cable. The soundcard is instructed to receive in 16 bit
mode. It looks good.
DIGITAL 0dB 16bit 96kHz 24bit.jpg
Using the same input, we change to 24 bit receive mode.
DIGITAL 0dB 24bit 96kHz 16bit.jpg
Now we set up the AP to output a properly dithered 24-bit signal at
full-scale. The dips in the frequency domain show us that
something is wrong.
DIGITAL 0dB 24bit 96kHz 24bit.jpg
Receiving in 24-bit mode. Same story as before.
DIGITAL -90dB 16bit 96kHz 16bit.jpg
Now we decrease the amplitude to a low level. Well-implemented dither is shown here clearly.
DIGITAL -90dB 16bit 96kHz 24bit.jpg
However, receiving in 24-bit mode reduces the signal to a dithered square wave.
DIGITAL -90dB 24bit 96kHz 16bit.jpg
Here is the low-level signal with the AP generating a 24-bit
signal. Dither is applied, but vanishes in the e-mu 1616m.
It seems the dither level has been changed. This is the cause of
our dips from before.
DIGITAL -90dB 24bit 96kHz 24bit.jpg
And finally, we transmit and receive in 24-bits. Here are the results.
We have achieved similar results using several of your breakout boxes and soundcards.
Attached are all screenshots, as well as the main VI (AP Test.vi) and
the dependent vi's. There are a number of SVT vi's in the
project, but they can be ignored since they are not related to the
problem.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Best Regards,
Brett Gildersleeve
Attachments:
AP Test.zip ‏2381 KB

Hi Brett,
I took a look at the code you attached, but it appears that you may have left out the subvi that actually acquires the sound. When you say Windows API, I assume that you are calling a DLL at some point. How are you configuring the inputs (or what function are you using)? It could be (and this is just a guess) that when you specify 24 bits, the DLL returns the data in a very specific format. If you don't interpret the bits that are returned correctly, LabVIEW may not know what to do with them, as LabVIEW does not have a native 24-bit datatype. If there is any documentation for these function calls, our answer might there...
Just some thoughts -- thanks for posting your solution!
Charlie S.
Visit ni.com/gettingstarted for step-by-step help in setting up your system

Third party Firewire cards suggestions

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David,
does your G5 run PCI-x or PCI-e cards? If you're on PCI-x, then check out the Sonnet Tango 2.0 card. 2 FW400 and 2 USB 2.0 sockets externally and one of each (I think) internal - handy for dongles that you don't want to go for a walk...
I've got two of them in my G5 and they've been performing flawlessly with an Ensemble and a Canopus ADVC 110, both of which are twitchy if they have to share a FW bus with anything else. And with PCI-x being yesteryears technology, the Tango card is cheap as chips.

Windows device driver for third party io cards

hi
now i am working with i/o cards ,in our lab we are having our own designed i/o cards ,,so when we are inserting to the pci slots and turn on the system its asking some device driver .....?ok ,,now i want to access the i/o cards using labveiw. i want to install the device driver ,or other wise can i able to talk directly with the i/o cards ,
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Indrajit
| [email protected] | [email protected] .

Hi jith,
Do you already have a driver developed for this PCI board? You can access .dll's and call their functions from LabVIEW if you already have a .dll for this board developed. Otherwise, I would recommend using the VISA Driver Development Wizard. Hope this helps!
Regards,
Anna M.
National Instruments

Installation of third party PXI Card supplied by Chroma

The problem is that I get the initialization error while I install the PXI-52911
The installation process done during installation is as follows.
1 I have installed LAB View 6.1 in the PXI Controller without the PXI 52911card
The NI Daq version is NI DAQ � 6.9.2f4,
The NI VISA 2.6.0
IVI Engine 1.83 version.
2 After installing the Lab view software I have installed the Latest driver software downloaded from FTP site.
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In this regard pl
ease let me know what as to how this problem can be solved.
With Regards,
Suresh
Application Engineer,
Captronic Systems,
Bangalore

Hi Suresh,
Thank you for contacting National Instruments. It sounds to me like there are three possible problems.
First, it is possible that there is a configuration problem with VISA. According to Chroma's webpage, this device does use NI-VISA. If this is true, the device should be listed in Measurement and Automation Explorer (MAX) under PXI System when it is properly installed and configured. If this device is not listed in MAX, then we need to make sure VISA is configured to recognize your device. In MAX, select the Tools menu, and select NI-VISA, VISA Options. Select VISA Passports, and make sure there is a checkmark next to "nivipxi.dll - VISA library passport for PXI." Now, select VISA settings and make sure the option to "Show all PXI/PCI Devices
accessible to VISA" is enabled.
Second, it is possible that NI-VISA or the software for your PXI card is corrupt. I suggest you uninstall your PXI device, NI-VISA, and the software for your PXI device. Once your system is clean, I recommend you reinstall NI-VISA, NI-IVI, and the instrument drivers for your PXI device. Once all of the software is installed, then you can reinstall the hardware.
I hope that helps. If that does not solve your problem, I will try to help you as much as I can, but it may be necessary to contact Chroma.
Regards,
David Shatila
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

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