cMP and RAID

[Emen Mali]

So I upgraded my Mac Pro (2009) with a Radeon RX580, USB 3.1 (gen2) and the I/O Crest NVME card. I was really hoping to continue using my RAID (Mini SAS) but it would not recognize any drives attached (Slot 4). So I need some help here. I'm thinking of keeping it simple by using SoftRAID with the Mac's SATA II ports. But since slot 4 is open, I figured I get a SATA III PCIe card (x4) to run the internal drives on SATA III (the drives are WD Red Pro) Would I see any speed difference between the built in vs the PCIe card? This will be setup as a RAID 1+0.

Or should I attempt another x4 RAID card that offers RAID 1+0 and which one would that be?

Radeon RX580 is in Slot 1, the USB 3.1 fits tightly in Slot 2 and the NVME card is in Slot 3. No other way I could configure them.

 

[bsbeamer]

You really need to report your OS version. RAID & MOJAVE is a terrible combination and poorly supported (at best). There are also issues reported with the Apple RAID card in Mojave. Software RAID simply is buggy and problematic. Hardware based RAID (with hardware controller) works fine as long as it's not managed by OS as a RAID.

See this thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-5-1-extremely-slow-mojave-raid0.2165358/

SoftRAID 6 might help you out more, but it's not yet available:
https://www.softraid.com/pages/support/compatibility_notes.html

Also see this thread for configuring your RX580 with all four slots:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-for-pcie-slot-2.2134562/page-2#post-26413743

 

[Emen Mali]

Thanks for the links... forgot to mention its Mojave 10.14.3. Not looking at getting an Apple RAID card. Just looking for a RAID card that would offer 1+5 and would work in slot 4 (x4). Otherwise a PCIe x4 SATA III card that can handle 4 drives to work with SOFTRAID.

Mojave boots from the I/O Crest (NVME)

 

[jscipione]

Nice nvme boot disk, wasn't sure if that worked or not on Mac Pro in Mojave.

There is no good way to upgrade the built in ports in the 4,1/5,1 to sata-3 even with a sata-3 card in slot 4 because the backplane is still sata-2 and Apple removed the SAS connector.

I am not sure if 4 wd red pros on raid 1+0 would throttle too badly on sata-2 anyway.

Use ZFS it's all the Raid you need. Works good.

https://openzfsonosx.org

 

[startergo]

So I upgraded my Mac Pro (2009) with a Radeon RX580, USB 3.1 (gen2) and the I/O Crest NVME card. I was really hoping to continue using my RAID (Mini SAS) but it would not recognize any drives attached (Slot 4). So I need some help here. I'm thinking of keeping it simple by using SoftRAID with the Mac's SATA II ports. But since slot 4 is open, I figured I get a SATA III PCIe card (x4) to run the internal drives on SATA III (the drives are WD Red Pro) Would I see any speed difference between the built in vs the PCIe card? This will be setup as a RAID 1+0.

Or should I attempt another x4 RAID card that offers RAID 1+0 and which one would that be?

Radeon RX580 is in Slot 1, the USB 3.1 fits tightly in Slot 2 and the NVME card is in Slot 3. No other way I could configure them.

Beware of the response from soft RAID for Mojave:
"The Boot drive option is being blocked by Apple. Users will no longer be able to startup from a SoftRAID volume.
SoftRAID 6 will add APFS support, encryption, and more RAID (Like RAID 6). Apple feels that if they control what is in a boot volume, they can prevent low-level hacking. False premise, but it certainly harms server customers and anyone else who wants to protect their startup volume from being available all the time."

 

[Emen Mali]

Nice nvme boot disk, wasn't sure if that worked or not on Mac Pro in Mojave.

There is no good way to upgrade the built in ports in the 4,1/5,1 to sata-3 even with a sata-3 card in slot 4 because the backplane is still sata-2 and Apple removed the SAS connector.

I am not sure if 4 wd red pros on raid 1+0 would throttle too badly on sata-2 anyway.

Use ZFS it's all the Raid you need. Works good.

https://openzfsonosx.org

True the BackPlane remains SATA 2, but I've already have modified sleds that only connect to power. The cable running from the modified sled would connect to the SATA III. So my question is would the SATA III provide better performance WITH soft raid vs the Mac Pro SATA II and Softraid. Or should I get a dedicated RAID card that works in Slot 4.

Where can I get more info on ZFS on Mac?