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extra SATA ports on 2010 Mac Pros?

S

sboerup

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 8, 2009
417
2
I own a 2.8x8 2008 MP. Love it, just ordered the 3.33 6core and already have a buyer for my 2.8x8.

One of the features I loved about the 2.8x8 is that it had 2 extra sata ports, allowing me to install my SSD in the 2nd optical drive bay and still use the 4 standard HD slots.

I know the 2009 MPs didn't have these extra SATA ports . . . I'm guessing since the 2010 isn't much of an upgrade except the processors, that the 2010 also does not have any additional SATA ports. I would love to be wrong, but just thought I'd ask.
 
Pretty sure the reason why the 2009's didn't have "spare" SATA connectors was because the optical drive bays actually came wired for SATA already.
 
2009's and 2010's should have one spare SATA port for the 2nd optical bay. 2008 had two spare SATA ports since the SuperDrive was IDE/ATA. Now that the SuperDrives are SATA, one of the two spare SATA ports is being used by the SuperDrive
 
Great to know, forgot that the optical drives were SATA, so if I only have one superdrive then I have one additional SATA port right?

Was hoping to keep the SSD in the optical drive if there was a port.
 
Hi all,

I am really stuck and trying to get some
Help with upgrading my Mac Pro 4.1. I want to install an SSD using the spare Sata cable which is directly under the optical drive however I have been told that doing this would disable the Optical drive as they are on the same bus. I want to install the OS and applications on the SSD and use the remaining 4 bays for storage. 4 x 2TB sata Western Digital Black drives.
 
Tazdaman said:
Hi all,

I am really stuck and trying to get some
Help with upgrading my Mac Pro 4.1. I want to install an SSD using the spare Sata cable which is directly under the optical drive however I have been told that doing this would disable the Optical drive as they are on the same bus. I want to install the OS and applications on the SSD and use the remaining 4 bays for storage. 4 x 2TB sata Western Digital Black drives.
Click to expand...

Who told you that? They are talking utter ****.

I have the current setup in my 2009 Mac Pro:

Top ODD: Blu-ray drive
Bottom ODD: 300GB Intel 320 SSD
Bay 1: 300GB Velociraptor (Windows)
Bay 2 & 3: WD 1TB Black (Data)
Bay 4: WD 1TB Green (Timemachine)
 
Tazdaman said:
Hi all,

I am really stuck and trying to get some
Help with upgrading my Mac Pro 4.1. I want to install an SSD using the spare Sata cable which is directly under the optical drive however I have been told that doing this would disable the Optical drive as they are on the same bus. I want to install the OS and applications on the SSD and use the remaining 4 bays for storage. 4 x 2TB sata Western Digital Black drives.
Click to expand...

The ODD won't be disabled. Those two ports are separate SATA ports. With SATA ports there is no such thing as "on the same bus".
Long story short: You're good to go.
 
flatfoot said:
The ODD won't be disabled. Those two ports are separate SATA ports. With SATA ports there is no such thing as "on the same bus".
Long story short: You're good to go.
Click to expand...

Oh wow that's great news!!!! Can you suggest the best way to raid the drives? I wanted to buy 4 x 2 tb western digital blacks but not sure if tha is over kill so I purchased 2 and now have two bays free. I know I have to make a compromise with speed so my data will be secure. Should I stripe the 2 blacks and use the extra two bays for wd greens as backup?

Also if disconnected the unused sata cable and I purchased this http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=12669 and placed 2ssds into the holder then ran single sata cable from the holder to the board would the mac see both SSDs? Or does each SSD need it's own SATA port?
 
Last edited:
Tazdaman said:
Oh wow that's great news!!!! Can you suggest the best way to raid the drives? I wanted to buy 4 x 2 tb western digital blacks but not sure if that is over kill so I purchased 2 and now have two bays free. I know I have to make a compromise with speed so my data will be secure. Should I stripe the 2 blacks and use the extra two bays for wd greens as backup?
Click to expand...

That would be the easiest and most convenient way to go.

I, however, like having my backup solutions external so I built something like this a few years ago.
This way it's less likely for the backup drives to die along with the rest of the machine, in case there is a power surge or something. Disconnecting the external box after every backup (from the wall socket and the Mac Pro) would make it fairly impossible, but I don't do that.

Another advantage of housing the backup drives externally is that you save some power, that is, if you don't need hourly Time Machine Backups.

You could also buy yourself some additional safety by using a single FireWire/eSata drive to create backups of your most important files once a day/week/whatever in addition to the internal complete backup.

EDIT -- To answer the 4x Black overkill question:
Striping four of those bad boys is quite expensive and raises the chance of data loss quite a bit. If just one of the four drives dies, all data is lost.
If 4TB (and 220+MB/s throughput) is enough for your data drive, you should take the 2x black plus 2x green route.
 
Last edited:
Hi, thanks for your help it's been amazing! Jut went to he mac store they suggested I use 3 x 2tb blacks and 1 green. He said stripe the 3 blacks and use the green as backup. I was a little confused I said how will 1 2tb drive keep all that data as back up and he said it holds enough to rebuild the 3 stripped drives if one of them fails. Is that the case?
 
Tazdaman said:
Hi, thanks for your help it's been amazing! Jut went to he mac store they suggested I use 3 x 2tb blacks and 1 green. He said stripe the 3 blacks and use the green as backup. I was a little confused I said how will 1 2tb drive keep all that data as back up and he said it holds enough to rebuild the 3 stripped drives if one of them fails. Is that the case?
Click to expand...

No, that's wrong.

In that scenario your 3 striped (one 'p') drives can hold up to 6TB of data. As soon as you exceed 2TB, a 2TB backup volume logically won't suffice anymore.

Maybe he thought you were talking about 1TB blacks, which would result in 3TB striped. Then a 3TB green would be sufficient.

If you think that 4TB is enough for your in the foreseeable future, go with 2 blacks + 2 greens internally.
If you don't think so – and have some money to burn – go with 3 or 4 blacks internally and backup via FireWire/eSata.
 
Hi, think I'll go with the 2 black 2 green. What would the raid config be I know the first two blacks will be raid 0 but not sure how to set the two green drives up to automatically backup the blacks incase of drive failure
 
Tazdaman said:
Hi, think I'll go with the 2 black 2 green. What would the raid config be I know the first two blacks will be raid 0 but not sure how to set the two green drives up to automatically backup the blacks incase of drive failure
Click to expand...

For the greens you should use concatenation (the third option in Disk Utility alongside mirroring and striping). This means they'll be treated as one big volume, but instead of striping them for performance they'll be just strung together.
The advantage of this is that if your black RAID0 and one of the greens should fail at the same time, the data on the remaining green drive would still be intact and usable. So you wouldn't lose all your data.

EDIT: ...and then use Time Machine (easiest way) or set up Carbon Copy Cloner (Freeware) or SuperDuper! to make a backup regularly. All three are/can be set up as incremental backups (i. e. only the stuff that has changed since last time is changed in the backup).
 
Last edited:
Hi, think I'll go with the 2 black 2 green. What would the raid config be I know the first two blacks will be raid 0 but not sure how to set the two green drives up to automatically backup the blacks incase of drive failure
 
flatfoot said:
For the greens you should use concatenation (the third option in Disk Utility alongside mirroring and striping). This means they'll be treated as one big volume, but instead of striping them for performance they'll be just strung together.
The advantage of this is that if your black RAID0 and one of the greens should fail at the same time, the data on the remaining green drive would still be intact and usable. So you wouldn't lose all your data.
Click to expand...

Great! Going to order the 2 greens tonight and away I go!! Thank u. does the SSD need a housing of some sort or can I just place it under the optical drive?
 
Tazdaman said:
Great! Going to order the 2 greens tonight and away I go!! Thank u. does the SSD need a housing of some sort or can I just place it under the optical drive?
Click to expand...

Since the SSD has no moving parts, you can just lay it under the optical drive. But you can use some adhesive tape to place it there securely and tidily.
 
Totally unnecessary.
Click to expand...

In terms of functionality? Agreed. But in terms of workmanship (which does matter to some people, regardless of actual benefits), mounting a drive with adhesive tape is like fixing something with duct tape.

To each his own, I guess...
 
flatfoot said:
For the greens you should use concatenation (the third option in Disk Utility alongside mirroring and striping). This means they'll be treated as one big volume, but instead of striping them for performance they'll be just strung together.
The advantage of this is that if your black RAID0 and one of the greens should fail at the same time, the data on the remaining green drive would still be intact and usable. So you wouldn't lose all your data.

EDIT: ...and then use Time Machine (easiest way) or set up Carbon Copy Cloner (Freeware) or SuperDuper! to make a backup regularly. All three are/can be set up as incremental backups (i. e. only the stuff that has changed since last time is changed in the backup).
Click to expand...

Hi,

I am having a little trouble setting up the 2 greens as backup, you suggested I use concatenation alongside mirroring and stripping but I am not sure how to do this.

I have gone into Disk Utility and can see my 5 drives

1) SDD (fine and working well)
2) My 2 x Black Drives which are now Stripped as 1 drive.
3) I am now left with the 2 x 2TB Green drives.

Do I select them both and drag them into the raid box, then make the Raid Type Concatenated?
 
Tazdaman said:
Hi,

I am having a little trouble setting up the 2 greens as backup, you suggested I use concatenation alongside mirroring and stripping but I am not sure how to do this.

I have gone into Disk Utility and can see my 5 drives

1) SDD (fine and working well)
2) My 2 x Black Drives which are now Stripped as 1 drive.
3) I am now left with the 2 x 2TB Green drives.

Do I select them both and drag them into the raid box, then make the Raid Type Concatenated?
Click to expand...

My suggestion was striping the blacks and concatenating the greens, resulting in two separate RAID sets; no mirroring involved. If you mirrored those two sets, the greens would slow the whole set down to their speed.

To concatenate the greens, select one of them in Disk Utility, click the "RAID" tab, select "concatenated" (3rd option), and hit the "+" in the lower left corner.
Now drag the green drives onto the newly created RAID symbol and hit the "Create" button at the bottom.

Then go into System Preferences-->Time Machine and select the newly created set as your backup volume.
 
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