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Hang second row of SSDs under ones already in sleds

M

maximage

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 6, 2002
21
0
Perth, Western Australia
OK, am in the middle of building up a new Mac Pro and retiring my 2006. This new one started life as a 2009 single processor quad core that I picked up for $500 odd at auction. Have updated the firmware to 5.1 firmware. Brand new dual processor board and heat sinks set me back $700 odd, and for a couple of $K I picked up, after much hassle with the first pair being stolen in transit, a pair of 3.42GHz X5690 6 core processors. Add in the sub $500 for 48GB RAM and the $500 for a 2GB GTX680 Works in 10.8 just no boot screen yet, only boots to desktop) and for $4k odd I have a machine that trounces the current $10K offering from Apple and maxing theirs only gives you 3.06GHz and a 1GB 5870. This is all in Aussie dollars BTW.

So now I'm also transferring the SSDs and stuff over from my old 2006 Mac Pro, and an Areca 1882 RAID card. Have 4 of them mounted in the traditional bays on MaxConnect sleds that connect them to the RAID card, and am in the middle of making a full length PCI sized/shaped tray to mount another 4 onto somewhat akin to this without the PCI connector etc: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Mac-Arra...ltDomain_0&hash=item1e6f421bf9#ht_2234wt_1413 BUT I also have another 4 SSDs I want to hang off the 4 that are up in the drive trays. So fitting 12 in total for RAIDing plus in the second optical bay another SSD for BootCamp and a 2TB spinner for TimeMachine.

So I want something kinda like this: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2-5-3-5-...ultDomain_0&hash=item231ad786cc#ht_768wt_1180 but with it being a 2.5 to 3.5 adapter, just a flat plate to stack one under the other. Worst case scenario I may just cut up some plastic and make them myself but would rather something a bit nicer, however when I Google the only items I can find are either IcyDocks which I'm not convinced will quite fit properly how I'm using them, or various versions of the above 2.5" to 3.5" adapter. Other option may be to buy some of the above adapters and Dremel of the bit that makes them 3.5". Rather avoid the hassle tho if possible.

So after that long winded post, anyone ever seen anything like what I am taking about? Just some thin flat plates with mounting holes for 2x 2.5 drives stacked one on top the other.
 
Cheers, yes, I actually already have one of those in my '06 model, but the trays are slightly different in the '09, and I was going to order another one that suits the '09 until a very helpful bloke at TransIntl pointed out that it wouldn't work with their Pro Cable 1 system on the '09s that enables you to plug drives in the sled carriers into a RAID card. That's basically why I have had to go down this whole path. As a last resort I could do that, put my backup hard drive in that tray, and move the SSD currently in that bay 3 up into the optical bay and but then it becomes more convoluted cabling wise.
 
maximage said:
Cheers, yes, I actually already have one of those in my '06 model, but the trays are slightly different in the '09, and I was going to order another one that suits the '09 until a very helpful bloke at TransIntl pointed out that it wouldn't work with their Pro Cable 1 system on the '09s that enables you to plug drives in the sled carriers into a RAID card. That's basically why I have had to go down this whole path. As a last resort I could do that, put my backup hard drive in that tray, and move the SSD currently in that bay 3 up into the optical bay and but then it becomes more convoluted cabling wise.
Click to expand...

Why wouldn't that work? That's what I'm doing (I've got my sled drives plugged into my raid card and also drives in the unit above plugged into same card). I'm on a 2008 3.1 - did the 2009 do away with the ability to take the sled drives and run them into a raid card??
 
The 09-10 (And I presume the '12') have the connector headers mounted directly on the 'Logic Board'

The 06-07-08 have them on separate assemblies

I wanted to grab the card the OP posted that holds 4 in a row 2.5's on a single PCIe card,
BUT:
(Correction) It is limited to 32 Bit Kernel only.

Fail
 
Yup, as TableSyrup said. I had an '06 which is the same as the '08 whereby you can disconnect the cable that feeds the sleds and hijack the signal by feeding a raid card to it. All that changed in '09 and now to do it you need custom sleds that either sit the drives slightly further away from the board so your cables can slip in between the board and the drive, or another companies solution is to flip the drives around so the ports face out and feed onto the exposed ports that way. Neither solution works with the DX4, so to use DX4 you must be using the system SATA, no way around it, as there is no longer the cable at the front the front of the case that can be hijacked.
 
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