You don't need to worry about Low Profile versions for the Mac Pro, so others are viable options (say the ARC-1880i all the way to the ARC-1880ix24).
ATTO Technologies is another company to look into (both offer 6Gb/s, bootable in BIOS and EFI based systems, work in multiple OS's, and have additional features not found on other cards). But ATTO's products are more expensive (good if you're new to hardware RAID controllers, as they're located in New York State so the Support Staff speak English natively), and on some models, Areca has an advantage (namely those that use a DIMM slot for the cache - none of ATTO's products do).
Areca's support staff do speak English (phone or email), but it's a 2nd language (based in Taiwan). So deciphering their response can be challenging at times.
Or is there more sata/power connectors there or can I buy/connect more?
The 2009/10 systems use a single backplane connector per ODD bay, so you'd need to use a Y splitter off of that (
example if you don't need to retain the data signal off of the ODD backplane connector).
If you do need to retain the data connection, there's a way to do that too, but it will take a bit of effort on your part (means getting a couple of off the shelf cables and splicing the power wires together <
backplane extension cable + SATA Y splitter>; no mods to the system, so your warranty will remain in tact
).
With this card I can connect both the 4x 3TB HDD RAID5 volume and 2x 6G SSD (non-raid) to it at same time.
Yes.
You can run multiple arrays or arrays + single disks via Pass Through mode. You cannot run a JBOD (concatenation) + RAID simultaneously though (must select between RAID or JBOD mode).
Also does it get messy cable wise when you don't use the apple raid card and run the SAS expanders to the drives? How did you go about flashing the card to EFI firmware ?
SAS expanders are easy cable wise (and no different between any computer for the same configuration and equipment).
All of Areca's settings, including flashing the firmware, are done via a web browser (BTW, Safari tends to fail for this, so use another browser, such as Firefox).
If you chose an ATTO product, it installs it's own interface application.
Which other 6G RAID cards can you recommend that I can connect 4x HDD in RAID5 and 2x 6G SSD's (non-raid) to, if there's a good one that takes advantage of internal drive channels it would be a plus.
The only card that can use PCB traces with the HDD bays, is the Apple RAID Pro.
All 3rd party cards require an adapter, which you've found (maxupgrades.com adapter kit you located).
Care to post the instructions or link to the thread with details on flashing the Areca card that NANOFROG gave you?
See above.
The EFI firmware (EBC actually), can be found on the disk provided with the card, or on the support site (you will have to dig a bit, but it's there). Then install it via a browser (use Firefox, as there's been too many instances where Safari has failed - including multiple versions of it).
How many RAID volumes can you configure using the one Areca controller using the internal ports? I am guessing all drives that connect using the ( MiniSAS- SATA 4x multiplier). So for two internal 6G ports on the RAID controller (8 drives in any number of RAID configs). I want to run a 4x HDD RAID5 and 2x SSD's in non raid off the one controller. Maybe even go for the 1880-ix with external RAID support for a 3rd external RAID1 volume, all of the same controller. Wondering how much RAM I will need in this case, would 512MB default be enough you think?
The # of volumes = however many you want (all of the 1880 series can actually run 128 disks via SAS expanders). You can do this via an
internal to external cable (stick to 1.0 meter with SATA disks, or it won't be stable). Or just use these cables for a 1:1 port to disk ratio if you wish in an external SAS enclosure.
Not sure if you're asking, but you're not stuck to even numbers once you exceed the minimum disk count (i.e. minimum for RAID 5 = 3 members).
512MB would be enough, as you're not using that many disks (only functional during writes, not reads). More can improve your write throughputs, but I'm not sure of your file sizes, or if you'll be adding more disks (via expanders or in a 1:1 ratio).
You could do without the RAID-card altogether and just install 4 drives in the bays in the Mac Pro and use the
ZFS filesystem to make a dynamic stripe in RAID-Z, so you will get RAID-5 like performance but with better protection and data integrity.
RAID-5 is prone to something called the "RAID-5 write hole" in case of a power outage, something RAID-Z specifically is designed to handle.
Just listing this as another option.
For software implementations of parity arrays, you're absolutely right. RAID 5 wouldn't be the way to go. But a hardware RAID controller has a hardware solution to the problem.
Funny thing, as I am running ZFS as we speak on my Mac Pro and several servers.
If you clicked the link I provided you could even download it and install it in Mac OS X
Also ZFS is returning big time for Mac OS X come June/July with a full up-to-date implementation of ZFS, called ZFS-410 by
Ten's Complement LLC.
Ironically, one of the engineers behind ZFS-410 was the technical lead behind the original HFS+ filesystem and one of the persons porting ZFS to Mac OS X until Apple ditched it. You can find a good read about it
here
Interesting.
...so it doesn't include RAID-Z2, RAID-Z3 or any of the newer functions...
Ouch.
which is why I am very interested in Ten's Complements up-to-date version. It's an external kext, so it shouldn't suffer from anything when Apple updates Mac OS X.
We'll have to keep an eye on this, and hope it delivers as expected (nice if Apple's updates won't break it).
Hmm not really keen on a software based RAID solution on a non officially supported file system for the OSX, after all I want to run some new 6G SSD's off the RAID card too in addition to a RAID5 with 4x UltraStar 6G interface drives, so I would first and foremost benefit from the faster ports on the 6G RAID controller. I might also use the external RAID support/connector on the controller for an external RAID solution. Also surely RAID-Z would take some toll on the RAM and processor too where as with the hardware controller all the processing load will be handled exclusively on the controller.
There are 6.0Gb/s
non-RAID cards out there (
ATTO H6xx series), that would solve the hardware portion (uses SFF-8087 connectors just as the RAID versions do, so the cabling is identical). These can even boot once flashed with EFI64 (ATTO uses EFI rather than EBC like Areca, so you do need to be sure to install the correct version <32 or 64 bit> if you use any of their products).
As per using system resources, it would. But how much depends on how complex, and from what you've listed, you wouldn't be presenting the system with that much (Z-RAID1 is equivalent to RAID 5).
