SAS RAID controller for Mac Pro 5,1

[KingKazma]

Hello all,

I'm seeking some advice on which SAS RAID controller to get for my Mac Pro 5,1. I've seen some other threads(on this site and elsewhere) that have discussed this topic, all of which contain good info, but seem a bit dated. Just posting this here in an effort to see if there is some more up to date advice I can receive.

I just picked up a Mac Pro 5,1 from ebay. It has macOS High Sierra. I also picked up 4 x 4TB SAS hard drives. Now all I need is a RAID controller to make it all work(i think).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I am under the impression that SAS drives aren't natively compatible with the Mac Pro in question. Therefore, since hardware RAIDs are more practical, I would seek advice in obtaining a SAS RAID controller that will work with this Mac Pro and the drives I have. Of course, I am interested in having an internal RAID setup, so external ports are not needed but appreciated in case a need for them arises.

If anyone is wondering why I bought SAS hard drives with this Mac Pro, here is the reason. Long story short, I was also going to buy a Dell PowerEdge, but that project got shelved for now. I had the SAS drives for that, but I don't want them to go to waste in the mean time.

I initially planned on using RAID 6, but if for whatever reason this is not possible(or practical), I decided RAID 10 would be a good backup option, as it is more widely supported.

Any tips or recommendations?

Allow me to also say that I am not completely against the idea of returning the 5,1 and picking up a 3,1 where it is my understanding that internal SAS RAIDs are natively compatible. This is an avenue only to be explored if the cost of making it work with the 5,1 exceeds budget which is around $500 USD.

Thanks for any help offered.

 

[eksu]

SAS is natively compatiable if you get the Apple RAID card. It only works in the top PCIe slot and is connected to the hard disk bays without any cabling.

You can find it for 20-30$ with a dead battery, and 70$ for a new battery.

It can only address 2.2tb on each drive, and max throughout of the card is 550mbps or so. At RAID 10 you can have 4.4TB addressable space or 6.6TB at RAID 10.

 

[KingKazma]

SAS is natively compatiable if you get the Apple RAID card. It only works in the top PCIe slot and is connected to the hard disk bays without any cabling.

You can find it for 20-30$ with a dead battery, and 70$ for a new battery.

It can only address 2.2tb on each drive, and max throughout of the card is 550mbps or so. At RAID 10 you can have 4.4TB addressable space or 6.6TB at RAID 10.

Thanks for the reply!

I meant to mention that the apple raid card is definitely out of the equation for me. Its well warranted negative press and general overall uselessness was enough to convince me not to even look in its direction. There has got to be a better solution.

 

[deconstruct60]

....
I just picked up a Mac Pro 5,1 from ebay. It has macOS High Sierra. I also picked up 4 x 4TB SAS hard drives. Now all I need is a RAID controller to make it all work(i think).
....
Allow me to also say that I am not completely against the idea of returning the 5,1 and picking up a 3,1 where it is my understanding that internal SAS RAIDs are natively compatible. This is an avenue only to be explored if the cost of making it work with the 5,1 exceeds budget which is around $500 USD.
...

What is SAS suppose to be buying you? SAS version two didn't exist until 2009. So these designed in pre-2009 Macs are quite likely SAS v1 bus.

It is similar to as pointed out above that the Apple "real" RAID card is can't even see the full 4TB capacity of the drive(s) ( again designed in pre-2009 era. )

Going to further back in time on host hardware just displaces thees relatively modern drives even more. You already have the drives, but likely increasingly likely to under leverage then the farther back in time you go.

 

[KingKazma]

What is SAS suppose to be buying you? SAS version two didn't exist until 2009. So these designed in pre-2009 Macs are quite likely SAS v1 bus.

It is similar to as pointed out above that the Apple "real" RAID card is can't even see the full 4TB capacity of the drive(s) ( again designed in pre-2009 era. )

Going to further back in time on host hardware just displaces thees relatively modern drives even more. You already have the drives, but likely increasingly likely to under leverage then the farther back in time you go.

As I stated before, I initially bought the SAS drives for a Dell PowerEdge that I ended up not getting for the moment. If SAS can't be practically used in this application then I can reconsider. My main need is for a RAID controller as to avoid software RAID.

 

[w1z]

Thanks for the reply!

I meant to mention that the apple raid card is definitely out of the equation for me. Its well warranted negative press and general overall uselessness was enough to convince me not to even look in its direction. There has got to be a better solution.

Have a look at the raid/backplane SAS attachment options available at maxupgrades. You can also go for a used 1882 or 1883 Areca card from eBay and buy the SAS backplane separately.

 

[XNorth]

I use a HighPoint SAS RAID enclosure and card. I'm replacing them with a 10Gbe card and QNAP NAS for better performance.

 

[KingKazma]

Have a look at the raid/backplane SAS attachment options available at maxupgrades. You can also go for a used 1882 or 1883 Areca card from eBay and buy the SAS backplane separately.

I have seen the items offered at MaxUpgrades, but I'll admit, I'm not really sure how they work or the difference between products. A little insight would be appreciated. To further clarify my main need for any of this is to use the 4 SAS drives that I have to run internal RAID 6 or RAID 10.

I use a HighPoint SAS RAID enclosure and card. I'm replacing them with a 10Gbe card and QNAP NAS for better performance.

Correct me if I'm wrong but, that sounds like a purely external solution, I'm trying to avoid that to conserve space.

 

[edgerider]

I have seen the items offered at MaxUpgrades, but I'll admit, I'm not really sure how they work or the difference between products. A little insight would be appreciated. To further clarify my main need for any of this is to use the 4 SAS drives that I have to run internal RAID 6 or RAID 10.



Correct me if I'm wrong but, that sounds like a purely external solution, I'm trying to avoid that to conserve space.

find an areca 1880ix I run those, they are rock solid.
no need to areca 1882/3 unless you plan
12g ssd...
they are bootable, you can upgrade the ram and the only thing is you have to hack the slots to get power and turn the drive around.

you get power from the original slot but conect the drive via a sas to sata cable on the raid card.

the best setup I found is to buy a netstor 12 or 16 bay pcie expender, slap the card inside, and have an external expender. you will have a free slot to put a 10gbe ethernet card and a powerfull drive bay that can do 2000 mb/s

 

[w1z]

The areca 1882 is 6Gb/s not 12 and any of the 3 proposed Areca models would meet your raid requirements. As for the SAS disks, your only internal option is with maxupgrades - reach out to them with your queries.

 

[KingKazma]

you have to hack the slots to get power and turn the drive around.

Ah yes, I was wondering about that. So turning the drive around in its bay is the only way? I'll probably have to grab some HDD power extension cables. It wont be pretty but hey I have another computer to be my eye candy lol

your only internal option is with maxupgrades - reach out to them with your queries.

Good idea I'll look them up and give them a call/email.

 

[edgerider]

The areca 1882 is 6Gb/s not 12 and any of the 3 proposed Areca models would meet your raid requirements. As for the SAS disks, your only internal option is with maxupgrades - reach out to them with your queries.

internal you just need to flip the drive and cut a sata+ power cable to get sata power from mobo conectors.
otherwise it is pretty straight foward.
I had the 1680/1880/1882, and the 1880 is the one I had the best result with : it is 6g and will play well with any drive , when 1882 is more picky about what drive you throw at it.
performance wise on sata 6g drive 1880 and 1882 are exactly the same.
internally I had a 1880 with 8xsandisk x400 ssd in raid 0 and it was rocksolid 2gb read/write all day long.
now curently using a 1880ix24 in a supermicro sc846 with a cyclone pcie expander with 24x4Tb hsgt and with ds4346 netapp shelf cascaded...
very fast, very reliable, true servergrade hardware.

 

[KingKazma]

Good info! Thanks gents!

 

[zedex]

Good info! Thanks gents!

I'd use a Highpoint RR2720 and keep it all internal. I'll take some pictures of mine if you like..

 

[Kaiman]

I'd use a Highpoint RR2720 and keep it all internal. I'll take some pictures of mine if you like..

I accidently bought 5 HGST 3TB SAS drives, thinking they were SATA. As I learn more about RAID, different drives (SAS vs SATA) and 6G vs native 3G on the MP5,1, I'm now thinking of getting better performance with the SAS drives connected to a RAID card. Looks like either the Areca 1880 or 1882 is a good way to go. Seems like the Highpoint RR2720 is also a consideration. I'm running Sierra 10.12.6 on a Mac Pro 5,1. After doing a lot of reading, I'm starting to see how all this fits together. Apparently there's a SAS Backplane that fits into the motherboard that the new drives plug into and must have some sort of cabling to the RAID card? Looks like custom sleds must be used, rather than the stock to make space for the Backplane? ? Maybe the stock sleds could be modified to move the drives back to make room for the Backplane? Or is it just easier and less expensive to turn the drives around on the stock sleds and connect 4 power extensions from the apple motherboard SAS/SATA slots to the SAS power connector on the drives, than additional serial SAS cables to the RAID card for each individual drive. Do I have this right? Anyone have any photos or other ideas? I'd like to create a 6G 12TB RAID with 4 of the 3TB 6G 7200rpm SAS drives in RAID 0. I have no plans for an external case or connecting more drives, other than possibly configuring one or two 1TB SSD's in the optical bay area for boot. I already have a 1TB for boot along with a 6TB 7,200 HD for files in the optical bay. I thought I saw somewhere where you could put two SSD's on one serial port, for either the Mac native bus or the RAID card for the 6G speeds. Nice to have a 2TB RAID SSD along with the SAS 12TB RAID.

Any cmments or help would be greatly appreciated. I want to keep everything internal in my MP5,1.

Thank you,

Marshall

 

[reukiodo]

It can only address 2.2tb on each drive

This is indeed true for SATA drives in the bays while the RAID card is present in PCIe 4, but is the same true for >2.2TB SAS drives? I've read that the Xserve has no issue with 6TB SAS drives but still has the 2.2TB SATA drive limit. As these are similar enough, I'd think >2.2TB SAS drives should work in the MP5 when the RAID card is present.

I've ordered some 3TB SAS drives to find out soon enough on my own, just wondered if anyone else had tested.

 

[sn1p3r845]

find an areca 1880ix I run those, they are rock solid.

This is what I think I ran in my 5,1 when I had my 8 bay mini-SAS setup. It was solid, I ended up selling my 5,1 with the raid card + enclosure to a very, very excited gentlemen.