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Where the hell are internal SATA ports? 2011 MacPro

S

Silva

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 27, 2008
18
0
Hi there

I have just purchased a SATA PCIe card and for the life of me cannot find where to plug in the 2 cables so the card can be read. There are a million and one videos showing where the internal Sata ports are on 2008 MacPros but none for any fairly recent MacPro's. Am I missing something here? Is it not possible anymore?

Please save my day and tell me where the hell these 2 ports are so I can finally get this thing up and running!

Thanks guys!
 
There are 4 female SATA II ports for Bays 1-4, and 2 male SATA cables that supply the ODD bay. If you can trace the ODD SATA cables back, you might find some SATA ports they're connected to, but they'll probably be fairly inaccessible.
 
On the Mac Pro 2009/2010/2012 there are two 6 SATA ports, 4 are on the upper side of the logic board, and that is where your 4 hard drives in sleds are connected. Other two are for the optical drive bay, and data cebles are already connected to those 2 ports. They are locates on the far left of the logic board behind PCIe fan.

If you bought eSATA bracket, were you have to connect two cables to SATA connectors on the board, you have two remove one ore two optical drive cables.

Mac Pro 2006/2007/2008 have old IDE optical drive cable, 4 SATA for hard rrives and two extra odd SATA ports which you are talking about. 2009/2010/2012 have just 6 SATA ports.
 
Hmmm I think there may be an issue here I'm not getting....

My card is a www.st-lab.com PCIe SATA RAID Card (2 x ext eSATA & 2 x int SATA)

It came with a CD to install driver software which I have done although pretty much all of it was for windows. It hasn't helped. The connections to the ''SATA'' near the harddrive bays don't seem to fit the red cable..... can anyone take a picture as to what I am supposed to be plugging these cables into?

Both the cables look like this:

sata.jpg


I still can't see where to connect them internally even with your wonderful detailed instructions. What am I not getting here?

Do I need an adapter?

Thanks
 
Silva said:
The connections to the ''SATA'' near the harddrive bays don't seem to fit the red cable..... can anyone take a picture as to what I am supposed to be plugging these cables into?

I still can't see where to connect them internally even with your wonderful detailed instructions. What am I not getting here?
Click to expand...

The ports on your card (and likewise on the mainboard/motherboard) are designed to plug into storage devices (e.g. hard drives and optical drives), not directly into the mainboard/motherboard of the Mac Pro. From the way you're explaining your situation, it sounds like you're attempting to plug this PCIe SATA card directly into your motherboard with these SATA connectors, which is not how these cards operate.

The card you purchased I'm assuming is a 2+2 SATA card: to say, it will provide you two internal SATA ports (for more hard drives), and two external SATA ports (also for more hard drives). You do not need to connect the internal SATA ports to the motherboard; they are simply for hard drives you wish to install inside the Mac Pro.
 
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I was hoping to connect an external GRaid drive (that has a SATA connection) to the PCIe card after slotting it in place. It has 2 ports coming out the back and 2 ports on the card itself that I assumed connected the 2 red SATA cables provided internally somehow (to ''power it'' / allow it to be used??)

The GRaid isn't being registered when I connect it (although it is registered when I connect it via FW800)

Have a I bought the wrong card for what I am after?
 
Thanks thehimay

I think you have finally hit the nail on the head. I am running OSX. The CD that came with the card does have a few MacOSX drive installers on it but they don't seem to have done anything.

The tech guy at the shop I bought it from didn't mention that it may not be compatible but I think that is probably the situation.

Thanks again guys for bearing with me in this minor-dilemma.

Any Sata PCI(e) cards that you know of and can recommend for the purposes I want one?
 
I usually look to SonnetTech for eSATA cards. If the 3G SATA II speeds are fine for your work (same speed as the card you just tried), I'd look at Sonnet's 2-port eSATA PCIe card (~$40).

If for some reason you want to step it up a notch for future-proofing with the 6G SATA III speeds, that will take a little more dough ($~120). For your current needs, I'd stick to the SATA II card I first mentioned.
 
You may have to restart the mac after you plug in and turn on you external drive. I don't think the OSX drivers support hot swap (no AHCI support), not sure about the PCIe card, it needs to support SATA AHCI to be hot swappable. Otherwise the device has to be present during boot to be recognized.

Thats how my 2008 with PCIe card works (OSX 10.6.8).
 
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Silva said:
I was hoping to connect an external GRaid drive (that has a SATA connection) to the PCIe card after slotting it in place. It has 2 ports coming out the back and 2 ports on the card itself that I assumed connected the 2 red SATA cables provided internally somehow (to ''power it'' / allow it to be used??)
Click to expand...

Er, either I read you completely wrong or you're missing something important. The external sata connections (called e-sata) on your card, will be "provided" by the PCIe slot itself. You absolutely *don't need* to feed your card with sata connections from inside the Mac in order for it to feed your external case.

The internal ports on your card (proper sata connections, not e-sata for external cases) are to provide even more sata port inside the mac if you need them.

If all you want to do is connect your external case, you plug the card in the PCIe slot (don't add any cable inside), then plug the case to the card from outside your mac. The internal sata ports will be of no use for you.

Loa
 
Gartbull said:
I just ordered the following SATA 3.0 card for $12 off of eBay:

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/170916593885?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

It has the ASM1061 chipset which I have read has support out of the box in Snow Leopard and up. It supposedly supports port multiplying as well. I am not sure about external raid though.
Click to expand...

I have two of these, they have in Intel Macs, Power Macs, and my mackintoshes. The little pin covers you dee on the card regulater whether it'll use the internal SATA ports or the eSATA. Mine came set for internal so if you boot up and it doesn't see your drive change the pins on both, if you switch just one and power up the drive it will give you a kernel panic. It shows up like this:
 

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So right now I'm booted off the the 1061..

After this thread I reinstalled my SIL 3132 eSATA card and installed the 1061 with my boot drive bing it boots just fine..I'm going to pull this SATA 2 drive out and put it in the MBP and put the SATA 3 drive in the MBP in the MP..
 
GermanyChris said:
I have two of these, they have in Intel Macs, Power Macs, and my mackintoshes. The little pin covers you dee on the card regulater whether it'll use the internal SATA ports or the eSATA. Mine came set for internal so if you boot up and it doesn't see your drive change the pins on both, if you switch just one and power up the drive it will give you a kernel panic. It shows up like this:
Click to expand...

Thanks for the jumper tip, as I do plan to use the external eSATA connections.

I also ordered this eSATA pci slot back plate and cable just in case the card didn't work.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/150799767479?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

Good to know that the 1061 card does indeed work though.
 
Maybe what he needs is just an extension cable and plate with ports for the back of the system to allow access to the internal SATA ports from outside the case?
 
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