Will new e-Sata PCIe card read my external mirrored raids?

[OSXconvert]

I just upgraded my hack MacPro to Big Sur 11.6.1 from Mojave and discovered that my old Seritek 2ME4 4-port e-SATA card is not recognized in Big Sur. This card has been hooked up to a Seritek 2eEN4, 4-bay external enclosure with four data drives set up with OSX Mojave's Disk Utility to be RAID 1 mirrored pairs and has worked great for years. So after learning from Firmtek about the incompatibility of my Seritek PCI-e card in Big Sur, I bought an Ableconn PEX-SA134 e-SATA card which supposedly is compatible with Big Sur. But before I install it, I want to know if there's a chance that I will lose my data if I switch cards and hook up the external enclosure. I believe that since the RAID pairs were created in Disk Utility and are not hardware created, the ability to read the RAIDs shouldn't be dependent on the card or the version of OSX.

I'm certainly willing to boot off my Mojave drive to copy all the data off the RAIDs to separate back up drives first (so I can rebuild the RAID if there's a problem) but since it's over 4TB of data, it will take a very long time and I''d like to avoid wasting this time if possible.

Any advice?

 

[joevt]

I believe that since the RAID pairs were created in Disk Utility and are not hardware created, the ability to read the RAIDs shouldn't be dependent on the card or the version of OSX.

Since it was a software raid created by Disk Utility, it should still work. The macOS will be able to mount the disk if all parts are connected no matter where each part is connected. In other words, you can connect the parts via SATA, NVMe, USB, or FireWire using Thunderbolt or built-in or PCIe. The way it works is each part of the RAID has a list of IDs for the other parts so macOS knows when all the parts are connected.

 

[OSXconvert]

Since it was a software raid created by Disk Utility, it should still work. The macOS will be able to mount the disk if all parts are connected no matter where each part is connected. In other words, you can connect the parts via SATA, NVMe, USB, or FireWire using Thunderbolt or built-in or PCIe. The way it works is each part of the RAID has a list of IDs for the other parts so macOS knows when all the parts are connected.

Thanks for your comment. That was my reasoning as well. In the end, I played it safe, just in case there was an issue with the card, and left the 4tb copying to separate external drives overnight--took about 12 hours. But this morning when I swapped cards and hooked up the eSATA cables, everything worked as hoped. No issues whatsoever.

 

[MidijonQ]

Does the Ableconn PEX-SA134 e-SATA card work as a PM in Big Sur? Are you still using the Firmtek 5PM enclosure? If so I will get one for my OpenCore 5,1.

 

[MidijonQ]

Does the Ableconn PEX-SA134 e-SATA card work as a PM in Big Sur? Are you still using the Firmtek 5PM enclosure? If so I will get one for my OpenCore 5,1.

Update: My PM Firmtek card and PM drive enclosures stopped working more than a year ago when I updated my Mac Pro 2010 to Mojave. It would see only one drive at a time. So I purchased this card with some trepidation. Popped it in and it works fine without any additional drivers or kexts. (Perhaps needed updates were made in OpenCore). I have two Firmtek 5M drive enclosures and a Firmtek Trayless Dual Bay, Hot Swap, for 2.5 inch SSDs. With this card I can have them all online if needed. Generally I just use these spinning drives for backup: 10 drives with large TB count gives lots of space. Plus the Ableconn is quite happy with hot swap so the storage is endless. As with any older eSATA the spinning drives are fairly slow and I have not tested them and don't need them in a Raid environment. For speed in editing Davinci Resolve I have the Sonnet M.2 4x4 with 4TB NVMe. But two observations: once the Ableconn was installed I could no longer wake from sleep with a key stroke. But a short, quick push on the Mac Pro start/stop button wakes the machine up just where I left it. I think this may be related to the fact that I am triggering the Seasonic Power supply for the Radeon VII with a WinnerEco Dual PSU Power Synchronous Starter which is very sensitive to current fluxuations. (But it has no problem going to sleep or staying asleep.) Second observation: on a somewhat random basis I now get the Disk not Ejected properly message, when in fact the disk was properly removed. Neither the wake-up problem or disk ejection message have had any deleterious effects on the computer or the disks that I can see. And I have not run in to any of the other issues reported with this card such as only one PM link at a time, loss of data on connected drives, etc. Here's my basic machine: DR Studio 17.2.2 | 2010 Mac Pro 5,1 | 11.6.2 OpenCore | 2x3.46 GHz 6-Core Intel | 64 GB RAM | Radeon VII 16 GB | NVMe Sonnet Controller M.2 4x4 PCIe 3.0x16 | 750W Seasonic Aux PSU for Radeon | WinnerEco Dual PSU Power Synchronous Starter.