Questions & Answers for Apple Dual-Channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express Card
Apple Dual-Channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express Card
23 Questions + 20 Answers
23 Questions from the Community
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Can someone explain in simple language what a Channel 4GB fibre channel PCI-Express card is?
Hello,
For all us "common folk", would someone be so kind as to explain what this item is used for? Is it some form of of superfast VCR but for computers?
Thanks,
Stacey Bindman
Montreal,Quebec- Asked by Stacey B from Montreal
- 27-Oct-2009
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Best AnswerIt is an expansion card that provides a fibre optic connection to an XRAID (no longer produced by Apple) or Promise VTrak E-Class RAID. These provide massive storage (up to 16 TB per device) for things like video production.
- Answered by Steve O from Bathurst
- 02-Nov-2009
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Can the Apple Dual-Channel 4Gb Fibre Channel card be used to directly connect to raid array without a fibre switch and use xsan.
- Asked by Hector M from Galt
- 16-Sep-2010
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AnswerYes it can , and raid array will appear as main storage system not attached storage .
- Answered by Mohamed A
- 09-Jul-2011
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Can an Xserve boot from SAN storage disk over Fibre Channel? (Instead of from its own local drive)
Boot Xserve from SAN storage?
- Asked by Kevin M from Ellicott City
- 05-Feb-2010
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AnswerI have booted an Intel Xserve from an EMC AX4 san array via 4gb SFP fiber optic using an 8gb EMC 300M switch. The biggest issue I have is I cannot multipath to both SPA and SPB. If I force a single path in my zoning then the storage works fine.
- Answered by Stacy P from Hope Valley
- 08-Aug-2010
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Can someone please tell me what is the benefits of using just one of the 4gb plugs instead of both? right now at my job everyone is using just one?
everyone at my job has mac pros with the fiber cards installed in them but everyone is only using one of the two fiber plugs on the card? is there a benefit to using both of the plugs? just please explain it to me if it would be worth it to have both fiber plugs in use or if one will do it? i work for television network and we transfer a lot of data back and fourth mostly graphics videos and audio?
- Asked by Eric S from Baton Rouge
- 11-May-2010
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AnswerTwo connections has twice the speed as one.
Consider each as an individual connection. So a single 4Gb requirement uses one, but when you need more bandwidth, use two.- Answered by Peter C from Milpitas
- 25-May-2010
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What's the difference between using the dual-channel or quad-channel version in a video SAN setup?
We're looking at setting up a video SAN for 3 machines. Are the Dual-Channel cards sufficient or should we go with the Quad-Channel cards? What's the difference?
- Asked by Dan R from Council Bluffs
- 13-Oct-2009
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Best AnswerA Dual-Channel 4Gb card will do for each MacPro in order to connect via the SPF connectors. Quad-Channels are mostly used on servers for redundancy and other specific cases. Going into Quad will not make the connection faster.
- Answered by Gidel M from Alexandria
- 04-Nov-2009
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Can anyone recommend brands and/or manufacturers of optical transceivers that they have used with the Apple Fiber Channel cards?
I do not see in the Apple documentation any qualified transceivers for using a fiber switch.
- Asked by Brad G from Santa Clara
- 18-May-2010
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AnswerIf you're talking about the fibre switch, Qlogic is nearly perfect and I would highly recommend that.
- Answered by Robert M from Santa Monica
- 04-Jun-2010
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Can the Apple Dual-Channel 4Gb Cards from the PowerMac G5's be used on the Mac Pros and vice versa?
The new cards seems to look like the older Powermac G5 cards. Are the old and new interchangeable from PowerMac to Mac Pro and vice versa?"
- Asked by Stacey B from Montreal
- 09-Nov-2009
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AnswerOlder PowerMac G5s had the PCI-X bus whereas the Intel Mac Pros use PCI-Express. The 2005 Power Mac G5 computers made the switch to PCI-e. The Dual-Channel 4Gb card can only be used in PCI-e (PCI-Express) slots which are found in all Intel Mac Pros and Intel Xserves. If you successfully used the fibre card in your PowerMac G5 it was one of the later G5 models so you should be fine. You can always check the manuals at "(http)://manuals.info.apple.com" for your particular G5 to identify what bus you have.
- Answered by Wallace K from New Berlin
- 11-Nov-2009
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what card is used in the ExpressCard 34 slot on the 17" Macbook Pro?
name the card for that slot
- Asked by Gary A from Kettering
- 01-Apr-2011
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which pci slot is best for fibre channel card in a mac pro 5.1?
- Asked by Ivan E from Mexico
- 05-Oct-2012
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Can I use a G5 tower as a file server and connect it simultaneously to a Mac Pro (via Fibre Channel) and to an Ethernet network?
I have several G5 towers that I'd like to repurpose. I'm wondering if I can install a Fibre Channel card in one, and a Fibre Channel card in my Intel Mac Pro, and connect the two. The idea is to have block-level access (as if the G5 and all the drives attached to it were directly connected to the Mac Pro), and have access via Ethernet for other computers on the network.
We are doing video editing with Final Cut Studio, and several computers need access to the same files. However, two (an iMac and a Mac Book) only have Ethernet or FW800 connections.
Are we barking up the wrong tree? Would 10G Ethernet or iSCSI be a better solution? I was thinking Fibre Channel because there's more history with it.
Also, I have an older Xserve G4, so I could utilize the XServe OS license from it on the G5.- Asked by Bruce H from Buford
- 04-Oct-2010
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what card is used to insert into the ExpressCard 34 slot on the 17" Macbook Pro?
a card, or a card reader, or an adapter of some kind?
- Asked by Gary A from Kettering
- 01-Apr-2011
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Does this card include SPFs or are they extra?
- Asked by David B from Ridgewood
- 29-Sep-2010
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AnswerSFPs are attached to both ends of the included fibre cables. If you want to use different fibre cables without built-in SFPs, then yes, you'll need to get additional SFPs.
- Answered by Jared O from Dundee
- 26-Jul-2011
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can i use a fibre channel pci card in a macbook pro?
- Asked by Simon M from London
- 29-Jun-2010
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Can I use Brocade SPFs on my apple HBAs or do I have to buy SPFs through apple?
I just got two shiny new HBAs so that I can connect them to the EMC SAN. Unfortunately I didn't know about the SPFs not being included and that they would be anything other than optical.
I need to get this project started no to reach my deadline.
Could I simply "recover" a few SPFs from my Brocade switch until we get the official ones form applE?- Asked by Gcc A from Glendale
- 14-May-2012
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My HP SAN refers its compatibility to with Celerity model fibre cards - what are Apples?
My HP SAN refers its compatibility to with Celerity model fibre cards - what are Apples model of their fibre cards?
HP does not refere to the Apple provided specs:
Apple Quad-Channel 4Gb Fibre Channel Card (MB843G/A)
Apple Dual-Channel 4Gb Fibre Channel Card (MB842G/A)- Asked by Terry J
- 23-Mar-2010
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AnswerApple's cards are OEM versions of the LSI Fibre Channel cards. I've used several different Apple cards over the years (both PCI-X and PCI Express) and they've all used common LSI controllers. (I think the current 2 port 4 Gbps PCI Express card is an LSI7204EP-LC. I have an older dual 2Gbps PCI-X card from Apple which is a LSI7202XP-LC)
- Answered by Timothy B from Claremont
- 01-Jun-2010
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will this card work for an older xraid
I want to upgrade the mac that I have to run final cut pro server - it is not an intel mac hence the upgrade - I need to know if I will be able to use my old XRaid as the raid 5 storage for this intel mac for FCP server with this fiber card in it, the mac I have currently running the xraid is a pci-x buss mac and the cards won't swap, and will the raid admin software run on the intel mac - it is a Mac Pro, dual core intel Xeon 3 Ghz - or is there another way to do this.
thanks in advance
tim ivy- Asked by J. I from Williamsburg
- 15-Dec-2009
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AnswerAlmost any fiber based storage will work, including your old Xserve RAID. Use RAID Admin (java app) to admin the Xserve RAID hardware. This PCI Express card should work.
- Answered by Mathieu M from Vancouver
- 06-Jan-2010
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Can this Card be configured to work as a Network Interface let's say with a FibreChannel Switch?
- Asked by Ludwig W
- 10-Dec-2009
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AnswerI just tried to do this, thinking it would work. After a lot of looking for answers, the best answer I got was no. Apparently IP over Fibre is almost never used and extremely expensive if so. Your best bet is to look into 10Gb Ethernet.
- Answered by Ryan N from Guston
- 12-Dec-2009
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Can this fibre channel be configured for multipathing?
- Asked by Brent W from Meredith
- 08-Oct-2009
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AnswerYes, as long as the software supports multi-pathing. As far as I know, the default System Preferences supports multi-pathing as I noticed our Xsan performance doubling when both fibre channel ports were being used.
- Answered by Michael K from Newcastle
- 24-Nov-2009
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