Mac Pro RAID Card
The Mac Pro RAID Card delivers enhanced storage performance and data protection through a powerful hardware RAID engine, 512MB of cache, and an integrated 72-hour battery for protecting cache data. The card occupies the top PCI Express slot (slot 4) of your Mac Pro (early 2009) and requires Mac OS X v10.5.6 or later.
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Overview
The Mac Pro RAID Card offers improved storage performance and data protection to your Mac Pro system — up to 553MB/s of sequential read performance in RAID 0. Ideal for video and creative professionals with demanding storage needs as well as for tower server applications, this hardware RAID option supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 0+1, and Enhanced JBOD. It has 512MB of cache and an integrated 72-hour battery for protecting the RAID cache. The card occupies the top PCI Express slot (slot 4) and connects to the four internal drive bays.
With the Mac Pro RAID Card installed, high-performance 15,000-rpm SAS drives may be used. SAS drives are sold separately and available with the Promise 450GB SAS Drive for Mac Pro.
To enable your Mac Pro for hardware RAID, install the Mac Pro RAID Card and two or more hard drives in bays 1 through 4. Each RAID level has minimum requirements for the number of hard drives:
| RAID Level | Drive Requirements | Benefit |
|---|---|---|
| Enhanced JBOD | One to four drives | A non-RAID configuration with the ability to migrate to a RAID set at any time |
| RAID 0 (striping) | Two to four hard drives | Maximum performance and capacity for the most demanding I/O requirements |
| RAID 1 (mirroring) | Two hard drives | Maximum protection for critical data |
| RAID 5 | Three or four hard drives | Data protection, high performance,, and efficient capacity utilization |
| RAID 0+1 | Four hard drives | A mirror of striped drive pairs providing performance and data protection |
The Mac Pro RAID Card supports the creation of multiple RAID sets in a system and multiple volumes per RAID set. For optimal disk utilization in a RAID set, all hard drives should be the same size. Using Apple's RAID Utility software (included with Mac OS X v10.5), you can migrate the drives into a RAID set without reinstalling Mac OS X or reformatting the drives, and you can customize your RAID volumes to meet your exact requirements.
Requires Mac Pro (early 2009) and Mac OS X v10.5.6 or later.
Please note: The Mac Pro RAID Card occupies the top PCI Express expansion slot (slot 4) and you must have either all SATA or all SAS drives installed.
Most Useful Reviews
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Mac Pro RAID Card
Fast? Reliable?
Written by CE from Houston
Aug 21, 2009
Be prepared to spend a lot of time waiting with no real idea of what's happening if you purchase this finicky card. In the the few weeks since I purchased this card to install in my new 8-core Mac Pro, I've had my machine crash, killing the raid volume. Since getting my computer back from the Apple store (supposedly the card didn't like the drives I'd bought--I bought new ones), I've made several attempts to restore my data from the backup of the pre-crash drive. This wouldn't be so bad if any of the configuration tasks were fast; however, everything having to do with configuring this card takes forever. It takes eight hours to initialize a four 1TB RAID 5 array. Restoring data takes even longer, and I've had that process fail three times. The Apple RAID Utility only provides minimal feedback during these extremely lengthy operations, so you have no idea if anything is happening or if the application is hung. As I write this, I'm trying to delete the existing RAID volume, which is in an uncertain state. This task has been running for an hour so far, and it will probably take six hours to complete. If you are starting from scratch or have just a small amount of data to migrate, this card will probably work fine. (Performance was pretty sweet when it was working.) Otherwise, beware. …More
29 of 33 people found this useful
Was this useful?
-
Mac Pro RAID Card
Do not buy this product.
Written by TF from Charlotte
Oct 15, 2009
To start, I've worked with RAID adapters for 10+ years, so I've been around the block with them for quite some time.
This card in a day-to-day situation will work fine. However, should you suffer a disk failure, it will corrupt your data when it starts to rebuild the array. I've had this happen twice now and the card is coming out of my machine.
This card is very slow at building an array. +24 hours for a 4 disk array with a usable capacity of 3.57TB. This is very frustrating if you're in a hurry to get the machine up. Most other controllers I've worked with (well, all, actually) are ready for you to start using the volume almost immediately. Not this baby.
Another issue is that there seems to be a disconnect in apple support with regards to an "enterprise" product being in a consumer product. Beware.
Stay away from this if you value your data and sanity. …More21 of 25 people found this useful
Was this useful?
-
Mac Pro RAID Card
Great Card
Written by RT from TRABUCO CANYON
Jun 9, 2009
Great Card, works great with the 15k SAS drives but only order 3 because of bandwith problems.
22 of 30 people found this useful
Was this useful?
Most Recent Reviews
-
Mac Pro RAID Card
Do not buy this product.
Written by TF from Charlotte
Oct 15, 2009
To start, I've worked with RAID adapters for 10+ years, so I've been around the block with them for quite some time.
This card in a day-to-day situation will work fine. However, should you suffer a disk failure, it will corrupt your data when it starts to rebuild the array. I've had this happen twice now and the card is coming out of my machine.
This card is very slow at building an array. +24 hours for a 4 disk array with a usable capacity of 3.57TB. This is very frustrating if you're in a hurry to get the machine up. Most other controllers I've worked with (well, all, actually) are ready for you to start using the volume almost immediately. Not this baby.
Another issue is that there seems to be a disconnect in apple support with regards to an "enterprise" product being in a consumer product. Beware.
Stay away from this if you value your data and sanity. …More21 of 25 people found this useful
Was this useful?
-
Mac Pro RAID Card
Fast? Reliable?
Written by CE from Houston
Aug 21, 2009
Be prepared to spend a lot of time waiting with no real idea of what's happening if you purchase this finicky card. In the the few weeks since I purchased this card to install in my new 8-core Mac Pro, I've had my machine crash, killing the raid volume. Since getting my computer back from the Apple store (supposedly the card didn't like the drives I'd bought--I bought new ones), I've made several attempts to restore my data from the backup of the pre-crash drive. This wouldn't be so bad if any of the configuration tasks were fast; however, everything having to do with configuring this card takes forever. It takes eight hours to initialize a four 1TB RAID 5 array. Restoring data takes even longer, and I've had that process fail three times. The Apple RAID Utility only provides minimal feedback during these extremely lengthy operations, so you have no idea if anything is happening or if the application is hung. As I write this, I'm trying to delete the existing RAID volume, which is in an uncertain state. This task has been running for an hour so far, and it will probably take six hours to complete. If you are starting from scratch or have just a small amount of data to migrate, this card will probably work fine. (Performance was pretty sweet when it was working.) Otherwise, beware. …More
29 of 33 people found this useful
Was this useful?
-
Mac Pro RAID Card
Great Card
Written by RT from TRABUCO CANYON
Jun 9, 2009
Great Card, works great with the 15k SAS drives but only order 3 because of bandwith problems.
22 of 30 people found this useful
Was this useful?
Questions & Answers
Most Interesting
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Can I use this RAID Card for my mid-2008 MAC Pro?
- Asked by BW from Cibolo
- Oct 17, 2009
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Can I use this card in addition to the on board controller? ie;the system drive using the on board controller & other 3 drives using the raid card ?
- Asked by DS from Thousand Oaks
- Oct 29, 2009
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How high is power consumption of this card?
- Asked by MÅ from TelÄ
- Dec 10, 2009
Most Recent
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Can I use this card in addition to the on board controller? ie;the system drive using the on board controller & other 3 drives using the raid card ?
- Asked by DS from Thousand Oaks
- Oct 29, 2009
-
Can I use this RAID Card for my mid-2008 MAC Pro?
- Asked by BW from Cibolo
- Oct 17, 2009
