[l008com]

Are there any RAID 5 PCI cards for mac? IDE not SATA. I'm making a server for a client, and it appears that RAID 5 is the best bet, since its mainly to back up huge mounts of graphics files. I don't wanna do software raid 5, and I'm not even sure there is any for OS X. If anyone knows of anything, lemme know :-)

[OreoCookie]

If you want to do RAID5, an XRaid (or something along those lines) would be your best bet. If you just happen to have 4+ harddrives lying around, then I don't think there are any cheap IDE RAID cards available. (Note that some cards advertise being able to do RAID5, but they do it in software!) IDE cards that can do RAID in hardware are in the 400+ € range for pcs, so I don't think they'll be less expensive for Macs.

Edit: I found the Promise FastTrak SX4060 for around 200+ €, but this partly still utilizes the CPU for RAID functionality (it only has a chip which does the error checking for the CPU).

[power142]

I've been looking for one for the longest time and haven't found one so far. It's a shame you're not interested in SATA as Apple ships an SATA hardware RAID5 card in Xserve G5 units as an option, so it wouldn't be hard to get the part number and get one of those.

Alternatively, shy of splashing out for an Xserve RAID, your best bet is probably something akin to the LaCie Biggest F800 (4-disk, RAID5) or the Wiebetech RT5 (5-disk, RAID5) that hook up to your Mac via Firewire. Both are relatively portable, at least in comparison to an Xserve RAID.

[OreoCookie]

But both are software. I think the key-observation is that hardware RAID5 is not cheap. The Biggest F800 is already in the $1500++ range. Plus, it's FireWire, so that limits performance and `just' gives you more security. But I think this is as close as it gets for a hardware RAID. (Ditto for the WiebeTech, it's also FireWire, I think.)

What exactly do you want to do with that RAID?

(BTW, RAID5 only starts to make sense with at least 4 drives, better 5+ drives.)