[ninahagen]

Hi Everyone,

With all the stuff in my office, I am leaning toward a one box solution for my next Mac tower (the next gen Mac Pro).

I'll be using the 4 HD slots to house a pair of 150GB Raptors in RAID 0 (scratch) & a pair of Seagate 1TB drives mirrored in RAID 5 (file storage). The plan so far is to use the second optical bay for another Raptor as a system drive.

The rub is I would like to use that 2nd optical bay for another super drive. Is there another place in the case the system drive could be mounted? Or could I run the system off a PCIe card?

Thanks.

[Big Mac]

I don't see why you couldn't boot off a PCIe card, as long as it was Mac compatible.

[ninahagen]

Thanks Big Mac...

Does anyone know:

What is the best PCIe card on planet earth?

Would It be any slower than booting off a hard drive?

Are there any other places inside the case where one could fit another pair of HDs?

Thanks!

[mduell]

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

a pair of Seagate 1TB drives mirrored in RAID 5 (file storage).

With only two disks, you're better off with RAID1 than RAID5 (if your controller will even let you do RAID5 with two disks).

[reader50]

Yes, the minimum number of HDs for a RAID5 is three drives.

[ninahagen]

Thanks mduell & reader50!

So RAID one is also straight mirroring?

Also, you two techmeisters must know about:

- whether booting off a PCIe card has any drawbacks...
- if there are any other places in the case that can hold another hard drive.

best... nina

[bowwowman]

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

- whether booting off a PCIe card has any drawbacks...
best... nina

notta AFAIK

As for cards, I'm currently using a SIIG SATA II card that I got from OWC in Nov 06 for $57......bootable & plug & play notta problemo in my QS with 3 Raptors + 1 Maxtor drive also. Not sure if they make a pci-e version though....

prior to that I used a Firmtek Seritek SATA card in my Sawtooth & B&W's notta problemo too !

[mduell]

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

Thanks mduell & reader50!

So RAID one is also straight mirroring?

Also, you two techmeisters must know about:

- whether booting off a PCIe card has any drawbacks...
- if there are any other places in the case that can hold another hard drive.

best... nina

RAID1 is the only RAID level for straight mirroring; every disk in the array will contain the same information.

Booting off a PCIe card may cause some weirdness when applying firmware updates, but other than that it should be fine.

You could fit a couple drives in the PCIe slot bay on the PowerMacs if all your PCIe cards were short. Or you could put them in eSATA enclosures with a cheap SATA<->eSATA bracket.

[ninahagen]

Originally Posted by mduell 

RAID1 is the only RAID level for straight mirroring; every disk in the array will contain the same information.

All clear on that, thanks. Will a single Apple RAID card manage both a RAID 0 array (scratch) & a RAID 1 array.

Originally Posted by mduell 

Booting off a PCIe card may cause some weirdness when applying firmware updates, but other than that it should be fine.

But no slower right?

Originally Posted by mduell 

You could fit a couple drives in the PCIe slot bay on the PowerMacs

Did you mean Mac Pro above or were you refering to my present G5 Quad?

Originally Posted by mduell 

if all your PCIe cards were short. Or you could put them in eSATA enclosures with a cheap SATA<->eSATA bracket.

Well, so with all these options, how would you configure the HDs if you wanted your MP...

- all in one box (no external enclosures)
- with two Seagate 1TB in RAID 0
- with the fastest possible system drive
- with both optical bays occupied with superdrives (one for Seacam & one for NTSC DVDs)
- with as many Raptors as possible for the RAID 0

?????? Thanks very much!

[bballe336]

Why don't you put that 3rd raptor in the second optical drive bay slot and then just run an external DVD burner? That will be cheaper than buying adapters and enclosures for external drives.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

All clear on that, thanks. Will a single Apple RAID card manage both a RAID 0 array (scratch) & a RAID 1 array.

But no slower right?

Did you mean Mac Pro above or were you refering to my present G5 Quad?

Well, so with all these options, how would you configure the HDs if you wanted your MP...

- all in one box (no external enclosures)
- with two Seagate 1TB in RAID 0
- with the fastest possible system drive
- with both optical bays occupied with superdrives (one for Seacam & one for NTSC DVDs)
- with as many Raptors as possible for the RAID 0

Yes you can have more than one array.

Just to confirm we're on the same page: you're planning to use Apple's RAID card with the 6 onboard SATA ports, not a third party PCIe card with SATA ports.

I know the drive brackets exist for the PowerMacs. I assume they also exist for the Mac Pros, although I haven't found any yet.

Do you really need two optical drives? I think the difference between NTSC and SECAM is just in the software, not in the drive, although there could be some annoying firmware limitation.

You've got 4 drive bays for the two 1TB drives and two Raptors. Stuff up to two more Raptors in whatever drive bracket you can find (which you can connect to the spare SATA ports on the logic board).

My only concern is what you're going to back up your 2TB RAID0 (or 1TB RAID1 assuming you made a typo) array on to.

Originally Posted by bballe336 

Why don't you put that 3rd raptor in the second optical drive bay slot and then just run an external DVD burner? That will be cheaper than buying adapters and enclosures for external drives.

An eSATA enclosure for a hard drive is cheaper than a USB2/FW400 enclosure for an optical drive.

[ninahagen]

Gosh, I am really grateful for the education.

Originally Posted by mduell 

Yes you can have more than one array.

That's great. It would sting a little to spend $1000 on the card and only get support for one array. BTW, where does this card go?

Originally Posted by mduell 

Just to confirm we're on the same page: you're planning to use Apple's RAID card with the 6 onboard SATA ports, not a third party PCIe card with SATA ports.

Yes, on the first part. I wanted to take advantage of the extra pair of unused sata ports, allowing a 4 disc RAID1 for the scratch drive. (which also leads me to wonder if I shouldn't use the small raptors... a 4 x 150GB scratch drive maybe overkill in terms of capacity... and the small drives are the roughly same speed, right?). On the second part, the only thing I wanted to use the PCIe card for was to boot from (so I could reserve all the bays for HDs).

Originally Posted by mduell 

I know the drive brackets exist for the PowerMacs. I assume they also exist for the Mac Pros, although I haven't found any yet.

That's in spite of looking, or you haven't run accross them... I sure hope somebody is making them!

Originally Posted by mduell 

Do you really need two optical drives? I think the difference between NTSC and SECAM is just in the software, not in the drive, although there could be some annoying firmware limitation.

Well, here in Japan, DVDs come with some fruity DRM. My G5's superdrive recognizes it and after a few allowed switches back and forth locks it (or American DRM) in.

Originally Posted by mduell 

You've got 4 drive bays for the two 1TB drives and two Raptors. Stuff up to two more Raptors in whatever drive bracket you can find (which you can connect to the spare SATA ports on the logic board).

Would there be any sense to putting the 4 Raptors in the provided bays, and stuffing the 2 x 1TB drives anywhere I can find?

I am also worried about oveheating... I thought the MPs were designed with all sorts of sophisticated air flow modeling, and heat disapating materials. Won't putting two more drives in a bracket disrupt that... esp since the Raptors run hot (don't know about the Seagates).

Originally Posted by mduell 

My only concern is what you're going to back up your 2TB RAID0 (or 1TB RAID1 assuming you made a typo) array on to.

Yes, that was a typo. I meant 2 x 1TB drives in RAID1 (mirror). The mirror was going to be the backup. I have a friend who is a systems guy (for windows) who says that should be more than enough, that the chances of both failing at once is minimal.

Originally Posted by mduell 

An eSATA enclosure for a hard drive is cheaper than a USB2/FW400 enclosure for an optical drive.

Do you mean an external eSata enclosure?

Also, assuming we can find a good safe way to load up a Mac Pro with 4 Raptors and 2 1TB Seagates AND 2 optical, drives, where is the best place to put something to boot from?

Thanks again,

nina

[OreoCookie]

I think a RAID1 scratch drive is not very useful: the performance will be lower than that of one (!) drive. Since it is a scratch volume, security is not an issue. I don't think you'll benefit significantly from anything other than a 2-drive RAID0 scratch volume.

Concerning the two 1 TB drives, I hope you meant to say `backup drive', a RAID1 is not a backup solution.

[ninahagen]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

I think a RAID1 scratch drive is not very useful: the performance will be lower than that of one (!) drive. Since it is a scratch volume, security is not an issue. I don't think you'll benefit significantly from anything other than a 2-drive RAID0 scratch volume.

Concerning the two 1 TB drives, I hope you meant to say `backup drive', a RAID1 is not a backup solution.

There is a misunderstanding... I want a 4 disc RAID 0 scratch disc, and a 2 drive RAID1 storage array.

What is the precise difference between a backup drive and and a backup solution? All I want to do is have a 2nd drive with the same data so if one drive goes down I am covered. Won't a 2 drive RAID1 do that?

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

There is a misunderstanding... I want a 4 disc RAID 0 scratch disc, and a 2 drive RAID1 storage array.

You've written

Originally Posted by ninahagen

I wanted to take advantage of the extra pair of unused sata ports, allowing a 4 disc RAID1 for the scratch drive.

in your last post, and since you were jumbling the different RAID levels, I want to make sure I understood you correctly.

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

What is the precise difference between a backup drive and and a backup solution? All I want to do is have a 2nd drive with the same data so if one drive goes down I am covered. Won't a 2 drive RAID1 do that?

A RAID1 will protect you against drive failure, so you have a backup drive. A RAID1 (or any other RAID level with the exception of RAID0 for that matter) will protect you against things like
(i) accidental change or deletion (happens a lot more often than people think),
(ii) volume failure (something is wrong with your directory tree and you cannot repair a file anymore) or
(iii) application failure.

[ninahagen]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

You've written

in your last post, and since you were jumbling the different RAID levels, I want to make sure I understood you correctly.

A RAID1 will protect you against drive failure, so you have a backup drive. A RAID1 (or any other RAID level with the exception of RAID0 for that matter) will protect you against things like
(i) accidental change or deletion (happens a lot more often than people think),
(ii) volume failure (something is wrong with your directory tree and you cannot repair a file anymore) or
(iii) application failure.

Thanks Oreo, my bad.... I did jumble the RAID levels... went back and fixed the typo ... late here, sleepy...

I am still curious what criteria additional additional to the three you list above would make a backup drive into a backup solution. For me it is a solution, since it solves a backup problem... there must be some techical definition of "back up solution" I am missing. Could you clear it up for me?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

That's great. It would sting a little to spend $1000 on the card and only get support for one array. BTW, where does this card go?

It goes in one of the PCIe slots.

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

I wanted to take advantage of the extra pair of unused sata ports, allowing a 4 disc RAID1 for the scratch drive. (which also leads me to wonder if I shouldn't use the small raptors... a 4 x 150GB scratch drive maybe overkill in terms of capacity... and the small drives are the roughly same speed, right?).

The 150G Raptors are quite a bit faster than the 74G/36G Raptors due to higher density and improved electronics

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

On the second part, the only thing I wanted to use the PCIe card for was to boot from (so I could reserve all the bays for HDs).

I don't understand what that means.

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

That's in spite of looking, or you haven't run accross them... I sure hope somebody is making them!

I don't see one either, so maybe not. Perhaps just put one in the optical drive bay and live with a 3 drive stripe. Or live with one external SATA/eSATA drive.

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

Well, here in Japan, DVDs come with some fruity DRM. My G5's superdrive recognizes it and after a few allowed switches back and forth locks it (or American DRM) in.

That's just a region issue. Buy a region-free DVD drive and you can switch all you want.

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

Would there be any sense to putting the 4 Raptors in the provided bays, and stuffing the 2 x 1TB drives anywhere I can find?

There's no performance impact to drive positioning, so it's just cooling concerns. I'm not sure how well the HDD bays are ventilated compared to the rest of the chassis.

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

I am also worried about oveheating... I thought the MPs were designed with all sorts of sophisticated air flow modeling, and heat disapating materials. Won't putting two more drives in a bracket disrupt that... esp since the Raptors run hot (don't know about the Seagates).

It's not nearly as sensitive/engineered as some would have you believe. Fortunately modern drives all have temp sensors as part of the SMART system, so you can check for hotspots.

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

Yes, that was a typo. I meant 2 x 1TB drives in RAID1 (mirror). The mirror was going to be the backup. I have a friend who is a systems guy (for windows) who says that should be more than enough, that the chances of both failing at once is minimal.

Mirror is not a backup; it protects against drive failure and nothing more.

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

Do you mean an external eSata enclosure?

Also, assuming we can find a good safe way to load up a Mac Pro with 4 Raptors and 2 1TB Seagates AND 2 optical, drives, where is the best place to put something to boot from?

Yes, an external enclosure connected either through eSATA or just plain old SATA (a solution I actually somewhat prefer, but there are reasons for both)

It doesn't matter where you put the boot drive. You could use stripe 2 or 3 Raptors for scratch and use the other one for boot.

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

I am still curious what criteria additional additional to the three you list above would make a backup drive into a backup solution. For me it is a solution, since it solves a backup problem... there must be some techical definition of "back up solution" I am missing. Could you clear it up for me?

As I mentioned earlier, a mirror (RAID0) array protects you from a disk dying. It doesn't protect you from fire/flood, accidental file deletion, partition/volume corruption, your RAID controller going apeshit (rare, but it happens), or accidental file changes (hitting save when you really didn't want to). A backup solution adds protection against at least some, if not all of those. Something where you're versioning data and moving it off-site.

[ninahagen]

Thanks mduell, much clearer now!

Do you know...

How many PCIe slots are there in an Mac Pro?

Is there any drawback, especially a speed drawback as compared with a Raptor, storing OSX on a PCIe card and booting from there? I want to have discreet system, scratch and storage drives. The scratch array will take up the four HD bays in the Mac case, and the two 1TB mirrored storage drives will take the second optical bay. I need a physical place to put the system drive… so a PCIe card would seem a decent option unless it would be significantly slower.

Any idea what is the best replacement DVD drive out there? I am assuming that I can’t get a region-free one from Apple.

That is great to know about the temp sensors in hard drives. Once installed, how can I check for hotspots?

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

I am still curious what criteria additional additional to the three you list above would make a backup drive into a backup solution. For me it is a solution, since it solves a backup problem... there must be some techical definition of "back up solution" I am missing. Could you clear it up for me?

Why would you want a `technical definition'?
Just think in terms of examples: if you want any of the three things I've listed, your current solution won't do. If you are only worried about physical drive failure and either the data on that drive is replaceable or you have a different `real' backup of your files, it's fine, too.

Some other things that can go wrong: (i) a power surge (e. g. within the computer) fries your harddrives. (ii) You bump over your Mac Pro while moving it, killing some of the harddrives, etc.

I use backup solution, because it is a solution to a problem that's different for everybody: different data has different significance, so it has to be treated differently. I can put all my important files for work on a USB stick as well as my external harddrive, I have a second external hd for my pictures (as a backup as they are way more important and there are no `paper copies' or negatives).

[MacosNerd]

ninahagen
You seemed to be debating ona new computer now for what seems to be an inordinate amount of time. Why not bite the bullet and buy a MacPro?

[ninahagen]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

ninahagen
You seemed to be debating ona new computer now for what seems to be an inordinate amount of time. Why not bite the bullet and buy a MacPro?

Will do so on Day 1 of the next revision. Our G5 Quad will work until then. Just trying to do the homework ahead of time.

[MacosNerd]

well what happens if the next revision is minor one, what happens then or the next revision doesn't show up until 2nd or 3rd quarter of 08?

If you have a need now get it now especially if you're making money on it

[ninahagen]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

well what happens if the next revision is minor one, what happens then or the next revision doesn't show up until 2nd or 3rd quarter of 08?

I have to believe the next major update will be here between now and January. I believe it enough to live with the G5 until then.

Do you have any answer on where to put the system drive physically in the case?

Mduell helpfully suggested positioning two large storage drives in the 2nd optical drive bay.
I want to use all four drive bays for a RAID0 array.
That leaves me wondering where I can fit a system drive.

Since I don't want to go external, I may have to take mduell's other suggestion a living with a 3 disc scratch array.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

How many PCIe slots are there in an Mac Pro?

Four, but you need to use one for the graphics card.

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

Is there any drawback, especially a speed drawback as compared with a Raptor, storing OSX on a PCIe card and booting from there? I want to have discreet system, scratch and storage drives. The scratch array will take up the four HD bays in the Mac case, and the two 1TB mirrored storage drives will take the second optical bay. I need a physical place to put the system drive… so a PCIe card would seem a decent option unless it would be significantly slower.

What sort of PCIe card are you thinking of storing OS X on? I don't really understand what you're saying.
You can only fit one drive in an optical drive bay, so you're still out of space. You're going to need some sort of drive bracket in the PCIe bay to hold the 6th drive or add an external.

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

Any idea what is the best replacement DVD drive out there? I am assuming that I can’t get a region-free one from Apple.

Google it, there are lots of manufacturers and models that either come region-free or can have their firmware flashed to be region free. Personally I'm a fan of the Pioneer drives.

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

That is great to know about the temp sensors in hard drives. Once installed, how can I check for hotspots?

Use any of the tools that allow checking the SMART parameters... I think there's one called SMARTReporter that is popular.

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

I have to believe the next major update will be here between now and January. I believe it enough to live with the G5 until then.

November 13 sounds good to me.

[MacosNerd]

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

I have to believe the next major update will be here between now and January. I believe it enough to live with the G5 until then.

Fair enough but you have been asking about system configurations and buying one since the beginning of April and its now september. That's a long time to consider buying a computer.

[ninahagen]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

Fair enough but you have been asking about system configurations and buying one since the beginning of April and its now september. That's a long time to consider buying a computer.

Why does that matter to you?

Besides, I think many here have been waiting 5 months or more the next update, an MP that ships with Tiger and a new vid card. You shouldn't dis me for trying to learn or doing this at my pace. Maybe I know less than you and need more tutoring. Everyone has been really nice to me and taught me a great deal.

[svtcontour]

Why the huge scratch array? Wouldnt it be better to just toss in a single drive for scratch and spend the rest of all that money towards RAM?

Also I think I'd just get a 74GB raptor as a startup disk, a 500GB drive as work space and then get something like this and set it up as a raid5 (so 1.5T of storage space) as longer term backup and data storage Systemax Mini-Vault NAS 2000 (4x500GB SATA HDDs) 2TB NAS 989580 in Canada at TigerDirect.ca

[suneohair]

I am not sure what apps you are running. But more RAM will do you better than the large scratch array proposed.

For example, CS3 can see 3GB right now. Anything more Photoshop (and some of the other apps) will use as scratch. Scratch disks are important but from the sounds of it the one you are proposing seems to be overkill and expensive. Unless I have the proposal wrong.

[MacosNerd]

Originally Posted by ninahagen 

Why does that matter to you?

Besides, I think many here have been waiting 5 months or more the next update, an MP that ships with Tiger and a new vid card. You shouldn't dis me for trying to learn or doing this at my pace. Maybe I know less than you and need more tutoring. Everyone has been really nice to me and taught me a great deal.

Don't be so sensitive, I wasn't dissin you and I'm not sure how my post could have been construed otherwise.

You want to wait 5 months, or 5 years that's your business and your money. I don't care. You just seem so hot and bothered to get a machine and then you obsess about a RAID setup. I just figured why get yourself all hot and bothered, and why not just buy the machine.

Relax I'm not getting on your case, take as long as you want.

[ninahagen]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

Relax I'm not getting on your case, take as long as you want.

Thanks.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

Fair enough but you have been asking about system configurations and buying one since the beginning of April and its now september. That's a long time to consider buying a computer.

Apple has failed to offer any of the possible substantial upgrades in that time period. I think it's quite rational to wait for the next revision, regardless of the time period, when the current revision has been out for 9 months and you already have a sufficient workstation.

Originally Posted by svtcontour 

Why the huge scratch array? Wouldnt it be better to just toss in a single drive for scratch and spend the rest of all that money towards RAM?

Also I think I'd just get a 74GB raptor as a startup disk, a 500GB drive as work space and then get something like this and set it up as a raid5 (so 1.5T of storage space) as longer term backup and data storage Systemax Mini-Vault NAS 2000 (4x500GB SATA HDDs) 2TB NAS 989580 in Canada at TigerDirect.ca

I assumed that anyone dropping $2k on storage would already be planning on providing more than enough RAM for the apps they're going to use.

What you've mentioned there isn't a bad setup, but it's far from the performance level that the OP appears to be looking for.

ninahagen: Another option would be to buy a buttload of RAM (20GB+) and use a RAM disk as your first scratch disk (and a couple Raptors after that).

[tinkered]

Have you considered getting a SAS raid card. SAS has much better bandwidth then SATA, SAS drives come in 15K spindle speed, and SAS drives are server quality. A RAID 0 pair of SAS Seagate Cheetah 15K.6 will smoke most anything and be 900GB. Alternatively, the 2.5" SAS drives take up a fraction of the space and still come in 15K and 73 GB. I am not sure, but I am pretty confident you could fit two 2.5" drives in the second CD bay, making them a good choice for a RAID 0 start-up disk, leaving all 4 SATA bays free for long term storage.

[ninahagen]

Originally Posted by tinkered 

Have you considered getting a SAS raid card. SAS has much better bandwidth then SATA, SAS drives come in 15K spindle speed, and SAS drives are server quality. A RAID 0 pair of SAS Seagate Cheetah 15K.6 will smoke most anything and be 900GB. Alternatively, the 2.5" SAS drives take up a fraction of the space and still come in 15K and 73 GB. I am not sure, but I am pretty confident you could fit two 2.5" drives in the second CD bay, making them a good choice for a RAID 0 start-up disk, leaving all 4 SATA bays free for long term storage.

That is a great idea. I heard the Cheetah was not Mac compatible. Does anyone know if that is true or not?

Would they even smoke the Raptors? If so, I'll be very excited.

Thanks!!!

[tinkered]

I don't know if there is a conflict with Cheetah drives. That would be news to me. Either way, the Xserver is offered with a 15K SAS drive option, so there must be a drive out there that plays nice with MacOSX.

A 3.5" 15K SAS drive will smoke a 3.5" 10K SATA drive. SATA is 3Gb/s, SAS is 6 Gb/s. I would expect that a 15K 2.5" drive would beat a 10K 2.5" drive, although at 2.5" SAS is only 3Gb/s, like 3.5" SATA drives. I am pretty sure that a RAID 0 of 2 15K 2.5" drives would be faster than a single 3.5" 10K drive and would take up about the same amount of space. Many 1U servers use 2.5" SAS drives because of the favorable speed/power consumption/size ratio.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by tinkered 

SATA is 3Gb/s, SAS is 6 Gb/s.

Completely irrelevant, since the drives can only push about 1Gb/s.

15K SAS drives are a great option for performance, I just don't know of any SAS cards for the Mac Pro, and you couldn't use SAS drives in the 4 hard drive bays.

[bballe336]

Originally Posted by mduell 

An eSATA enclosure for a hard drive is cheaper than a USB2/FW400 enclosure for an optical drive.

That is not true. A decent quality enclosure is about $20-$25 for either. And since that raptor would be a boot drive it would make more sense for it to be in the machine where there is less chance of it being knocked or kicked. If you kick a DVD burner it's no big deal, it's not like the system won't start because your external burner breaks.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by bballe336 

That is not true. A decent quality enclosure is about $20-$25 for either. And since that raptor would be a boot drive it would make more sense for it to be in the machine where there is less chance of it being knocked or kicked. If you kick a DVD burner it's no big deal, it's not like the system won't start because your external burner breaks.

A good FW400 enclosure runs double that. Perhaps you can get the cheapest Prolific junk for $25.

I keep my drives where I can't kick them.

[bballe336]

Originally Posted by mduell 

A good FW400 enclosure runs double that. Perhaps you can get the cheapest Prolific junk for $25.

I keep my drives where I can't kick them.

Great, your situation is ideal. In my opinion having an external drive as the boot drive is pretty stupid. The drive will be far more protected when it's inside the machine, a DVD burner doesn't matter anywhere near as much as a hard drive. A complete external burner kit is $60, thats $40 less than apple's internal drive, and it also leaves the extra internal case space to protect the insanely expensive raptor that is going in this machine.

Also, why is a FW400 external enclosure necessary for a burner? I understand the need for a fast constant transfer rate with video editing, but for disc burning USB2.0 is just fine.

It just makes more sense to run an external burner than an external boot drive.

[tinkered]

Here is a SAS raid card that works fine with the Mac Pro: Celerity Host Adapters | ATTO Technology

mduell, you have a good point about the bandwidth not being relevant. Also, I didn't mean to imply that you could put SAS drives in the drive bays.