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solaris · Aug 29, 2004, 02:27 AM

I'm looking at adding more internal storage to my G5. I like the look of the Swift data 200, but the TransIntl site says that to add three drives you need 2 SATA controller cards. This is because the Firmtec cards they sell can only handle 2 drives each.

So, is there a PCI SATA controller card out there that can handle 3+ drives?

Detrius · Aug 29, 2004, 11:57 AM

Not for the Mac; I don't think so. Why/How do you expect to put 5+ drives in your G5 anyway?

reader50 · 02:46 PM

You can get up to seven drives into a G5 with some 3rd party help.

2 internal OEM SATA slots.

US$368 Swift Data 200 kit adds three drives.

US$400 G5Jam kit adds two drives.

US$99 G5 Drive Bracket kit adds 3 drives, same location as the Swift Data 200.

The G5Jam places it's two drives in the PCI bay (you lose some PCI space), the other two place three drives in unused space ahead of the CPU bay fans.

The Swift Data 200 and the G5Jam used to sell the kits alone, now they both sell it with a drive interface card in the minimum configuration, which is dumb because it's a SATA card in each kit. If you want to mount PATA drives, you have to pay for, then toss, the included SATA card. Or you could buy the G5 Drive Bracket, save $269-$301, get a 4-drive PATA card, and still have change left over.

The reasons for internal expansion are:
1. Neatness.
2. To get around the documented G5 FireWire Write Speed issue. Basically, there is something wrong with the G5's FireWire implementation. A G4 PowerMac with FW800 or a PowerBook G4 with FW800 PC card will write to a FW800 RAID-0 much faster than a G5 does to the same RAID array. More importantly, the G5's write speed makes it marginal for digital video capture.

solaris · Aug 29, 2004, 03:35 PM

The TransIntl "Swift Data 200" was what I was looking at. It can handle 3 additional drives infront of the CPU fans. I plan to have mirrored boot drives plus three more hooked up to the Swift Data 200 as a stripe for use as a fast scratch disk.

I've had a look at other raid options, and this seems the best. Physical space is limited, so I'd rather an internal solution.

Oh well, I don't need it just yet. I guess I'll wait to see what comes down the pipeline...

Detrius · Aug 29, 2004, 05:02 PM

Originally posted by solaris:
The TransIntl "Swift Data 200" was what I was looking at. It can handle 3 additional drives infront of the CPU fans. I plan to have mirrored boot drives plus three more hooked up to the Swift Data 200 as a stripe for use as a fast scratch disk.

I've had a look at other raid options, and this seems the best. Physical space is limited, so I'd rather an internal solution.

Oh well, I don't need it just yet. I guess I'll wait to see what comes down the pipeline...

SIIG is probably your best bet, as they do actually make a 4-channel RAID card. However, they don't make one for the Mac. Maybe you could pester them to port it over.

FauxCaster · Aug 29, 2004, 07:01 PM

As far as IDE-raids in a G5, I contacted the folks who make the SATAMAX, ysaid the G5 has "Bus timing problems because of the faster bus speed on the G5's. G5's are very SATA drive aware but just dont deal with ATA drives at all."

Which is too bad, cause I got a SIIG ATA(IDE) Raid card sitting in my old busted g4.

And macsales.com has a SIIG ATA RAID card that says it works on G5 for $199; But for the cost of a dual channel SATA card, I'd stick with that.

G5G5 · Oct 25, 2004, 11:28 PM

I've installed the TransIntl "Swift Data 200" and SoftRAID.

I was mirroring (loosely coupled) the boot 250 Gb disk
with the second one, using Carbon Copy Cloner.

I replaced the second 250 Gb disk when I installed
four 400 Gb Hitachi drives, part of the Swift 200 purchase.

I copy three major directories from the boot drive to the
raid drives, that's only 120 Gb out of 1.5 Tb.

Ah, 1.5 Tb.

I'm expecting more-port SATA cards sometime in the
future, I didn't want to wait.

reader50 · Oct 26, 2004, 01:37 AM

People who want to max out their internal SATA drives may be interested in the RocketRAID card. It has 8 SATA connections.

Mafia · Oct 26, 2004, 02:03 AM

Originally posted by G5G5:
Ah, 1.5 Tb.

thats good stuff

aaanorton · Oct 26, 2004, 11:43 AM

What about external SATA ports? I found this one, but it has said "Available Soon" for a while now.

G5G5 · Oct 26, 2004, 03:14 PM

Originally posted by aaanorton:
What about external SATA ports? I found this one, but it has said "Available Soon" for a while now.

Yes, I saw that one and the 8-port internal one when froogling before my purchase.

I have one PCI slot taken up by a dual port ethernet card. The two Firmtek 2 SATA
internal ports cards now occupy the other two.

I'm not big on buying certain things piecemeal, which is why I bought the
Swift 200 and slightly over-expensive disk drives in one shot from TransIntl,
with the two Firmtek cards.

I wonder if some of the internal cables from the 8-port card can connect to
an external SATA box. And I wonder how many ports one card can have
before it becomes detrimental to an ideal RAID setup.

So I'm wondering what comes next - the reviews of the A/V RAID setups
said five disks was better than four. Makes me want to take out the internal
DVD burner and put two more hard drives right there, using the 8-port card.
I have an external DVD burner that does +/-, won't that do even better?

Detrius · Oct 26, 2004, 06:05 PM

Originally posted by reader50:
People who want to max out their internal SATA drives may be interested in the RocketRAID card. It has 8 SATA connections.

This card is run by OS X drivers--it cannot boot a Mac.

lightusr · Nov 7, 2004, 04:29 PM

LaCie has released new D2 external SATA drives which should ship in December. Included with each drive is a PCI SATA dual channel card with external connectors. They're not using the firmtek card going by the pictures so I'm not sure who's making the card for them.

Check out the drive info page here:
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10572

Spec sheet for the card here:
http://www.lacie.com/download/datash...hd_SATA_en.pdf

If you're feeling a bit brave and aren't worried necessarily by neatness, you can try out the Burly Box solution from MacGurus. Info from barefeats here: http://www.barefeats.com/hard41.html

There's a bunch of stuff out there on options for SATA expandability.

macaddict0001 · Nov 7, 2004, 06:29 PM

for thosewho need an extreme amount of space. Get an xserve raid with whatever drives you want put a graphics card in the expansion slot and install mac osx on it.

aaanorton · Nov 8, 2004, 01:24 AM

Originally posted by macaddict0001:
for thosewho need an extreme amount of space. Get an xserve raid with whatever drives you want put a graphics card in the expansion slot and install mac osx on it.

An Xserve RAID is just a RAID.

macaddict0001 · Nov 8, 2004, 03:28 AM

oh dang your right could have sworn it was an xserve with lots of drives. You have to admit it would've been sweet though.