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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > Will these SATA PCI cards work in an Early 2008 Mac Pro

Will these SATA PCI cards work in an Early 2008 Mac Pro
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Matthew Attoe
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Dec 2, 2010, 05:08 PM
 
Hi,

I was wondering if anyone could please tell me if any of these SATA PCI cards would work in my Early 2008 Mac Pro.

I would like to use it to hook up my external SATA HDD Dock to the Mac Pro, instead of the SATA Dock's USB 2.0 port (as I'm pretty sure the eSATA connection will outshine the USB 2.0 one).

PCIExpress SATA II Card with 2 x External connections : PCIE : Maplin
PCIExpress SATA II Card 1x Internal 1 x External connection : PCIE : Maplin
Belkin : SATA II RAID 2-Port PCI Express� Card
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Belkin-Expre...1324107&sr=8-6


Many thanks,

Matthew
Early 2008 Mac Pro (8 x 2.8), original Core Duo 2.0GHz MacBook Pro
     
Lateralus
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Dec 2, 2010, 05:54 PM
 
I like chicken
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Please de-liv-er
     
Matthew Attoe  (op)
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Dec 2, 2010, 06:30 PM
 
Really? What a pain. Just out of interest, what makes them incompatible? What about this one?

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=221494

Thank you for your link, but it is very difficult to get OWC/NewerTech stuff in England.

All the best,

Matthew
Early 2008 Mac Pro (8 x 2.8), original Core Duo 2.0GHz MacBook Pro
     
Waragainstsleep
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Dec 2, 2010, 07:23 PM
 
Dude,

ordering from OWC to the UK is easy, especially for something light like a PCI card. I buy from them fairly regularly.
On the subject of PCI cards, you would actually be better off with a PCI-E card since thats what your Mac Pro has, but only if you wanted to do some kind of RAID. If you just want to hook up a drive dock, then this item will be fine for your needs:

Newer Technology eSATA Extender Cable Adap... (TCB-SATA-MP) at OWC

If you can find a PC equivalent in the UK, that should work fine, its essentially just a cable.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
Waragainstsleep
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Dec 2, 2010, 07:24 PM
 
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
Waragainstsleep
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Dec 2, 2010, 07:25 PM
 
I forgot to ask, do you swap out naked drives that often or did you already fill all four internal drive bays?
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
Matthew Attoe  (op)
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Dec 3, 2010, 05:00 AM
 
Thanks again for the replies.

Yes, all four bays currently have 1.5TB drives in them (soon to be 4 x 3TB hopefully) plus 1 250GB IDE drive in the second optical bay.

I already have a SATA HDD Dock connected via USB 2.0, which is slowish for data transfer, and as the Dock also has an eSata socket thought this might be a much cheaper (and faster) way than buying a FireWire 800 HDD Dock.

Thanks again,

Matthew
Early 2008 Mac Pro (8 x 2.8), original Core Duo 2.0GHz MacBook Pro
     
reader50
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Dec 3, 2010, 01:24 PM
 
Yes, if you need a ton of drives, eSATA is the way to go. Internal drive speeds, with fairly cheap multibay enclosures. All you need is a PCIe eSATA card that supports port multiplier. note: most eSATA cards do not support booting.
     
Avatar0001
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Dec 3, 2010, 01:51 PM
 
I have this card from sonnet in my 2008 Mac Pro

Sonnet - Tempo E4P: 4-Port Serial ATA PCI Express Card; Compatible in Mac Pro, and Power Mac G5 & Windows Desktop Computers and Xserver Servers With PCI Express Slots

I then have three of these RAID containers attached

Micro Center - AMS VENUS T5 5-Bay SATA to eSATA RAID Enclosure DS-2350J

One RAID has five 750GB drives for a total of 3TB of storage in RAID 5 configuration.
I then bought the second and loaded with five 1.5TB drives for a total of 6TB of storage in RAID 5 configuration.
I then bought a third container and installed five 2TB drives for 8TB of storage but the 8TB configuration was unstable in two different containers and I then decided to simply go with five independent 2TB drives. I've had no problems with the card or the drives other than what I just mentioned about trying to make an 8TB RAID. Good luck to you.
     
Surff
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Dec 3, 2010, 02:04 PM
 
HighPoint Rocket Raid 2314. It's a PCI Express with 4 eSata ports.
3Gb/s per port

Amazon.com: ROCKETRAID2314 Controller Card: Electronics
     
chefpastry
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Dec 3, 2010, 03:42 PM
 
I picked up a JMB360 based PCI-e card for about $7 a while back and it works fine in my '08 Mac Pro. It uses built-in OS X drivers so there's no need for additional drivers. It supports booting and hot-swapping. Port multipliers are not supported.

You can also look for Silicon Image Sil3132 based PCI-e cards and grab the necessary drivers from their website. However, I've read that their drivers are not the best and can be buggy.

I've read that Marvell 88SE9123 based PCI-e cards work without the need for additional drivers, as well. It's a SATA 6.0 controller but, again, from what I've read, it does not support booting or port multipliers.
( Last edited by chefpastry; Dec 3, 2010 at 04:45 PM. )
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Laurence
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Dec 3, 2010, 04:07 PM
 
I have a Silicon Image SIL3132 chipset generic PC eSATA card and it works under 10.6.x. Try searching for the chipset instead of a specific manufacturer and you should be able to find something. Here's a one available in the UK:

PCIE to SATA II and eSATA CONTROLLER CARD - 2 + 2 PORTS: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

and here's one that actually indicates it's bootable on the Mac Pro:

2 Port PCIe x1 eSata II 300 Controller Card, boots Mac: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

The Silicon Image one needs drivers available here:

Silicon Image - Support | Search Results

I can't really say whether the other one works as advertized, however it seems likely.
--Laurence
     
Waragainstsleep
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Dec 4, 2010, 10:25 AM
 
OP wanted to connect a single drive dock. Use the spare on-board SATA first!
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
chefpastry
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Dec 4, 2010, 02:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
OP wanted to connect a single drive dock. Use the spare on-board SATA first!
That doesn't support hot swapping, limiting the usefulness of the dock.
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Waragainstsleep
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Dec 4, 2010, 04:15 PM
 
I've never actually tried ejecting a SATA drive. I know Windows doesn't tolerate, figured Macs might since hot swapping is part of the original spec for SATA. Oh well.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
P
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Dec 4, 2010, 07:21 PM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
I've never actually tried ejecting a SATA drive. I know Windows doesn't tolerate, figured Macs might since hot swapping is part of the original spec for SATA. Oh well.
I think this is one of the cases where it works if you get all your ducks in line. Windows will accept it if you have a new enough driver. Intel for some reason nerfs the default driver for their chipsets, but if you hack the RAID driver to load (say the ICH8R driver if you have ICH8), it works.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
   
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