Have the MacPro the Raid5 hardware support?

[Alberello]

Hello
first time for me in Mac-world...
I am thinking to buy a Mac-pro but in official web site in the specification page I can't see if the integrated controller support Raid5 on the serial-ATA disck.
Thanks to all for support.

Pasquale from Spain.

 

[Macinposh]

Macpros motherboard has hardware support for raid 5, as well as for 0 and 1.


But!


Apple has decided to disable them, in the favor of the OS Xs software raid.
There is no information on if there would/could be any way around it, either by firmware upgrades or manual tinkering.

The software raid cannot do raid 5, so you are restricted to Raid 1,Raid 0,Raid 10 or Raid 0+1.



Disabling the hardware raid on the mobo is the one of the dumbest things I have ever encountered on apples behalf.
I just cant get my head around why they would do that.
The only thing that remotely would fit my head, would be that the mobos hw raid wouldnt work properly with os x..
Otherwise...

Bang.

 

[Alberello]

Then there is no way to made Raid5?
I remember that someone told me that OS X support Raid5 software...

 

[Sesshi]

Software based RAID5 would be a major performance downer for a start. Why bother? You'll need to look to the third-party alternatives.

 

[ChrisA]

Software based RAID5 would be a major performance downer for a start. Why bother? You'll need to look to the third-party alternatives.

Computing parity is not such a processor intensive task. On a 4-core machine these is an excess of CPU power so it takes little away for other tasks.

One good reason NOT to use the HW raid on the M/B is that the next revision Mac Pro may not have the same kind of H/W raid controller. Then you would not be able to move the drives to another (newer) Mac if you current Mac Pro smoked 5 years from now. I'd hate to see a data format tied to Intel's "chip of the month".

No one chooses RAID5 for performance. It's an economical way to have redundancy and it that's the goal software raid is fine. Some one looking for performance, say for a scratch disk for FCP would use stripping.

 

[ChrisA]

Hello
first time for me in Mac-world...
I am thinking to buy a Mac-pro but in official web site in the specification page I can't see if the integrated controller support Raid5 on the serial-ATA disck..

Mac OS X on the Mac Pro will implement RAID in software using any combination of internal serial-ATA or external disks. If there is any support of RAID built into the controller Mac OSX does not use it. Apple gains some flexibilty by using software and also RAID works the same way in the Mini, MB, iMac and Pro if done in software.

One thing no one knows yet is if this might change with Leopard. Apple could change things. Certainly ZFS is different from the current setup. We will see this Spring

 

[Sesshi]

Computing parity is not such a processor intensive task. On a 4-core machine these is an excess of CPU power so it takes little away for other tasks.

One good reason NOT to use the HW raid on the M/B is that the next revision Mac Pro may not have the same kind of H/W raid controller. Then you would not be able to move the drives to another (newer) Mac if you current Mac Pro smoked 5 years from now. I'd hate to see a data format tied to Intel's "chip of the month".

No one chooses RAID5 for performance. It's an economical way to have redundancy and it that's the goal software raid is fine. Some one looking for performance, say for a scratch disk for FCP would use stripping.

No-one chooses RAID 5 purely for performance - but it is the most common way to get redundancy along with reasonable performance as it retains the core advantage of striping.

Computing parity is not that processor dependent, but it is another of those tasks that can incrementally bog an otherwise fast processor down. There's also the minor but potentially significant issue of write caching of course on a dedicated RAID5 array - there's no backed-up cache on the mobo.

And it's irrelevant if the newer Mac "5 years down the line" has a different RAID5 controller - you'll be migrating your data, not your array. At least, that's how I do things every time I change my server / main-line workstation hardware (typically every two years).

 

[timb]

I'm still waiting for hardware RAID-5 support. Sort of disappointing we don't have it yet. :-/

 

[Alberello]

Thanks to all for help... I am ready to buy the Mac Pro!

Then I think I will not have problem making a raid5 software on all 4 disk.
Or, like in some other unix systems, the software raid can't stay in the same volume of boot partition?

 

[SMM]

Hello
first time for me in Mac-world...
I am thinking to buy a Mac-pro but in official web site in the specification page I can't see if the integrated controller support Raid5 on the serial-ATA disck.
Thanks to all for support.

Pasquale from Spain.

If you want Raid 5, why not get XServe?

 

[Alberello]

If you want Raid 5, why not get XServe?

1 - I don't need a server but a Hi-End desktop
2 - I will use the other 3 SATA disk that already have in my pc
3 - You forget that it cost € 3,199.00 !
4 - In the future I will like to install a good graphic card.

 

[cynerjist]

4 - In the future I will like to install a good graphic card.

haha you had my going until you got to number four.

 

[psingh01]

BUMP


I didn't want to start a new thread but I am interested in a software RAID 5 solution. Are there any available? I currently have the hacked software raid 5 support XP, but I'm looking to move to a MacPro at some point and would like the benefits of a software raid 5 setup there too.

 

[simie]

Hardware solutions

Apple Mac Pro and Power Mac G5 (PCI Express version only)

AMCC's 3ware Sidecar

3ware Sidecar Features
True hardware RAID
RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD
Exclusive StorSwitch™ high performance architecture
Up to 3TB capacity*
128MB DDR2 400 memory with ECC protection
Complete configuration management suite
3ware Disk Manager 2 (3DM®2)
Command Line Interface (CLI)
Hot-swap and hot-spare support for easy maintenance
Dynamic sector repair for robust data protection
S.M.A.R.T. disk drive monitoring for reliability
Front panel LED status indicators
Online Capacity Expansion and RAID Level Migration
Drive insertion and removal notification
RoHS compliant (lead free)
Using easily sourced 750GB SATA drives (not included)
http://store.3ware.com/?category=9&subcategory=9&productid=9590SE-SIDECAR-US

 

[alfogator]

just wait for zfs

 

[Alberello]

Price: $1,295.00
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!