Lto for mac

[flaminio]

As an update here, I talk to the Bru folk and got a lot of great info. I plan to get the PE when it's available. Hopefully it will be available soon before the order goes through to save me grief of a second PO through IT.

I also talked with ATTO, and my solution sounds good. The only hitch is my MacPro doesn't have enough PCIe juice to run both the ATTO (8x) and HighPoint eSATA (4x) with my Graphics (16x) at full speed. Do you think there is a speed difference on the LTO-4 between 4x and 8x? I'm wondering if I'd be better off just using the ATTO and just get a 4x eSATA fan cable on the second port for my eSATA RAID-0. I likely won't be using that take drive during production, but I will be going from the eSATA drives to the tape drive.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

What Mac Pro do you have? I'm assuming it's one of the pre-2008 models as the older ones had a different PCIe configuration.

I'm confused about your eSATA RAID plan. Are you saying you want to use external FW800/eSATA drives? Connect 4 of those via eSATA and make two RAID volumes? Weird.

[flaminio]

Yes, it's a 2007 MacPro and doesn't have the 3 8x slots.

Why weird?

[warwickt]

I also talked with ATTO, and my solution sounds good. The only hitch is my MacPro doesn't have enough PCIe juice to run both the ATTO (8x) and HighPoint eSATA (4x) with my Graphics (16x) at full speed.

Hi Flaminio, regarding your 2007 MAC PRO 8 core, although this statement may be technically correct in the specs book, in comparison to the 2008 PCIE2 MAC PROS , when you look at your situation, this statement its quite misleading.

The good guys @ ATTO TECH are telling you the right thing to do for their SAS HBA however it is like the analogy of using a sledgehammer to drive a carpet tack.

Using the /system/coreservices/expansion slot utility.app you can configure the PCIE slots ok. I have tried x4's and x8's and even a x8 for the ATI1900 just for tests. Excepting the graphics (which I cannot notce), all I/O devices work just the same.

I believe the x8 slot (the best slot) for the R380 ATTO EXPRESSAS etc is in the case where there are a LOT of I/O devices (namely disks ) attached. You have their bare minimum and have a load of capacity there.

I have been running my R380 EXPRESS SAS and my LSI 3442E-R in x4 slots for a while just to see. I dont see any difference between having them in x8 slots.

Currently I am running some tests as x8,x8,x1,x8 (config 03). I will restore this to the x16, x1, x4, x4 config with mr ATTOEXPRESS R380 in SLot3 and the LSI3442E-R PCIE in slot 4 underneath the hot bay 3 and bay 4 DDms.

The devices you have described that you will attach (TApes and external disks) will be driven more than you need in a (x4 PCIE slot).



Examples:

• the HP LTO4 Ultrium tape drive will even work excellently from an SAS HBA in a (x4) PCIE ( and OK from a SAS HBA in a x1 PCIE slot although wasted)
• the disks or even a 4 x DDM disk array will work fine with the EXPRESS sas in a x4 slot and naturally works for more disk for HBA in a x8 slot.

Do you think there is a speed difference on the LTO-4 between 4x and 8x?

absolutely NO SPEED difference for the ULtrium LTO4. Even tried my LSI3442E-R PCIe in a x1 slot with a single tape drive.. works near fine.

I'm wondering if I'd be better off just using the ATTO and just get a 4x eSATA fan cable on the second port for my eSATA RAID-0. I likely won't be using that take drive during production, but I will be going from the eSATA drives to the tape drive.

Well personally if your business needs it ( can afford it) and DO need a small disk array. THese are rather cheap:

• dump those dreadful external firewire/esata disk drive enclosures into the land fill or at least dont depend on them. (USe as xmas presents for some kids)
• retrieve the usable SATA2 DDMs from those disk enclosures or go buy some new SATA 7200RPM+ Western Digital DDms (WD1002FYBS etc as an example)
• go buy cheap a SAS JBOD enclosure (4 DDM's are really cheap). Look at the PROAVIO range else Taiwan others
• go buy either the ATTOTECH EXRESS SAS R380 HBA to server both the4xDDM JBOD enclosure and the HP ULTRIUM SAS TAPE DRIVE
• else get the ATTOTECH H308 Express sas and use for JPOD enclosure (4 x SAS targets) and the other SFF-8088 for the HP tape drive. USe Apples software RAID ro make up a RAID in the JBOD. (dont bother with anything other than RAID0 else you're wasting capcity. You have the TAPE DIVE as your 'backup'
• some of he above but get a cheaper SAS RAID card form ARECA or HIGHPOINT that services the JBOD enclosure (this is a second SAS HBA. This could be a cheaper route
• cables - buy 2 x 1m sff-8088 to sff-8088 mini-sas cables and your set to connect your d DDMS (in an enclosure) and the HP tape drive.

Althhough mentioning the FAN cable previously, I'd avoid the fan cable route if you can. As previously implied it can be a can of worms and I would also add that its really limiting your expansion.

Do whats right for your business and workflow and bite the bullet now.
Going too cheap will get you later personal experience)


hthw

[warwickt]

Yes, it's a 2007 MacPro and doesn't have the 3 8x slots.

Why weird?

Hi Flaminio, your 2008 MAC PRO 8 core actually does.

PErhaps this is where you have been confused . See previous post I just made to this thread.

PLease refer to the /system/library/coreservices/expansion slot utility.app (or ESU).

You may configure the MAC PRO PCIE slots to 4 different configurations. I use it a bit.

Sadly it seems slightly broken in 10.5.6 but it still works except that UI reports unknown cards. Works fine at 1.5.5.

hth
w

[flaminio]

Well, you're making all kinds of sense.

An Ultrium 1840 SAS w/ ATTO R380 and one of those EB4PM eSATA editbox seems a real nice solution.

Any opinions on the WD drive you mentioned vs Seagate ES-2? Or anything else?

[Kaku Ito]

warwickt,

I had some problems with early R380s heating up and failing with RAID setups but how is it now? I've spoken with Kurt@ATTO and he was mentioning it's got better but I'm stuck with three R380s come back from customers without solution other than cranking up the fan in Mac Pro.

[warwickt]

warwickt,

I had some problems with early R380s heating up and failing with RAID setups but how is it now? I've spoken with Kurt@ATTO and he was mentioning it's got better but I'm stuck with three R380s come back from customers without solution other than cranking up the fan in Mac Pro.

Hi Kaku, Yeah agree to some extent although its a shame that these RAID cards filed your customers.

I had some funny errors initially with devices going "unavailable state" after moving TB's of stuff. The LUN would go offline. THe DDMs were always ok.

I spoke to Nate at ATTO TEch and he told me that SLOT 3 in x8 or x4 is fine for the R380 as a RAID card.

For its use simply as an HBA only (not rAID) for sas tape drive pass through it does not get hot in the slightest.

It was a heat issue because I

• has the ATTO TECH R380 SAS PCIE card in SLOT 4 fo this MACPRO 2007 model and
• I had two hardworking DDms in BAYs 3 & 4. THese were helping cook the card a bit I think.

Simply I moved the ATTO R380 to a x8 or x4 slot (PCIE slot 2 and then PCIE slot 3) and it works great. (I moved the LSI SAs3442e-R to slot for where it remains today .. I only use this for my QUANTUM tape drive)

I documented this issue and how I solvedit fpr teh R380 in great detail at http://discussions.apple.com/message...766237#8766237

The R380 works great with my PROAVIO EB8MS JBOD enclosure (I have 8 x 1TB WD1002FYBS DDMS in there using a 2 x RAID0 config).

I also use this card HP Ultrium 1840 and the HP 1750 ULtrium SAS tape drives. I just unplug the SFF-8088 from one of the external R380 ports and I'm away!

HEAT and the R380. I think you need to keep it simple and just because the card is a x8 PCIE means it will work fine under load with a few DDMs plugge d into it (not driving ranks of disks!.. say 128!)

I do have the smcFANCONTROL.app installed but it is only monitoring and I don't have it engaged to maniupulate the fans in this MACPRO.

Sounds silly also it is worth having a look at the dust in the MACPRO too. I found that it might help a little to flush the fluff etc out with some compressed air (cans).

fwiw:meh:
w

[warwickt]

Well, you're making all kinds of sense.

An Ultrium 1840 SAS w/ ATTO R380 and one of those EB4PM eSATA editbox seems a real nice solution.

Any opinions on the WD drive you mentioned vs Seagate ES-2? Or anything else?

Hi Flamino, for a JBOD enclosure you can also do a bit cheaper. I liked the look and feel of the PROAVIO and they have good support here in Hong Kong. The 8 PROAVIO bay was a good bargain for me. I originally has a 8 x DDM RAID0 using the two external R380 SFF-8088 ports. Anyway for a workflow perpsective (separation of work) I decided to make 2 x 4DDMs RAID0s.. its up to you how you do it. Obviously u will use a 4x DDM and configure the RAID format you need. (personally as you have the HP tape Ultrium LTO4 drive and you base your workflow practices accordingly, you will always be able to reinstate work that failed due to corruption of a RAID. For these small ranks and on a budget I think mirrored RAID and some RAIDx implementations may not be cost effective. Everyone to their own taste!

CAbles & JBOD enclosures again: SOme have SFF-8088 minisas and others have the screw-thumb type of chassis femail connector such as the SFF-8470. Look out for these. THey all work fine. ONe is no better than another from a functional POV.

If u are budget constrained, you might want to look at brand-X JBOD enclosure is (Netstor) you might want to look at is this one for example from TAiwan. Its a 4 bay SAS JBOD enclosure. http://www.netstor.com.tw/_03/03_02.php?NDQ=

There are so many of these out there.

DDMS (disk drive modules .. all disks these days are hard by the way) .. well

• Seagates has been in the news in an infamous way for a while with their issues. I was a BARRA and CHEETAH (SCSI FW) fan ages back however I lost faith with this news with SATA2 and also the fact that the seagate drives require MS-DOS to update the firmware.. so they lost me my son!
• I have all now WESTERN DIGITAL CAVIERs (WD1002FYBS) 1TB's SATA2 7200 RPM in this mac pro (4) and the disk arrays (8). All seem to be working well and no issue. Good band width for my workflows. (AJA KONA TOOL via the ATTO TECH EXPRESSAS R380 RADI HBA)
• 50% seagates :wacko: :wacko: I had originally in ths mac pro Failed after 9 months so I had them exchanged for WD's (500GB then) and never looked back. These 500GB WD's are on the shelf gathering dust after I replaced them with the current 1TB WD's ... the former are destined for the hong kong airport expansion landfill I think!

Others will reply..

Certainly look at the SAS JBOD enclosure (no SATA2) and fulfill the enclosure with the SATA2 disks that you can afford.

POst your results!

HTH
w

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Yes, it's a 2007 MacPro and doesn't have the 3 8x slots.

As warwickt pointed out, you can alter your PCIe allocations. 4X is more then plenty to operate an LTO-4.

Why weird?

If I understood you right, you are going to be connecting 4 individual eSATA units. Why not use a single enclosure that holds 4 drives? If that's the case, you really should consider a single enclosure that holds 4 or more drives. As opposed to using 4 individually contained, individually powered drives. That's just not a good way to go about doing a reliable RAID setup.

Sorry if I'm not understanding you right.