Location: Aylmer (Gatineau) across the river from Ottawa
Posts: 16,194
Quote:
Originally Posted by CanadaSouth
Now here's a QUESTION about Mac Pro hard drives in the new 2010 MP 5,1 system. Even after upgrading my 2006 1,1 MP, I am still considering a local 2010 12 Core MP 5,1 system. I still think the biggest bottleneck is the I/O and not so much RAM and CPU. I guess it comes down to whether this SATA 6G work around (below) is possible before I'll shed $5K and try to catch lightning in a botle. So here goes:
I would like to buy a SATA 6G PCI / RAID card for a 2010 Mac Pro 12 core 5,1 system. I would then like to run the internal SATA cables from this new PCI Card to the 4 internal Hard Drive bays (unplug current bays 1 thru 4 SATA II cables from motherboard) and then install a 6G SSD under the upper optical drive and connect it to the new SATA 6G PCI Card as well. Is this possible? Do you know of any bus speed limitations that might be imposed by the 2010 MP Motherboard that would tend to negate the benefit of upgrading to this type of Hard Drive I/O scheme?
Most likely I will RAID the 4 internal drives and split into 3 partitions - one will be for Parallels.
Then I want to buy an external SATA 6G RAID enclosure to either CLONE my internal drives and or to be able to restore a failed internal RAID drive or recover from a complete RAID drive failure. I need bullet proof fast restore redundancy in case of a hard primary RAID failure for my business. Speaking of RAID, will enterprise drives buy me any additional data security?
What do I need to buy? Or is this type of upgrade NOT advisable with the current 5,1 build platform? Will waiting for the MP 6,1 be a better decision and how much of this idea could be implemented in a 2006 MP 1,1? And how much of a scientist will I need to be to get this working bug free?
Might be possible, I really don't know for sure, you will need to do your homework on this one. But one thing is for sure it would void any warranty that is left on the Mac Pro.
I don't think you could do any of it on a MP 1.1 as it is PCIe version one and would not be fast enough to support 6G.
I don't think you could do any of it on a MP 1.1 as it is PCIe version one and would not be fast enough to support 6G.
Maybe the better questions would be what is the best way to RAID the 4 bays in the MP 1,1. I have not played with RAID. I don't know if the Motherboard / Mac OS software provides a way to achieve this or if I need a PCI card.
The SATA standard is Sata II so getting 300mb per second is the upper end and maybe faster in a RAID. I would be happy just getting near 300mb. Also if I get the SATA II SSD, perhaps a Corsair drive for my OS and major Adobe Suite Programs, then maybe the combination of the RAID and SSD will finally get my machine at its best performance.
I have a 4 new drives coming in and an SSD. I will remove my 4 HD's in my machine, hook up a thermolake dock and see if I can't build a RAID.
Location: Aylmer (Gatineau) across the river from Ottawa
Posts: 16,194
Quote:
Originally Posted by CanadaSouth
Maybe the better questions would be what is the best way to RAID the 4 bays in the MP 1,1. I have not played with RAID. I don't know if the Motherboard / Mac OS software provides a way to achieve this or if I need a PCI card.
The SATA standard is Sata II so getting 300mb per second is the upper end and maybe faster in a RAID. I would be happy just getting near 300mb. Also if I get the SATA II SSD, perhaps a Corsair drive for my OS and major Adobe Suite Programs, then maybe the combination of the RAID and SSD will finally get my machine at its best performance.
I have a 4 new drives coming in and an SSD. I will remove my 4 HD's in my machine, hook up a thermolake dock and see if I can't build a RAID.
This is where things start to get interesting
You would have to buy an Apple RAID card (almost $900) to get hardware RAID for the internal drives of a MP. Otherwise you use the disk utility built into the OS to make a software RAID. You can do this for 2-4 drives in the MP.
You can buy a PCIe card (many are available, check OWC) for hardware RAID but the HDs will have to go in an external tower enclosure. Port multiplier eSATA is the way to go on this front IMO if that is what you choose to do.
If anybody's interested in going the MacPro1,1 CPU upgrade route your should know there are a matched pair of Xeon X5365 (3.00GHz SLAED stepping) on eBay just posted yesterday for a decent price ($450 CDN Buy It Now). Seller is Canadian too and shipping is cheap-ish (for eBay)
The seller previously had two matched pairs but I just bought one because I'm apparently insane
So yeah. I might have a matched pair of X5355 2.66 GHz quad cores up for sale shortly if anybody's interested in that either
Location: Aylmer (Gatineau) across the river from Ottawa
Posts: 16,194
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. CoBalt
If anybody's interested in going the MacPro1,1 CPU upgrade route your should know there are a matched pair of Xeon X5365 (3.00GHz SLAED stepping) on eBay just posted yesterday for a decent price ($450 CDN Buy It Now). Seller is Canadian too and shipping is cheap-ish (for eBay)
The seller previously had two matched pairs but I just bought one because I'm apparently insane
So yeah. I might have a matched pair of X5355 2.66 GHz quad cores up for sale shortly if anybody's interested in that either
Yep that is a good price... Hmmm if I sell my Xeon 5160s that I got in the spring for a couple of hundred that would mean I could get these for around $250...
Only thing, why is the guy adding taxes to the sale?
Yep that is a good price... Hmmm if I sell my Xeon 5160s that I got in the spring for a couple of hundred that would mean I could get these for around $250...
Only thing, why is the guy adding taxes to the sale?
Things that make you Hmmm...
If it's a business he has to add tax, doesn't matter if he sells on a website or in person. Just make sure he has a valid GST/HST number if you're concerned that the tax portion of things is a scam.
BTW I have a Radeon X1900XT 512M Ram that I just pulled from my MP 1,1 and 2 Xeon 5160 3GHz processors that were pulled last weekend. Don't know the complexities of mailing north of the border.
Location: Aylmer (Gatineau) across the river from Ottawa
Posts: 16,194
Quote:
Originally Posted by mguertin
If it's a business he has to add tax, doesn't matter if he sells on a website or in person. Just make sure he has a valid GST/HST number if you're concerned that the tax portion of things is a scam.
Agreed. So long as he is claiming the sale in his revenue/income to CRA... I am suspicious of this on an eBay sale as I never been asked to pay taxes before.
Agreed. So long as he is claiming the sale in his revenue/income to CRA... I am suspicious of this on an eBay sale as I never been asked to pay taxes before.
No way to confirm if he's actually paying anything to the government I'd imagine (short of working for the CRA I suppose...)
I do seem to recall paying tax on an eBay sale before, again only with a Canadian seller though. I certainly don't think he's pocketing it but maybe I am inclined to be too trusting of people on the internet His eBay store looks like just an extension of his physical store, and that plus his perfect eBay feedback seems alright to me.
Anybody in Markham want to pop by and say hi to him?
Say not to take this conversation in a different direction, but has anyone tried to connect an OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD via a NewerTechnology eSATA 6G PCIe 2.0 Controller Card? I understand this may get slightly better performance than a 300mb/s SATA II SSD and the card is $50US at OWC? I want to connect the external cable to an internally mounted SSD drive that I will place under the upper optical drive. This is the next logical step to gain higher performance from a Mac Pro 1,1, and perhaps one of the last things I can think of that will make a positive difference with this old MP. I have read that the PCIe bus can be configured to 8 lane, 4 lane, 2 Lane etc and I don't know if this has anything to do with how fast the 6G eSATA controller can operate.
I want to buy the 6G SSD, because if I get a new system, this will obviously go to the new MP.
X5365 matched pair for sale!
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