1st PCIe RAID card for Macs

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Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA/rr2320.htm



Each expansion slot in PCI Express can have several channels which gives plenty of room for expansion. Thereis also the same data rate in both directions providing the performance and scalability for the next decade.



The HighPoint RocketRAID 2320 Controller offers 8 internal ports that combine high-performance storage connectivity of Serial ATA with HighPoint's advanced RAID features, including, Online Capacity Expansion, Online RAID Level Migration (OCE/ORLM) and HighPoint's RAID Management software.



The RocketRAID 2320 supports advanced RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 10, and JBOD for maximum configuration flexibility. HighPoint offers the broadest range of support for all major operating systems to ensure OS and hardware server compatibility.



Drivers are available for all major operating systems, including Windows, Linux, FreeBSD. Open source is also provided for Linux and FreeBSD.





Hopefully the BSD support means plug-n-play support of OS X. Nice to see Highpoint on the ball here. I'm a bit shocked that more vendors weren't ready.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 16
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,464member
    http://www.wwug.com/cgi-bin/viewarticle.cgi?id=35267



    Atto Tech ULD5 U320 SCSI for PCIe Macs. Yeah!
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  • Reply 2 of 16
    slugheadslughead Posts: 1,169member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison

    Hopefully the BSD support means plug-n-play support of OS X. Nice to see Highpoint on the ball here. I'm a bit shocked that more vendors weren't ready.



    I'll believe it when I see it!



    I'll buy a quad G5 when I believe it!
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  • Reply 3 of 16
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    I have the Highpoint 1820A in my G5, and there is a special program called RAIDMan that comes with the card to configure and manage your RAID setup. If OS X is supported (as mentioned on some of their cards) it will be listed as a supported OS. Otherwise it is probably not.



    I wouldn't jump to conclusions.
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  • Reply 4 of 16
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ebby

    I have the Highpoint 1820A in my G5, and there is a special program called RAIDMan that comes with the card to configure and manage your RAID setup. If OS X is supported (as mentioned on some of their cards) it will be listed as a supported OS. Otherwise it is probably not.



    I wouldn't jump to conclusions.




    If it's not runnong on OS X now, I'd bet they are working on it. If I were interested I would drop them an email. (this can lead to getting the ball rolling)
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  • Reply 5 of 16
    Spoke to rocketraid today in regards to the 2320. They indicated to me that drivers for the new mac should be available in roughly 2 weeks. I asked them seeing how I have the 1820A, if I could jsut take those 8 drives and put them on the 2320 and if it would still recognise the raid 5 array and they indicated to me that it would NOT. That sure sucks seeing how now I have to find somewhere to dump my data then take out the drives put them into the new G5 rebuild the raid 5 array and then put the data back. They also indicated to me that if I wanted to I could purchase the card now as it will be the same card for either platforms.
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  • Reply 6 of 16
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,464member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dage007

    Spoke to rocketraid today in regards to the 2320. They indicated to me that drivers for the new mac should be available in roughly 2 weeks. I asked them seeing how I have the 1820A, if I could jsut take those 8 drives and put them on the 2320 and if it would still recognise the raid 5 array and they indicated to me that it would NOT. That sure sucks seeing how now I have to find somewhere to dump my data then take out the drives put them into the new G5 rebuild the raid 5 array and then put the data back. They also indicated to me that if I wanted to I could purchase the card now as it will be the same card for either platforms.





    dage007 great news! Thanks for the investigation work. Of course had you been caught we'd have to completely disavow you





    ...this message will self destruct in 10 seconds.
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  • Reply 7 of 16
    dage007dage007 Posts: 320member
    Actually they just indicated to me that the WEB app will also be like the one for the 2320 and not the 1820.



    here are there exact quotes for those wondering how realistic this info is:



    Hello,



    The card is the same for either platform.

    Drivers should be released within the next few weeks (or less).



    The card will not recognize an array created with the RR1820A.



    Regards,



    HighPoint Technologies, Inc.





    and also:



    Hello,



    The utility is similar to the RR2220 version (web-based).



    Regards,



    HighPoint Technologies, Inc.





    This sure makes me happy, now all I have to do is find someone selling this card in order to get it before my quad.
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  • Reply 8 of 16
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,464member
    dage007 I'd like to debrief you on the reliability of your 1820 setup. Any glitches or problems encountered that required special ops?



    Highpoint is still new to the Mac world. But I'm glad to see them jumping in with support on their product.



    AMCC 3Ware is also jumping into the fray with the 9550x SATA RAID. Sadly PCI-X only for the near future.
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  • Reply 9 of 16
    dage007dage007 Posts: 320member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison

    dage007 I'd like to debrief you on the reliability of your 1820 setup. Any glitches or problems encountered that required special ops?



    Highpoint is still new to the Mac world. But I'm glad to see them jumping in with support on their product.



    AMCC 3Ware is also jumping into the fray with the 9550x SATA RAID. Sadly PCI-X only for the near future.




    Not sure what yor talking about as in reliability. It is a hardware controller so software wise I dont think I really have to worry too much. In my opinion its no different then the external raid case I had. If the controller was to bie I would simply have to replace it with the identical one, at least that is the impression I am under. Never hte less, for a raid 5 unit, the speed I am getting with the cost of the highpoint I sure cant complain.
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  • Reply 10 of 16
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dage007

    I asked them seeing how I have the 1820A, if I could jsut take those 8 drives and put them on the 2320 and if it would still recognise the raid 5 array and they indicated to me that it would NOT. That sure sucks seeing how now I have to find somewhere to dump my data then take out the drives put them into the new G5 rebuild the raid 5 array and then put the data back.



    That does suck. THey need an upgrade path. Did they recommend anything to help you through this? Maybe they could come up with an application, or a script. you could run and it would ready your drives for use with the new version.
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  • Reply 11 of 16
    dage007dage007 Posts: 320member
    nope nothing. I was originally told that raid 5 used a certain algorithm that was standard. I jsut dont understnad why I cant take my 8 drives and put them into a new raid 5 config as long as my drives go in the proper order you would think it would work fine. Guess somewhere along the line companies did not plan for this.
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  • Reply 12 of 16
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    I've had only 2 problems with my 1820A.



    #1) Once I removed a hard drive and after plugging it back in it created 2 partial RAID 5 arrays. Both asked to be reformatted. Fortunately, I did NOT reformat but restarted and everything went back to normal.



    #2) Sleep does not work anymore. I can leave my computer on 24/7 or shut it down. The RAID 5 array is also not bootable. (I think they fixed these in newer versions.)
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  • Reply 13 of 16
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dage007

    nope nothing. I was originally told that raid 5 used a certain algorithm that was standard. I jsut dont understnad why I cant take my 8 drives and put them into a new raid 5 config as long as my drives go in the proper order you would think it would work fine. Guess somewhere along the line companies did not plan for this.



    I don't understand why you can't do it either. I guess I need to read up on the subject, because I for one thought you would have been able to do it even if it were a card from another manufacturer. Wasn't your raid setup configured in disk utility? Do they have some special app to set it up with, or something?



    I guess it could be a hardware thing. Maybe it fires in a different order, or reads at a different pace, and your drives are out of whack at that pace. They should still be able to update the drives via software I think. Something like how disc defragmentor for windows moves fragmented information into proper alignment. \
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  • Reply 14 of 16
    dage007dage007 Posts: 320member
    Well basically i installed all 8 drives and rand the raid config to make my raid 5. after that was done mac os x recognized it as a drive that had to be initialized. I then formated it for mac. HFS
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  • Reply 15 of 16
    slugheadslughead Posts: 1,169member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dage007

    Spoke to rocketraid today in regards to the 2320. They indicated to me that drivers for the new mac should be available in roughly 2 weeks. I asked them seeing how I have the 1820A, if I could jsut take those 8 drives and put them on the 2320 and if it would still recognise the raid 5 array and they indicated to me that it would NOT. That sure sucks seeing how now I have to find somewhere to dump my data then take out the drives put them into the new G5 rebuild the raid 5 array and then put the data back. They also indicated to me that if I wanted to I could purchase the card now as it will be the same card for either platforms.





    bad ass, I'll wait for the driver review
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  • Reply 16 of 16
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
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