What is the limit with SATA? I've seen five-way port multipliers for them. For me, that would be enough, that would allow me to have ten external drives without buying a PCIe card and without going to Firewire.
There are a bunch of PCI/PCIE SATA cards (internal and/or external) out there from FirmTek, Sonnet, and HighPoint in the $100-$200 price range. Some of these already have port multipliers (Sonnet). I'm not aware of any Mac having external SATA built-in?
If you look into it, eSATA is a no brainer (FirmTek has the only (2-port) PCIE adapter that is bootable on the G5, perhaps the others will have updated firmware sometime in the future, on the Mac Pro I'm not sure, but I think none of the PCIE SATA cards are currently bootable (someone correct me if I'm wrong)).
IMHO, eSATA is the (near term) future of portable/external HD storage (and if bootable from your lappy with a RAID setup, would be way fast).
There are a bunch of PCI/PCIE SATA cards (internal and/or external) out there from FirmTek, Sonnet, and HighPoint in the $100-$200 price range. Some of these already have port multipliers (Sonnet). I'm not aware of any Mac having external SATA built-in?
If you look into it, eSATA is a no brainer (FirmTek has the only (2-port) PCIE adapter that is bootable on the G5, perhaps the others will have updated firmware sometime in the future, on the Mac Pro I'm not sure, but I think none of the PCIE SATA cards are currently bootable (someone correct me if I'm wrong)).
What I had in mind was my Mac Pro's hidden set of two unused SATA ports and an external expansion plate adapter. The bootable issue is a non-issue for those that can do this.
What I had in mind was my Mac Pro's hidden set of two unused SATA ports and an external expansion plate adapter. The bootable issue is a non-issue for those that can do this.
Cool, didn't realize the Mac Pro had them! Are they 150 or 300 SATA? eSATA-II with SATA-II drives (perhaps SATA-I also (?)) can get about 240MB/s from a 4-drive RAID setup (see Bare Feats).
I'd like to get a Mac Pro, probably wait for MWSF07 (or later) for an octo, but I've only had my quad G5 for a year now, so I'll probably wait until this time next year.
Be carefull - these ports do not support dynamic hot plug.
Good call. So my choices are, if I want bootability, I use the internal ports but never remove the drives, if I want removability, buy an add-in card but I can't boot. I think those two options might be fine with me. The Mac Pro can already have five internal hard drives without custom brackets, so booting from any of those should be fine for my use. I expect that Firmtek will be able to add bootability to one of their adapters eventually, not that I think I will need it.
Good call. So my choices are, if I want bootability, I use the internal ports but never remove the drives, if I want removability, buy an add-in card but I can't boot. I think those two options might be fine with me. The Mac Pro can already have five internal hard drives without custom brackets, so booting from any of those should be fine for my use. I expect that Firmtek will be able to add bootability to one of their adapters eventually, not that I think I will need it.
Hi Jeff - I'm buying a MacPro soon. Think I'll continue to use an external fw clone for backup in the meantime, until they sort Intel out on eSata.
I would like to see the Mac Pro support both SAS and SATA hard drives like the Xserve.
After doing a little web digging around today, I can see where SAS is actually a superset which includes SAS and SATA-II drives. Currently ATTO is the only 3rd party vendor that has a PCIE SAS host adapter ($1,100 MSRP (Ouch!)), announced 10/31/06 (but I don't know if it's shipping yet). It would be sweet if an updated Mac Pro offered SAS. With the current 4 (Or is it 5) HD bay Mac Pro, this would allow for both ES and PS.
On another note, MTBF (or AFR) links WRT SAS/SCSI versus SATA;
And finally two links from wikipedia with background on probability distributions (PDF (no, not the Adobe PDF)/CDF stuff), the first link is to the commonly assumed exponential distribution used in the HD industry),
After doing a little web digging around today, I can see where SAS is actually a superset which includes SAS and SATA-II drives. Currently ATTO is the only 3rd party vendor that has a PCIE SAS host adapter ($1,100 MSRP (Ouch!)), announced 10/31/06 (but I don't know if it's shipping yet). It would be sweet if an updated Mac Pro offered SAS. With the current 4 (Or is it 5) HD bay Mac Pro, this would allow for both ES and PS.
Isn't the Raptor pretty much an ES drive? It seems to be in between the two classes.
Mac Pro has four SATA bays, but the bay below the optical drive also works for one PATA, or another SATA if you are willing to snake a cable around.
Isn't the Raptor pretty much an ES drive? It seems to be in between the two classes.
Mac Pro has four SATA bays, but the bay below the optical drive also works for one PATA, or another SATA if you are willing to snake a cable around.
I guess I hit the jackpot, 1,200,000 hours MTBF at 100% duty cycle, so yes you are correct, and Western Digital claims ES level in their specifications (5 year limited warranty, 16MB cache, 10K RPM, and NCQ to boot);
So when does everyone think we're gonna see 8-core Pros? Would MWSF be too early for Apple to have them in shipping quantity?
I'm curious to see if the price/performance difference will get better with 4 and 8-core systems as options in the Mac Pro. I don't really need 8-cores for what I do but I'll gladly take one if the shift to more cores continues at the same basic price point.
Some Apple resellers have deals at the moment and a Mac Pro 2.66ghz 2gb(4x512mb)/250gb/superdrive/x1900 can be had at a reasonable cost. If the new machines will be here this spring though, I can wait it out and get Leopard included with it. Tax return should be helpful too.
Just anxious to put my 1ghz Tibook out to pasture and connect my new Dell 2407FP up to something truly worthy.
For 3D, post production video effects and now with the above link it kind of looks like PShop has been M-cored. If you could get that kind of performance most of the time? You'd take it over the 3 gig quad model.
Best to wait until Leopard arrives. By the time the .1 patch on that ships, cpus will be close from Intel (probably...) that will put the quad and octo in their place.
However, if m-core programming is on the rise then a quad and octo will serve you well for a good few years. But we've only just got into the m-core thing. It's like hitting a moving target!
Octo cores will probably arrive some time in January.
Octo cores will probably arrive some time in January.
Isn't Intel doing the same agressive pricing with these chips as it did with the CD => C2D. You get the faster, newer, better chop for the same price, which pretty much gaurantees a fast upgrade? Though, I recall Apple being one of the last OEMs to adopt the C2D. Perhaps the Pro machine dynamics will be different.
Isn't Intel doing the same agressive pricing with these chips as it did with the CD => C2D. You get the faster, newer, better chop for the same price, which pretty much gaurantees a fast upgrade? Though, I recall Apple being one of the last OEMs to adopt the C2D. Perhaps the Pro machine dynamics will be different.
It just seemed like apple was the last to adopt because they went straight for Merom. Merom shipped well after Conroe. Apple was within a week of Merom's release with the iMacs being bumped.
It just seemed like apple was the last to adopt because they went straight for Merom. Merom shipped well after Conroe. Apple was within a week of Merom's release with the iMacs being bumped.
There is more to it than that. That was just the iMacs, they took an extra month to update the pros, and yet another month to update the consumer units.
But that was just the iMacs, they took an extra month to update the pros, and yet another month to update the consumer units.
Yah the MBP's i'm a little curious about (perhaps because they are not a drop in replacement and they need to be soldered in). But the MacPros, at the time woodcrest was very very limited. Perhaps apple is tired of their old song and dance they had with IBM / Motorola of announcing products and them not shipping for 3 months after. But then again... look at XServe :-/
It seams the transfer speeds are very adequate. My only wish is for apple to offer 10k and 15k RPM drives for their flagship. I know they are less reliable but they sure offer some awesome performance. I noticed the XServe has them.
Comments
What is the limit with SATA? I've seen five-way port multipliers for them. For me, that would be enough, that would allow me to have ten external drives without buying a PCIe card and without going to Firewire.
There are a bunch of PCI/PCIE SATA cards (internal and/or external) out there from FirmTek, Sonnet, and HighPoint in the $100-$200 price range. Some of these already have port multipliers (Sonnet). I'm not aware of any Mac having external SATA built-in?
If you look into it, eSATA is a no brainer (FirmTek has the only (2-port) PCIE adapter that is bootable on the G5, perhaps the others will have updated firmware sometime in the future, on the Mac Pro I'm not sure, but I think none of the PCIE SATA cards are currently bootable (someone correct me if I'm wrong)).
IMHO, eSATA is the (near term) future of portable/external HD storage (and if bootable from your lappy with a RAID setup, would be way fast).
Bare Feats FirmTek Review
Arizona AMUG FirmTek Review
There are a bunch of PCI/PCIE SATA cards (internal and/or external) out there from FirmTek, Sonnet, and HighPoint in the $100-$200 price range. Some of these already have port multipliers (Sonnet). I'm not aware of any Mac having external SATA built-in?
If you look into it, eSATA is a no brainer (FirmTek has the only (2-port) PCIE adapter that is bootable on the G5, perhaps the others will have updated firmware sometime in the future, on the Mac Pro I'm not sure, but I think none of the PCIE SATA cards are currently bootable (someone correct me if I'm wrong)).
What I had in mind was my Mac Pro's hidden set of two unused SATA ports and an external expansion plate adapter. The bootable issue is a non-issue for those that can do this.
What I had in mind was my Mac Pro's hidden set of two unused SATA ports and an external expansion plate adapter. The bootable issue is a non-issue for those that can do this.
Cool, didn't realize the Mac Pro had them! Are they 150 or 300 SATA? eSATA-II with SATA-II drives (perhaps SATA-I also (?)) can get about 240MB/s from a 4-drive RAID setup (see Bare Feats).
I'd like to get a Mac Pro, probably wait for MWSF07 (or later) for an octo, but I've only had my quad G5 for a year now, so I'll probably wait until this time next year.
Are they 150 or 300 SATA?
SATA 300.
What I had in mind was my Mac Pro's hidden set of two unused SATA ports and an external expansion plate adapter.
Be carefull - these ports do not support dynamic hot plug.
Scratch it nothing to look at,
SATA 300.
Be carefull - these ports do not support dynamic hot plug.
Good call. So my choices are, if I want bootability, I use the internal ports but never remove the drives, if I want removability, buy an add-in card but I can't boot. I think those two options might be fine with me. The Mac Pro can already have five internal hard drives without custom brackets, so booting from any of those should be fine for my use. I expect that Firmtek will be able to add bootability to one of their adapters eventually, not that I think I will need it.
Good call. So my choices are, if I want bootability, I use the internal ports but never remove the drives, if I want removability, buy an add-in card but I can't boot. I think those two options might be fine with me. The Mac Pro can already have five internal hard drives without custom brackets, so booting from any of those should be fine for my use. I expect that Firmtek will be able to add bootability to one of their adapters eventually, not that I think I will need it.
Hi Jeff - I'm buying a MacPro soon. Think I'll continue to use an external fw clone for backup in the meantime, until they sort Intel out on eSata.
Or do what you suggest - use an internal.
I would like to see the Mac Pro support both SAS and SATA hard drives like the Xserve.
After doing a little web digging around today, I can see where SAS is actually a superset which includes SAS and SATA-II drives. Currently ATTO is the only 3rd party vendor that has a PCIE SAS host adapter ($1,100 MSRP (Ouch!)), announced 10/31/06 (but I don't know if it's shipping yet). It would be sweet if an updated Mac Pro offered SAS. With the current 4 (Or is it 5) HD bay Mac Pro, this would allow for both ES and PS.
On another note, MTBF (or AFR) links WRT SAS/SCSI versus SATA;
Seagate White Paper (PDF)
The reference paper to Figure 9 above,
Estimating Drive Reliability in Desktop Computers Consumer Electronics Systems (HTML)
A paper to be presented at the USENIX FAST07 conference (February 14-16, 2007),
Disk failures in the real world: What does an MTTF of 1,000,000 hours mean to you? (PDF)
And finally two links from wikipedia with background on probability distributions (PDF (no, not the Adobe PDF)/CDF stuff), the first link is to the commonly assumed exponential distribution used in the HD industry),
Exponential Distribution
Probability Distributions
After doing a little web digging around today, I can see where SAS is actually a superset which includes SAS and SATA-II drives. Currently ATTO is the only 3rd party vendor that has a PCIE SAS host adapter ($1,100 MSRP (Ouch!)), announced 10/31/06 (but I don't know if it's shipping yet). It would be sweet if an updated Mac Pro offered SAS. With the current 4 (Or is it 5) HD bay Mac Pro, this would allow for both ES and PS.
Isn't the Raptor pretty much an ES drive? It seems to be in between the two classes.
Mac Pro has four SATA bays, but the bay below the optical drive also works for one PATA, or another SATA if you are willing to snake a cable around.
Isn't the Raptor pretty much an ES drive? It seems to be in between the two classes.
Mac Pro has four SATA bays, but the bay below the optical drive also works for one PATA, or another SATA if you are willing to snake a cable around.
I guess I hit the jackpot, 1,200,000 hours MTBF at 100% duty cycle, so yes you are correct, and Western Digital claims ES level in their specifications (5 year limited warranty, 16MB cache, 10K RPM, and NCQ to boot);
WD Raptor
I recently got two of these, sweet!
I'm curious to see if the price/performance difference will get better with 4 and 8-core systems as options in the Mac Pro. I don't really need 8-cores for what I do but I'll gladly take one if the shift to more cores continues at the same basic price point.
Some Apple resellers have deals at the moment and a Mac Pro 2.66ghz 2gb(4x512mb)/250gb/superdrive/x1900 can be had at a reasonable cost. If the new machines will be here this spring though, I can wait it out and get Leopard included with it. Tax return should be helpful too.
Just anxious to put my 1ghz Tibook out to pasture and connect my new Dell 2407FP up to something truly worthy.
http://creativebits.org/8_core_mac_pro
Well, depends on what you're doing...
For 3D, post production video effects and now with the above link it kind of looks like PShop has been M-cored. If you could get that kind of performance most of the time? You'd take it over the 3 gig quad model.
Best to wait until Leopard arrives. By the time the .1 patch on that ships, cpus will be close from Intel (probably...) that will put the quad and octo in their place.
However, if m-core programming is on the rise then a quad and octo will serve you well for a good few years. But we've only just got into the m-core thing. It's like hitting a moving target!
Octo cores will probably arrive some time in January.
Lemon Bon Bon
Octo cores will probably arrive some time in January.
Isn't Intel doing the same agressive pricing with these chips as it did with the CD => C2D. You get the faster, newer, better chop for the same price, which pretty much gaurantees a fast upgrade? Though, I recall Apple being one of the last OEMs to adopt the C2D. Perhaps the Pro machine dynamics will be different.
Isn't Intel doing the same agressive pricing with these chips as it did with the CD => C2D. You get the faster, newer, better chop for the same price, which pretty much gaurantees a fast upgrade? Though, I recall Apple being one of the last OEMs to adopt the C2D. Perhaps the Pro machine dynamics will be different.
It just seemed like apple was the last to adopt because they went straight for Merom. Merom shipped well after Conroe. Apple was within a week of Merom's release with the iMacs being bumped.
It just seemed like apple was the last to adopt because they went straight for Merom. Merom shipped well after Conroe. Apple was within a week of Merom's release with the iMacs being bumped.
There is more to it than that. That was just the iMacs, they took an extra month to update the pros, and yet another month to update the consumer units.
But that was just the iMacs, they took an extra month to update the pros, and yet another month to update the consumer units.
Yah the MBP's i'm a little curious about (perhaps because they are not a drop in replacement and they need to be soldered in). But the MacPros, at the time woodcrest was very very limited. Perhaps apple is tired of their old song and dance they had with IBM / Motorola of announcing products and them not shipping for 3 months after. But then again... look at XServe :-/
We can hardly compare the PPC lag times with the Intel ones.
Post PPC, Apple is a transformed company.
Shipping times most often immediately or a few weeks.
And get this, regular cpu updates!
We'd have been waiting some time for Dual core on PPC and getting that into the laptop line?
Tsssssssssss. Don't go there. Too hot.
If Apple keeps the 3 gig quad and have it as the mid range model, I may take that instead if it's priced much cheaper than the octo model.
Lemon Bon Bon
http://www.informationweek.com/news/...leID=196801549