98 replies to this topic

[xhala_debru]

gramarye, on Oct 16 2008, 02:17 AM, said:

Didn't reply to your PM because i guess you sent 2 that made my box full, just rather discuss here anywho.
Great Job on your findings, just to let you know, that Highpoint controller does not support SAS Hard Drives, though it may use mini-SAS implementation for multiple SATA Hard Drives. (For example, 4 SATA > 1 Mini SAS Adapter, SATA just does not have that capability...) Whatever purpose is, you never mentioned what you plan on using these controllers for.
My 308 is simply a Host Bus Adapater, not a RAID adapter, though I can use the Hardware RAID on my motherboard or software RAID via Disk Utility, in Leopard (which works).

The RAID version of this is R380, which will cost a little more, but has more Hardware RAID capabilities, regardless, you have to make sure within your OS X, you have your Controller card detected, you'll need to add scripts to the install via terminal.
I can't help you much with the LSI 1068, again, you'll need to implement LSI's fusion scripts, I'm not sure if this has yet been succesful, guess you can try
Though you provided 3 options of Controllers, I can't quite help you decide since I don't know what you're trying to do, other than deciding on 3  Controllers. Provide more details, like what you plan on using them for, whats your setup you're trying to configure? Types of Hard Drives? SAS or SATA, etc...Booting? or just Backup.
Good Luck

Sorry, didn't mean to send it twice, it's just that it didn't appear in my sent messages, so I thought i didn't send it and clicked again on send message.  
I just wanted to reactivate the thread in case you didn't check it
But thank you for your reply   and pointing me out that the Atto 308 was "only" a bus adapter.

In my case, I just want to fulfill the geek inside of me and try 15k rpm sas drives.
The better would be it being bootable (system drive) and if it doesn't cost too much, raid bootable.

I haven't found a reseller for an areca  in belgium yet, I have to check it.

And thanks for all the others who posted, I'll keep you informed in this post of my successes or failures...

[deleted_account]

xhala_debru, on Oct 15 2008, 11:44 PM, said:

Sorry, didn't mean to send it twice, it's just that it didn't appear in my sent messages, so I thought i didn't send it and clicked again on send message.  
I just wanted to reactivate the thread in case you didn't check it
But thank you for your reply   and pointing me out that the Atto 308 was "only" a bus adapter.

In my case, I just want to fulfill the geek inside of me and try 15k rpm sas drives.
The better would be it being bootable (system drive) and if it doesn't cost too much, raid bootable.

I haven't found a reseller for an areca  in belgium yet, I have to check it.

And thanks for all the others who posted, I'll keep you informed in this post of my successes or failures...

Great! Hope things work out as SAS can be costly, are the 500gb 15K SAS drives out yet? For the ATTO, the "H" in H308 stands for "Host-Bus Adapter," the "R" in R380 stands for "RAID." What I'm really confused about is that I seem to be able to RAID with my HBA, but it's probably all software anyway. Remember, there is an advantage of using OSx86, is that there is a BIOS, which mean the computer does detect your hardware and all the drives prior to booting Leopard, now the next step is to actually have Leopard to read those drives in RAID (the very reason why we chose only Mac compatible Controllers! which comes with the drivers for the card)




My only situation right now, planning my Mac Pro setup (no more OSx86), seems liek the only bootable controller cards are the Areca (not quite sure about the one mentioned above) and the Apple Pro RAID Card as well. I think I'd rather just get the Pro (though it costs so much, i don't want to go through any workarounds anymore).



Good luck everyone, let me know if there are any more questions, I'll do my best to help, stay optimistic about this topic!

[xhala_debru]

Hi,

I finally got an areca 1222 SAS card.
I was afraid buy a cheaper one but that would maybe not be bootable.

So I can confirm that the card is raid bootable.
For my installation, what i did was:
1) Create the raidset (0) in bios
2) Boot on my "old" sata installation
3) Install the areca application (no need to install the drivers, they are in Leopard)
4) Format the raidset volume in GUID, 1 partition
5) Clone my install on raidset volume using Superduper (great soft, think about buying it...)
6) Install Chameleon bootloader on the raidset volume

I don't know why, but at first boot I had a "didn't receive an Hpet" error message, so I rebooted on my old install, recloned with superduper, and rebboted with -f options and then it was OK

Only trouble I have, as I have several disks connected on my areca controller, the bios of the motherboard seems to change the Hdd boot order, wich is a bit annoying.

[vlad1966]

xhala_debru, Are you able to install OS X to the Areca RAID 0 by booting a distro like Leo4all or any other?
I'd like to know if I could avoid cloning over a current install & copying Chameleon.

xhala_debru, on Oct 25 2008, 02:19 PM, said:

Hi,

I finally got an areca 1222 SAS card.
I was afraid buy a cheaper one but that would maybe not be bootable.

So I can confirm that the card is raid bootable.
For my installation, what i did was:
1) Create the raidset (0) in bios
2) Boot on my "old" sata installation
3) Install the areca application (no need to install the drivers, they are in Leopard)
4) Format the raidset volume in GUID, 1 partition
5) Clone my install on raidset volume using Superduper (great soft, think about buying it...)
6) Install Chameleon bootloader on the raidset volume

I don't know why, but at first boot I had a "didn't receive an Hpet" error message, so I rebooted on my old install, recloned with superduper, and rebboted with -f options and then it was OK

Only trouble I have, as I have several disks connected on my areca controller, the bios of the motherboard seems to change the Hdd boot order, wich is a bit annoying.

[xhala_debru]

vlad1966, on Oct 27 2008, 02:01 AM, said:

xhala_debru, Are you able to install OS X to the Areca RAID 0 by booting a distro like Leo4all or any other?
I'd like to know if I could avoid cloning over a current install & copying Chameleon.

Hi Vlad,

I'll check that this evening when I'll get back from work.
And for my messed boot drive order, I seem to have fixed it by allowing some time to spin up the drives at boot time by the controller.

Another problem is that on my setup, sleep function doesn't work anymore, fans keep spinning.
But sleep also breaks Time Machine (backup volume could not be found) and Superduper (Failed to preserve spotlight state).
I don't know which files got messed up.

And, of course, boot time and shutdown time is increased (by approx. 20 sec.)

But system is blazing fast!

[xhala_debru]

vlad1966, on Oct 27 2008, 02:01 AM, said:

xhala_debru, Are you able to install OS X to the Areca RAID 0 by booting a distro like Leo4all or any other?
I'd like to know if I could avoid cloning over a current install & copying Chameleon.

Yes, it does appear as an installable disk (tried with jas 10.5.4) and I can see the drivers are loaded at startup

Attached Files

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[vlad1966]

xhala_debru, on Oct 27 2008, 03:16 PM, said:

Yes, it does appear as an installable disk (tried with jas 10.5.4) and I can see the drivers are loaded at startup

Thanks xhala_debru,

I thought this would be the case, just wanted to be certain before blowing $500 on the ARC-1222.

[ilkarro]

Nobody tried one of Supermicro AOCs? They are cheap but we don't know if they are really bootable

[Tommy]

Do we still have any luck with SAS3442E ?

[bouloi75]

xhala_debru, on Oct 15 2008, 01:52 PM, said:

Hi,

I'm also looking to buy a sas controller for my Hack.

So far, I have come down to 3 choices (from cheapest to most expensive):
- HP part number 347786–B21, apprently it's LSI 1068 based (Raid 0 & 1)
- Highpoint 2640x4 (Raid 0 & 1 & 5...)
- Atto Xpress 308 (Raid 0 & 1 & 5...)

I'm 99% sure all of them would boot fine in NON raid mode.
But has anyone of you been able to have Leopard bootable in raid mode?

HP can be found in europe (belgium) around 120€
Highpoint around 150€
Atto around 320€

If none is rais bootable, I think the best choice out of 3 would e the Highpoint.

What do you think?

Thanx

I have the Highpoint 2640x4 and SAS drives. It works and is bootable in RAID mode. However, it's not visible during "normal" installation (with Install DVD). I installed first Leopard on a SATA drive, then from there install the Highpoint kext and lauch Leopard install process  (retail Leopard Install DVD) and choosed my SAS drive as destination.
The only problem I have is when my hack goes into sleep mode and then wake up, then the system freeze (I think the SAS drive/controller are not initialized).
Would someone have an idea about sleep mode when using HBA and SAS drive is welcome :-)

[xhala_debru]

bouloi75, on Nov 20 2008, 06:49 PM, said:

I have the Highpoint 2640x4 and SAS drives. It works and is bootable in RAID mode. However, it's not visible during "normal" installation (with Install DVD). I installed first Leopard on a SATA drive, then from there install the Highpoint kext and lauch Leopard install process  (retail Leopard Install DVD) and choosed my SAS drive as destination.
The only problem I have is when my hack goes into sleep mode and then wake up, then the system freeze (I think the SAS drive/controller are not initialized).
Would someone have an idea about sleep mode when using HBA and SAS drive is welcome :-)

Great, I'm glad to see someone has finally tested the Highpoint 2640x4.
I was almost sure it would be bootable, but didn't take the chance to try it so I went for a more expensive model (Areca 1222).
Now, thanks to you, people will know it's not necessary  

For your sleep problem, it looks that when using an external raid controller, sleep doesn't work anymore.
I've experienced it myself with my card from the day it put it in my computer: no sleep anymore.
In my case, OS goes to sleep but power and fan keep spinning.
Pressing a key wakes the computer without error.

I've searched a bit on the internet and it appears that even using the Apple raid card on the mac pro "breaks" sleep function.
Apple simply states that "Sleep is not supported with Apple raid card"

Another thing: I've tried PCEFI V9 as it says it allows deep sleep but it doesn't work either.
I've tried vanilla and Voodoo XNU kernel it doesn't change anything.

I guess it's the price we have to pay for being geeks and using external raid controllers  

[Tommy]

Anyone has any exp with HP Smart Array P400/P800 ?
The chipset on the card say LSI 1078 but apparently it does not use mpt-fusion driver but cciss instead.

[A.I.Ghost]

xhala_debru, bouloi75

How much RAM do you use guys?
Could there be a problem when actually using more than 3.2Gb?

I'm planning to build }{serve, with 8gb installed, so i have to be sure, since Areca cost as much as MoBo + Ram =)

Tnx. alot!

[xhala_debru]

A.I.Ghost, on Nov 27 2008, 06:29 PM, said:

xhala_debru, bouloi75

How much RAM do you use guys?
Could there be a problem when actually using more than 3.2Gb?

I'm planning to build }{serve, with 8gb installed, so i have to be sure, since Areca cost as much as MoBo + Ram =)

Tnx. alot!

Hi,

I use 4 Gb of ram and no KP of any kind.
BUT, I don't use any Ide device and I've disabled the Jmicron controller in the bios.

I think it's the safest way to go.

[A.I.Ghost]

Yep, disabling the JMicron is the safest way.
I actually asked if you have ever tried to use more than 3.2Gb, having 4gb+ simply installed in system wont be a problem ;-)
I dont know your HW knowledge level, but since you use RAID cards i assume it is at least as deep a mine, so sry for any inconvenience.

Could you confirm, or test it for me then?

[xhala_debru]

A.I.Ghost, on Nov 28 2008, 10:37 AM, said:

Yep, disabling the JMicron is the safest way.
I actually asked if you have ever tried to use more than 3.2Gb, having 4gb+ simply installed in system wont be a problem ;-)
I dont know your HW knowledge level, but since you use RAID cards i assume it is at least as deep a mine, so sry for any inconvenience.

Could you confirm, or test it for me then?

Well, as far as I know, Leopard sees the 4 Gb in the activity monitor and even when I use virtual machine with VMWare fusion (which tends to fill all my memory, bug?), the computer doesn't crash.

Before, when I used the JMicron for Ide dvd burner and didn't apply any JMicron patch, the computer would crash all the time around 99% when burning a dvd.

But I don't know how I could, by example, force Leopard to store 4 Gb of data in ram and see if it hangs or not.

[bouloi75]

A.I.Ghost, on Nov 27 2008, 06:29 PM, said:

xhala_debru, bouloi75

How much RAM do you use guys?
Could there be a problem when actually using more than 3.2Gb?

I'm planning to build }{serve, with 8gb installed, so i have to be sure, since Areca cost as much as MoBo + Ram =)

Tnx. alot!

Hi,
I use only 2 Gb for now (but will upgrade to 4Gb soon :-)

[Tommy]

LSI SAS3442E-R works (JBOD), haven't test with RAID yet.

[vlad1966]

Tommy, on Dec 3 2008, 05:33 PM, said:

LSI SAS3442E-R works (JBOD), haven't test with RAID yet.

You'll be disappointed with RAID (lack of it).
If you figure out how to get it to work please let us know.
I think you should be able to edit the plist in the kext, just don't know what the setting is.

[A.I.Ghost]

xhala_debru
There is an easy way to utilize 4GB of RAM.
Create a high-res texture with photoshop (or any program like it), say 10.000*10.000 pixels. Save it, than open it many-many-many times :-D and watch you RAM consumption. You can also mount several disk images and run several instances of VM. Should do the job.

all
What's the difference between Areca ARC1222 and ARC1680i? I didn't get it.
Look the same, have same specs, but ARC1680i is more expensive.