[BlueApple]

1.) Let's say, if I have a Mac Pro with two regular same-sized SATA Harddrives; do I need a Mac Pro RAID card to create RAID configuration? Or can I just create it in the Disk Utility?

2.) What is SAS drive? I read it on wikipedia, and from what I can gather, it seems like something that is intended to replace SCSI. Am I right?

3.) On Apple site, it says Mac Pro RAID card is required in order to have SAS drive. Do I need to have two SAS drives? Let's say I'm not interested to have RAID configuration, but I want the speed of the SAS drive; can I just have one SAS drive with the Mac Pro RAID card?



Thanks

[Yonzie]

1) You can just create it in Disk utility. I am not sure if you can boot on it though.
2) As you say, SAS is the replacement to SCSI. It's backwards compatible with SATA so you can use SATA drives on a SAS controller and vice-versa.
3) It seems to me that there are no ports on the RAID card, making Apples claim a question of configuration options. I guess you can always buy the SAS drive separately and exchange it with the original.

[admactanium]

you can boot off of a raid created from disk utility for sure.

[ShadowOfGed]

Yes, but that's software RAID.

The RAID card punts all that logic into a dedicated piece of hardware, making it faster and ultimately a tad more reliable. Which is best really depends on what kind of I/O load you'll be placing on the disks, or if perhaps a hardware RAID gives you a warm fuzzy feeling where software RAID doesn't.

[709]

Originally Posted by Yonzie 2) As you say, SAS is the replacement to SCSI. It's backwards compatible with SATA so you can use SATA drives on a SAS controller and vice-versa.

Not quite vice-versa. You can't use SAS drives on a SATA controller.

Like you say in 3) though, this Apple card is a strange bird. I expected it to have at least one external connection...seems like a waste of all that power for only 3 drives (keeping the OS on the stock SATA, that is).

[Yonzie]

Originally Posted by 709 Not quite vice-versa. You can't use SAS drives on a SATA controller.

Really? Hmm... where did I get that idea then... Hmm...
After thinking about it for a bit, I guess you are right and my memory just got messed up since I haven't bothered with SCSI since SATA arrived.

But the RAID card could possibly have connectors on the backside, although it would be a bit strange. Since it's a factory option, the cables could easily be rewired at the factory.

[admactanium]

Originally Posted by ShadowOfGed Yes, but that's software RAID. The RAID card punts all that logic into a dedicated piece of hardware, making it faster and ultimately a tad more reliable. Which is best really depends on what kind of I/O load you'll be placing on the disks, or if perhaps a hardware RAID gives you a warm fuzzy feeling where software RAID doesn't.

oh right. as far as i've ever read you cannot boot from a raid controller card. although i'm not sure why you'd need to do that. if you had a lot of disk intensive stuff it would seem preferable to just offload the heavy work onto the raid controller drives and use your internal as your boot (or even an internal software raid).