# will hardware RAID card wipe out Mediasonic RAID?



## keebler27 (Jan 5, 2007)

Hi folks,

Bought the newertech RAID sata card and about to install in my 2009 mac pro to connect, the mediasonic box i have already RAID'd (using it's onboard RAID setup).

I should just be able to plug the mediasonic in via esata and the card will read it, but won't re-format right?

I believe I'm correct, but at the risk of a colossal screwup if I'm wrong, I'm asking others 

Cheers,
Keebler


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## Guest (Jul 10, 2011)

You should be fine. With the newertech raid card it will default to just mounting whatever you plug onto the desktop (JBOD) .. you have to specifically go into the web admin to create any kind of RAID setups or rebuilding or otherwise modify existing disks, etc.


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## keebler27 (Jan 5, 2007)

mguertin said:


> You should be fine. With the newertech raid card it will default to just mounting whatever you plug onto the desktop (JBOD) .. you have to specifically go into the web admin to create any kind of RAID setups or rebuilding or otherwise modify existing disks, etc.


thanks MG! Here's another one for you. When I bought that sans digital box a few wks ago, it came with a dual sata card. It must be raid too, but having both just gave my MP fits.

I had a light blue colour over my entire screen and it was locked up.

I took the newertech card out, looked at it curiously, took the other raid card out and aside from branding, they are the exact same card. 10000000000% the same.

So i'm thinking they are causing themselves issues or the MP just doesn't like / can't handle 2 raid sata cards?

I took out the sans digital card and put the newertech card back in the same slot I had it in (above the sans digital's slot).

Weird....

will try to put both back in, but I don't have high hopes of it working which will not be good.

Cheers,
Keebler


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## CanadaRAM (Jul 24, 2005)

keebler27 said:


> thanks MG! Here's another one for you. When I bought that sans digital box a few wks ago, it came with a dual sata card. It must be raid too, but having both just gave my MP fits.
> 
> I had a light blue colour over my entire screen and it was locked up.
> 
> I took the newertech card out, looked at it curiously, took the other raid card out and aside from branding, they are the exact same card. 10000000000% the same.


The SansDigital pci-e card is a rebadged Highpoint card IIRC. If you are using one of the ports For the SansDigital box, you could try using the other esata port for the Mediasonic. Or same plan but with the Newer card.
You also may have to dig for updated firmware for the SansDigital Highpoint.


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## keebler27 (Jan 5, 2007)

CanadaRAM said:


> The SansDigital pci-e card is a rebadged Highpoint card IIRC. If you are using one of the ports For the SansDigital box, you could try using the other esata port for the Mediasonic. Or same plan but with the Newer card.
> You also may have to dig for updated firmware for the SansDigital Highpoint.


Thanks CRam

I should clarify that I'm trying to use both cards - both ports on the highpoint to the sans digital (7 drives jbod) and then 1 of the ports on the newertech for the mediasonic. 

Cheers
Keebler


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## Guest (Jul 10, 2011)

I never had luck getting the one included with the sans enclosure going and gave up on it. I had seen them work in the past but break with OS updates so I didn't bother trying this time around. I'm using a pair of the newertech cards personally. It could be a driver thing, because the newertech card is a rebranded highpoint as well. Did you install the drivers from the newertech disc?


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## CanadaRAM (Jul 24, 2005)

keebler27 said:


> Thanks CRam
> I should clarify that I'm trying to use both cards - both ports on the highpoint to the sans digital (7 drives jbod) and then 1 of the ports on the newertech for the mediasonic.


Ah gotcha. A PortMultiplier eSATA port can handle up to 5 drives, if you have the 8 bay enclosure, you need both card ports in PM mode.

Are you running the mediasonic in its internal RAID(X) mode?

I'm tending to agree with the theory of competing different version drivers. If you are using the mediasonics internal RAID the it will appear as a single drive, and the newer card doesn't really have to 'run RAID' at all.


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## keebler27 (Jan 5, 2007)

Hey guys,

I'll summarize the sequence of events:

I had the Sans Digital card in working (with driver installed), no problem - connected to the 8 bay JBOD via 2 esata cables (1 cable per 4 drives (4 hds on 1 cable and then 3 on the other). Reading all drives. Speeds seemed to be fine. It was in slot #3. I have the compressHD card in #2 and the graphics card is in #1.

I installed the Newertech card in slot #4. Installed the driver. Rebooted and had the light blue screen over everything.

The Mediasonic box is in Raid 10 using its onboard raid setup.

I took the sans digital card out and system is normal although i haven't connected anything to the newertech card (i went to bed last night - looooong day of rearranging my office 

Not sure how to proceed from here. I thought I could add 2 different esata cards, but maybe not? Maybe the drivers are fighting each other?

Cheers,
Keebler


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## Guest (Jul 10, 2011)

Did you install drivers for the Sans provided card? Did you install drivers for the Newertech card? Again I suspect that it might be the rebranded drivers battling each other. FWIW the newertech cards have been absolutely awesome and painless for me in my setup and even worked transparently with 3 cards. The sans cards have sucked every single time I tried to use them. I've also had clients have some serious issues and lose a lot of data because of the sans cards. I might just be superstitious as this was a while back, but I just don't trust the sans cards. Dealing with their support for them was a total waste of time and trying to find firmware updates and/or updated drivers was even worse (for the longest time they only supported 10.3.x and no higher).

If you haven't installed any specific drivers for the sans card I'd honestly pull it and get a second newertech card, I know they play well together (and they even both show up in the single web interface with all the devices attached present and even let me span a RAID across multiple cards -- which I didn't do but just thought it was cool that I could!)

I ran a sans 8 bay and a sans 4 bay on mine (I still have one eSata channel available for use).


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## keebler27 (Jan 5, 2007)

mguertin said:


> Did you install drivers for the Sans provided card? Did you install drivers for the Newertech card? Again I suspect that it might be the rebranded drivers battling each other. FWIW the newertech cards have been absolutely awesome and painless for me in my setup and even worked transparently with 3 cards. The sans cards have sucked every single time I tried to use them. I've also had clients have some serious issues and lose a lot of data because of the sans cards. I might just be superstitious as this was a while back, but I just don't trust the sans cards. Dealing with their support for them was a total waste of time and trying to find firmware updates and/or updated drivers was even worse (for the longest time they only supported 10.3.x and no higher).
> 
> If you haven't installed any specific drivers for the sans card I'd honestly pull it and get a second newertech card, I know they play well together (and they even both show up in the single web interface with all the devices attached present and even let me span a RAID across multiple cards -- which I didn't do but just thought it was cool that I could!)
> 
> I ran a sans 8 bay and a sans 4 bay on mine (I still have one eSata channel available for use).


Thanks mg. I had installed the SD driver prior to the newer tech card and driver install. Might try removing the SD driver and reinstalling and if that doesnt work, I might order another newer tech from or just stick with the fw800 to the media sonic. It's just for iTunes so need for speed isn't huge issue . Thanks for the feedback on those - glad to know it should work.


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## keebler27 (Jan 5, 2007)

Hey CRam and MG,

I got it! Uninstalled the Highpoint driver using their command script on the CD.

Shut down the MP, re-installed card.

booted up just fine. 
checked about mac and saw both devices using the same driver.

plugged in all 3 sata cables (2 to highpoint and 1 to newertech), fired up mediasonic and SD boxes and whammo, all HDs recognized.

I'm in business!

You were right - the drivers were scrapping 

MG, when you told me about the newertech cards working together, I decided to try the highpoint card in without its driver b/c they are virtually the same card. Even my non-technical wife looked at them and said, 'wow...they look the same'. So, based on your experience, I gave it a shot and made out perfect! THANKS!

Now onto the last stages of re-arranging my office - I keep telling myself that I can go out any day of the week so it's really not perfectly sunny and warm out today lol

Cheers,
Keebler


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## Guest (Jul 10, 2011)

Awesome, glad it all worked out for you. I might have to pull my pair of SD cards from mothballs and give them a shot with the newertech drivers installer  Never hurts to have 2 more eSata cards!


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## keebler27 (Jan 5, 2007)

mguertin said:


> Awesome, glad it all worked out for you. I might have to pull my pair of SD cards from mothballs and give them a shot with the newertech drivers installer  Never hurts to have 2 more eSata cards!


right on. good luck!


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

thought i'd dig up this thread to ask a question about the mediasonic raid enclosures.... is it possible to run the drives not being in a raid? i wouldn't mind using one (for a short time) just as a big enclosure.

also, snooping around ebay i say this generic sata card :

2 SATA II Controller PCI-E 2 eSATA Card Mac Pro OSX | eBay

price is right, but not sure if it's worth the risk. just wondering if anyone has any experience with it, or something similar.

thanks in advance.


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## keebler27 (Jan 5, 2007)

i-rui said:


> thought i'd dig up this thread to ask a question about the mediasonic raid enclosures.... is it possible to run the drives not being in a raid? i wouldn't mind using one (for a short time) just as a big enclosure.
> 
> also, snooping around ebay i say this generic sata card :
> 
> ...


good question. I haven't tried it so not sure. You might be able to b/c part of the setup is to choose a RAID choice, but maybe if you didn't make a choice, it would be jbod. Unfortunately, mine's set up so I can't try it.

I just looked for the pdf of the manual which I thought I had saved, but don't. I would check that to be sure.


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2011)

If the enclosure supports JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) mode then you should be fine. As for that other eSata card I dunno ... the problem with them is that they don't come with modern drivers (and most need them). The drivers direct from the makers of the chipset are typically horribly behind and may or may not work. I've had clients use those in the past and have seen lots of breakage on system updates.

It _looks_ like it might be a silicon image based chipset, but they don't say that in the ad that I could see and the image doesn't have enough resolution to be sure. They look like the OEM cards that came with my Sans Digital enclosures, which I did pull out of mothballs but didn't have any luck getting them working in my Mac Pro (even with the newertech RAID card drivers installed).

If you want a decent port multiplier capable eSata card I'd honestly spend the money on the newertech ones as they have been great for me, not a single issue to date. Macdoc probably even has them in stock.


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

thanks guys.

i don't think the mediasonic enclosure i was looking at supports JBOD. not a big deal, but it would ease the transition if it did...


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

i-rui said:


> thought i'd dig up this thread to ask a question about the mediasonic raid enclosures.... is it possible to run the drives not being in a raid? i wouldn't mind using one (for a short time) just as a big enclosure.
> 
> also, snooping around ebay i say this generic sata card :
> 
> ...


Depends on which one you get, their site lays it out pretty clearly. Are you getting a 4 drive enclosure? The card you are looking at doesn't from what I can see support a port multiplier.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

mguertin said:


> If the enclosure supports JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) mode then you should be fine. As for that other eSata card I dunno ... the problem with them is that they don't come with modern drivers (and most need them). The drivers direct from the makers of the chipset are typically horribly behind and may or may not work. I've had clients use those in the past and have seen lots of breakage on system updates.
> 
> It _looks_ like it might be a silicon image based chipset, but they don't say that in the ad that I could see and the image doesn't have enough resolution to be sure. They look like the OEM cards that came with my Sans Digital enclosures, which I did pull out of mothballs but didn't have any luck getting them working in my Mac Pro (even with the newertech RAID card drivers installed).
> 
> *If you want a decent port multiplier capable eSata card I'd honestly spend the money on the newertech ones as they have been great for me, not a single issue to date. Macdoc probably even has them in stock*.


Agreed it isn't worth cheaping out the eSATA card and can actually lead to a lot of headaches.


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2011)

i-rui said:


> thanks guys.
> 
> i don't think the mediasonic enclosure i was looking at supports JBOD. not a big deal, but it would ease the transition if it did...


If you want something that does 4 drives for external JBOD eSata you can pick up a Sans Digital 4 bay for just over $100 from newegg. I have this enclosure and it's great for me.

Newegg.ca - Sans Digital 4 Bay eSATA Port Multiplier JBOD Tower Storage Enclosure (no eSATA Card bundle) TR4M+BNC




screature said:


> Depends on which one you get, their site lays it out pretty clearly. Are you getting a 4 drive enclosure? The card you are looking at doesn't from what I can see support a port multiplier.


It says something about port multiplier, but it's unclear.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

mguertin said:


> If you want something that does 4 drives for external JBOD eSata you can pick up a Sans Digital 4 bay for just over $100 from newegg. I have this enclosure and it's great for me.
> 
> Newegg.ca - Sans Digital 4 Bay eSATA Port Multiplier JBOD Tower Storage Enclosure (no eSATA Card bundle) TR4M+BNC
> 
> ...


Oh yes I see it now... Hmmm... I would be suspicious as when a card actually supports a port multiplier they tend to advertise it front and centre indicating that the card can actually support up to 10 drives as it is a major selling feature so that it is hidden away in the specs makes me suspicious as does the price...


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

One more question - do these eSata enclosures allow you to mount the drives simply by turning it on, or does it have to be on when the computer starts?

I'm currently using a dual eSata enclosure with the extra 2 onboard sata ports from my mac pro (using the newertech cable extension through a card slot) and those drives MUST be mounted at start up.... but I believe they can also be used as boot drives. I know most external eSata drives can't be used to boot, but not sure if they have to mounted at start up.


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2011)

No, you can turn on any time to mount with the Sans enclosures, or you can at the very least when it's hooked up to the Newertech RAID card that I have in my setup.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

mguertin said:


> No, you can turn on any time to mount with the Sans enclosures, or you can at the very least when it's hooked up to the Newertech RAID card that I have in my setup.





i-rui said:


> One more question - do these eSata enclosures allow you to mount the drives simply by turning it on, or does it have to be on when the computer starts?
> 
> I'm currently using a dual eSata enclosure with the extra 2 onboard sata ports from my mac pro (using the newertech cable extension through a card slot) and those drives MUST be mounted at start up.... but I believe they can also be used as boot drives. I know most external eSata drives can't be used to boot, but not sure if they have to mounted at start up.


My experience with the Mediasonic enclosure I have is that it needs to be turned on at the time of start-up otherwise there is no recognition of the drives and you can't mount and unmount drives at will if the drives in the enclosure didn't boot at the time of start up.

YMMV depending on the model of Mediasonic enclosure... all I can speak to is the enclosure I own and have experience with... I wish I could provide more knowledge but alas I can't speak to enclosures that I have no experience with.


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

Thanks guys.

Screature - what sata card are you using? Just wondering if perhaps the card could also be a factor on if the drives can be mounted/unmounted at will, or if it's all depending on the enclosure.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

i-rui said:


> Thanks guys.
> 
> Screature - what sata card are you using? Just wondering if perhaps the card could also be a factor on if the drives can be mounted/unmounted at will, or if it's all depending on the enclosure.



Actually I have two, a Sonnet Tempo™ SATA E2P that I have two other eSTAT RAID 4 bay towers connected to, that I have no problems with, all though they still need to be on at the time of boot up for recognition...

and

Newer Technology MAXPower 6G PCIe eSATA RAID Controller card with port multiplier support. Which my Mediasonic enclosure is connected to... it maybe a combination of the different card and the different enclosure that makes the difference and it maybe the fact that I am running a MacPro 1.1 with a different firmware... either way it is not a big problem for me as I have figured out the quirks and know what I need to do to get what I want... it isn't as ideal as plug and play or hot swap but as I just put everything to sleep when I am not using the computer it isn't a big deal for me.


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2011)

I would think it's a problem with the Mediasonic enclosures at that point, because with the same card and the Sans Digital enclosures I don't have issues with it -- I can plug them in after boot time and they still show up fine.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

mguertin said:


> *I would think it's a problem with the Mediasonic enclosures at that point*, because with the same card and the Sans Digital enclosures I don't have issues with it -- I can plug them in after boot time and they still show up fine.


This was my thinking as well... as I said I have worked around the difficulties... mostly because I didn't want to have to go through the return process and have to buy a more expensive enclosure (as I got the Mediasonic box for a ridiculously low price of $100 at the time from amazon.ca... even though I had to wait 6 weeks for it... ).

There are undoubtedly better enclosures out there but if on a budget and you have some patience and trouble shooting capabilities the Mediasonic enclosures can still offer good value, if you find them at a good price.

That being said I think my problems largely lie with the fact that I have such an old MacPro and its firmware... people with newer MacPros may not experience my problems at all even with Mediasonic enclosures.


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

hopefully keebler27 can chime in and let us know if his mediasonic enclosure needs to be on at start up to be mounted on his system....


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## keebler27 (Jan 5, 2007)

i-rui said:


> hopefully keebler27 can chime in and let us know if his mediasonic enclosure needs to be on at start up to be mounted on his system....


Nope - I can turn it off after my system is turned off (sometimes if my MP is processing files, i'll shut the mediasonic off b/c there's no need for it to be running).

Other than that, it boots up with my system and goes to sleep or shuts down automatically when I do the same to my system.

hope that helps.

i may be unavailable for a few days, but will check back later.


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

i'm bumping this thread because i'd like to hear some recommendations for PCI-e SATA cards.

Ideally with 4 ports (with port multiplication), but i guess i'd also consider 2 ports depending on price.

And are there any cards with internal SATA 3 ports, that could be used as a boot drive (in order to bring SATA 3 speeds to a 2008 mac pro)?

**EDIT**

scrap that. Please make any recommendations here :

Recommend PCI-e SATA cards for a Mac Pro - ehMac.ca

(thought it made more sense to create a new thread)


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