Mac Pro1,1 (original) RAID card & hard drive compatibility question

[decay]

While I'm waiting for OWC & Apple live chat...

A school client is upgrading their Mac Pro 1,1 (2.0 GHz original model) to Snow Leopard server & installing a RAID card (the older Apple model)

So far I've found that the RAID card may only support 300 GB Apple SAS drives (at least according to Apple)
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1346#faq8

Question: Which drives does Apple support for the Mac Pro RAID Card and the Xserve RAID Card?

Answer: Only Apple SATA drives and Promise 450GB SAS Drive modules sold through the Apple Store are supported for use with the Mac Pro RAID Card (Early 2009) and the Xserve RAID Card (Early 2009). Apple 300GB SAS Drive modules are supported with the Mac Pro RAID Card (Late 2007) and Xserve RAID Card (Early 2007).  Drives must be either all Serial ATA (SATA) or all Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drives.

more info:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa...ID=2226083&start=0&tstart=0

Some non-Apple drives seem to work. Lots of trial and error, no thanks.

And seen here:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=811836

"You should be fine with Western Digital, preferably enterprise models, as they're made for RAID" (Enterprise model being the key term)

[decay]

the drives we have in are WD20EVDS (western digital AV drives) but they are not recognized by the RAID utility.

[C(-)ris]

I haven't had much luck with WD Black drives in Xserves either. Especially the newer ones. By the book you need to have Apple ROM drives, It does support more than the SAS one though. As I have a few CTO Mac Pro's in the field with 7200rpm drives in the 500 to 1TB range, whatever you could pick when the machine was CTO. Your best bet is going to be pulling the drives out of one of these:

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB838G...TY3ODQ5OTY

Chris

[decay]

That's not a bad idea, Chris.

OWC Cynthia was nice & had some input also.
"any SATA should work, provided firmware is compatible."
trial & error, no thanks.

Apple's support suggested part # 661-5386 3.5 1TB 7200 SATA drive, but the tech couldn't assure it - waiting to hear back from him.

$300 per drive no matter how we look at it, unless we move to an external solution.

For $1300 (card, drives, enclosure) they get 6TB of storage on a Promise RAID.

[kj4btkljv]

You might be able to use these things. They are obviously external solutions.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-driv...ack_Mount/

Jeff

[silvarios]

Is there a reason Apple mandated certain drives?

[decay]

silvarios wrote:
Is there a reason Apple mandated certain drives?

$$$ and hardware control - their firmware, less variables.
just like licensing OSX for PCs.

[Mr645]

{erhaps the Apple card is not the best choice. Check out Highpoint

[silvarios]

decay wrote: $$$ and hardware control - their firmware, less variables.
just like licensing OSX for PCs.

I thought we left the days of Apple mandating Apple ROM drives in the early 1990s. Silly me.

[Silencio]

Mr645 wrote:
{erhaps the Apple card is not the best choice. Check out Highpoint

Good idea to check out third party options. The Apple RAID cards do not have a very good reputation from what I've read.