Re: Anyone using an eSATA card with an Intel Xserve?

On 27/07/2008, at 5:08 PM, Chris Williams wrote:

On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 6:29 PM, M J Poff wrote:

On 24/04/2008, at 7:21 AM, Peter Schwenk wrote:

On Apr 23, 2008, at 3:07 PM, Mike Visconti wrote:

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 9:55 AM, John Slaughter <email@hidden> wrote:
You are correct, the Sonnet cards do report SATA and SATA II drives to the system as SCSI devices. I have the tow-port Tempo SATA E2P which works great on my Mac Pro. Wish I had got the E4P 4-port version though.

I don't understand your reference to a "matching card" though. Why wouldn't they be usable? They appear to work just fine here.

-John

AFAIK, you couldn't pull the drive you had connected to the Sonnet card and put it into a Mac Pro and boot off it. That at least was what Sonnet told me way back when.

Wouldn't that be true only if the drive was in a RAID? If the drive is just a drive plugged into a SATA interface, moving it to another SATA interface wouldn't matter.

I'd like to be able to make backups (bootable ideally) that could be moved to another machine without needing to take the server apart (or purchase additional cards). Also, the Firmtek cards work just fine in the Mac Pros, but don't appear in an Xserve.

The Sonnet E2P does not work in an Intel Xserve either, even though SonnetTech have twice confirmed that it does. The card I have, does work in a MacPro.

We have tried the Sonnet, Firmtek and Granite Digital eSATA adapters in Intel Xserves, none of them even show up in System Profiler. Even though those cards work on the Mac Pro they just aren't compatible with the Intel Xserve.

As far as we can tell the only external eSATA solution that works with Intel Xserves are the Highpoint RocketRAID cards. If anyone else has had luck with other adapters we'd love to hear it.

The local Apple dealer tells me they have a Sonnet RAID card that works in the Xserve Intel. It's a model around the US$500 range though. Not sure if it's external though, they may run the cables out through the other expansion card grille area. The Xserve is quite a different architecture from the MacPro, and if you know the MacPro, you can't assume for the Xserve.

One hurdle I struck was that the software to set the Lane width on the PCI-e bus, "Expansion Slot Utility" (which is in the System/Library/Core Services directory) - "Does not run on this machine" if you try to launch it on an Xserve. I am not sure if that means the Xserve sets the Lanes itself, or an oversight means, there is no way to set the Lane Width on the Xserve with the std software. That was with OS X 10.5, but haven't tried with 10.5.4.

If anyone can shed light on the Lane Width issue, it may be a start.

Further;

from the URL http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/Conceptual/HWtech_PCI/Articles/pci_implementation.html

When installing a new PCI Express card, follow the driver installation documentation provided by the manufacturer of the PCI Express card. In order for Mac OS X to detect a new PCI Express card, the driver needs to be recompiled as a Universal Binary. For information on recompiling driver code, refer to the Universal Binary Programming Guidelines, Second Editionand I/O Kit Device Driver Design Guidelines.

From reading on other lists, it appears the Expansion Slot Utility launches automatically when required.

Also appears that others have had problems with the Expansion Slot Utility on Xserves for Graphics cards.

The card should show in System Profiler if it is working correctly.

It may be that the Sonnet driver from Silicon Image, "Sil3132" is not Universal Binary. http://www.siliconimage.com/products/product.aspx?id=32

Silicon Image do say Universal but do not say Xserve. Nor do they say MacPro for that matter viz...

Use this universal driver with Mac OS X 10.4.9, 10.4.10, & 10.5.1 on PowerMac G5, PowerBook G4, and MacBook Pro. Please contact the external enclosure or hard disk drive manufacturer for problems specific to the device that may have surfaced under Mac OS X Leopard but, not previously present under Tiger.

It appears the story is 90% complete everywhere you look, and that you are the lucky person who falls into the unknown 10%.

J Poff.