On Nov 6, 2009, at 12:15 PM, Philip J Robar wrote:
On Nov 6, 2009, at 1:44 PM, DATOptic - Sam wrote:
The info of NVidia MCP79 AHCI chipset does support PMware, but
Apple does not implement it.
In particular, AHCI is an open design, hope some one can come up
with a driver to support Port Multiplier feature.
Raoul Callaghan, of the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute,
has opened up a Mini and hooked up a port multiplier by installing a
SATA card:
If you already stated, forgive me, what card is that? So this has
been done? Any reason we are even talking about this anymore, there
should be no reason this would not continue to work on the new 09
models?
About a month ago, I was wondering if I could get a Mac Mini to
address 8 or more drives without using FW or USB. Wanting to stick
with the idea of using USB or FW buses for ZFS, I did some
homework, spent some money on the Mac Mini, and now can connect 10
SATA drives to a Mac mini. I don't know of anyone else in the world
who's done this, (or are stupid enough to) or have posted it anyway.
It works, and works rather well. I striped the two 1TB drives
within OS X at present, just to gauge a speed. (99MB/sec sustained)
Because the Mac Mini is to be installed inside the ANS500 case,
(Apple Network Server 500), aesthetics have no relevance here. 8))
He promised a follow up with more details, but I don't think that
ever happened. I've pinged him about it.
Can you off list me an email address or a Web site address? I also
want to know if he has hot swap on those drives, or must they be
powered down.
A search on "mini esata" found several projects which add external
SATA disks to Mini's without damaging the case. They either route
the cabe through the cable lock hole or through one of the air vents.
Yes, but this is just an extension of what is there, this is not
adding more drives, just full size ones. I am thinking of trying to
make a mini as close to the base model xserve as possible. I know
that is a strange claim, and it will not even be close, but I will get
close enough that when you compare prices, it will make sense.
I want performance over capacity. I would go firewire 800
bidirectional before I went USB, which would have to be 1600 to get
even close to FW 800.
This is all very encouraging. I can use the USB to sata to keep the
DVD working, which is cool, assuming I can adapt what I bet is a
strange connection.
Thanks so much for all this.
--
Scott * If you contact me off list replace talklists@ with scott@ *
