New MacPro Nehalem and 10To Raid5 Array

I bought a dual 2GHz Powermac G5 when it first came out, almost 6 years ago. I never had a problem with it. It’s still working as a charme. But, when you’re working with HD footage, it gets a real pain !

One of my best friend always tell me : « buy, don’t wait ». But I chosed to wait a little bit for the new Macpro Nehalem. And it finaly happened : http://www.apple.com/macpro/

Building my config was simple : best possible but not crazily expensive. I finaly settled on a dual CPU, 2.66GHz (8 threads in total), the ATI 4870 video card, wifi, bluetooth and wireless keyboard, which is for sale at 50€ (pickup in Paris). The RAM amount was a real challenge… I wanted 8Gb.
As you may know, new Nehalem processor have a 3 lane memory controler. The Macpro have 4 slots of ram per CPU.
8 Gb = 2x2Go per cpu or 4x1Gb per cpu.
Problem is, to use the whole CPU ram throughoutput, which is the key point on the nehalem, you have to use 3 memory modules.
I decided to use 3x2Gb per cpu, having a final HUGE 12Go of memory
Hopefully, the RAM modules for the macpro are really « cheap » actually. I used the Apple ram extension for 180€. I could have chosed to go with the reseller’s ram for 130€… but I think it’s better to have 6 identical RAM modules instead of 4+2. Remember RAM modules work by 3 at a time.

So, you’re asking, where are the picture… There you go :

The HD card
Things never change alone. Just one month ago, BlackMagic Design released it’s new Decklink card, the Decklink HD Extreme 3.


I just installed it in the mac and installed the driver. I will try it today.
First visible change : you have a new monitor in the monitor preference pane. While this seems to be cool, it is a serious problem when using a Wacom intuos or the special corner feature to get exposé or dashboard.
More on this later

The Raid card
As for the Decklink card, the Raid card is a new one too : Highpoint Rocketraid 4322.
Most of people used the 3522, which is almost the same, with less RAM and a slower CPU (800MHz instead of 1200MHz). While it seems no one sell the 4322 card in France, I had to buy it from Germany. I think I had a real good price, far lower than other cards : 530€.

See both the Decklink and the raid card in the mac :

Here is the back of the computer. See the HD-SDI IN/OUT of the Decklink on top, then the IN/OUT HDMI. Then the two Mini-SAS input of the RAID card, then the video card, with one DVI and one mini-displayport.

The RAID Case
You may ask what can I plug in the mini-SAS raid card… In fact, many things
I chosed to use a 8 disk enclosure with mini-SAS inputs from Enhance Technologies.
I chosed the E8MS as it have mini-SAS input and accept S-ATA drives. Note that you can have the SAME box, in light grey instead of dark grey, from ProAVIo.
The proAvIo box is not sold in France. I had to call the English reseller… which wasn’t OK to sell the box alone, without drives. Of course, their drives were far more expensive (special RAID ones, you can also find it everywhere).
I finaly found a company selling the Enhance Tech model in France, for around 500€, and empty !
I went to the « rue Montgallet » where all the computer parts resellers are, and bought 8×1.5To Seagate drives. This will give me a huge 10.5 To of storage !!
Moreover, it seems the 1.5To disks have a better throughoutput than the 1To ones. And they have the 5 years waranty intead of 3 years for the 1To.

See the pics :

I will try to do a step by step of the RAId configuration and add some RAID tests, but for now, I’m sad to say the RAID card is not working !
The RAID card is managed through a web interface. I can see the drives, create the RAID array and mount it. Then, the initialization fail. Then, the RAID card stop responding and the whole system hang.
I also had strange USB power loss some time. Don’t know if this is related to the RAID card.

Two last notes on what Apple can improve :
- the mini displayport of the video card : WHY ? and why not displayport instead of mini ?
- the RAID card, on slot 2, is just over the video card fan… There should be more space between the two PCI slots so the display card can breath.