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September 7, 2007
PowerMac PCI-X, Eight Port, RAID Solution
A Review of the RocketRAID 2224 PCI-X SATA Controller and PROAVIO EditBOX EB4-ML Enclosure.
By Arthur Whalem
Macintosh users interested in upgrading the storage capabilities of their PowerMac G5 or G4 PCI & PCI-X computers may find this article of interest. The goal of this project is to upgrade an original Apple PowerMac G5 computer to support up to eight hard drives using various RAID configurations. The upgrade is accomplished using the HighPoint Technologies Inc. RocketRAID 2224 SATA II RAID controller ($249.99) combined with the four bay PROAVIO EditBOX EB4-M enclosure ($345). The HighPoint ROCKETRAID 2224 PCI-X 64 bit 133/100/66 MHz SATA II Controller Card supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD configurations. It provides four internal SATA ports along with an external Infiniband (latch) connector for mounting up to four additional external SATA hard drives. This article will explore the details of the hardware used and the storage performance achieved with this upgrade.
System Requirements
Supports Mac OS X 10.4.10, Windows and Linux.
Requires a computer with an available PCI or PCI-X slot.
Supports up to 4 internal and 4 external SATA hard drives.
Infiniband (latch) connector required for external 2224 connection.
Infiniband (screw) connector required for EditBOX EB4-ML.
SMTP support for email notification.
RocketRAID 2224 will NOT work in the PowerMac G5 Dual, Quad or Mac Pro models built after October 19, 2005, as these models only support PCI-Express (PCIe) slots.
What's Included?
Install
The RocketRAID 2224 host adapter can be installed in any PowerMac PCI or PCI-X slot. An Infiniband (latch) connector on the rear of the card is used to mount up to four external direct connect SATA hard drives inside the PROAVIO EditBOX EB4-ML enclosure. PRAOVIO, U.S.A sells the external Infiniband (Latch) to Infiniband (screw) cable separately for $75. Four internal SATA ports are also provided. The image below displays a card being installed in slot #4.
Image courtesy of Apple
Users mounting the RocketRAID 2224 in a PowerMac G5, will want to be aware of Apple Tech Q&A 1307 concerning the Power Mac G5 PCI and PCI-X slots. It states, "Slots 2 & 3 share a common bus. Slot 4 is on a separate bus. All cards on a common bus can only run as fast as the slowest card". I would install the host adapter in slot four. It will run a little faster than when installed in slot 2 or 3. The key is not to mix 32-bit and 64-bit cards in slots 2 and 3 if the user wants to maintain full speed.
After the RocketRAID 2224 is installed, Macintosh users will need to download the latest driver available at the HighPoint web site. The RocketRAID 2224 Mac OS X driver is installed by launching the rr222x.mpkg application. This install will allow the PowerMac to communicate with the RocketRAID 2224. Once the RocketRAID 2224 driver has been installed and the computer restarted, PowerMac users can examine the Mac OS X system profiler data for the PCI-X card. As shown below, the RocketRAID 2224 shows up as a SCSI Bus Controller.
Web Interface
To access the HighPoint web based RAID management software the user will need to navigate to https://localhost:7402/ using a web browser. The user name is RAID and the default password is hpt.
FeaturesThe HighPoint RocketRAID 2224 utilizes the Marvell 88SX6081 eight channel, PCI-X, Serial ATA controller chip. It is compliant with both SATA 1.0 and SATA II hard drives and features Native Command Queuing (NCQ) and Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC) support. The RocketRAID 2224 supports deep sleep, automatic rebuilding of a degraded RAID set, hard disk health monitoring, staggered drive spin up, email notification of errors, reports hard drive SMART data through the HighPoint web management application and is SAF-TE enclosure management ready. However, it does not share SMART data with Mac OS X. As such, users will NOT be able to view the SMART data of hard drives connected to the 2224 via Disk Utility or with Hardware Monitor. If you are interested in more details about how the HighPoint web manager works a users guide is available in PDF format on-line.
The RocketRAID 2224 does not support SATA PM enclosures. It is restricted to direct connect SATA interfaces. The four internal SATA connections provided by the RocketRAID 2224 can be used with the G5 Bracket or other similar products that allow additional hard drives to be mounted internally inside the PowerMac G5. The stock PowerMac G4 already has mounting brackets available for up to four internal hard drives. Another approach I have tested is to utilize external shielded SATA L-Type to I-Type cables to connect the internal 2224 ports to an external four bay eSATA enclosure. The cables can easily be snaked out through the PCI slots. Using this method allowed me to connect the four internal ports to a quiet 4-bay eSATA enclosure while the external Infiniband connection was connected to the PROAVIO EditBOX EB4-ML enclosure.
External Connector
The HighPoint RocketRAID 2224 utilizes an external Infiniband (latch) connector. I have not seen this connector on any other Macintosh SATA host adapter. An Infiniband (screw) connector is not compatible with this setup. AMUG needed a data cable that specifically supported the Infiniband (latch) format on one end and the Infiniband (screw) connector on the other end for this project. The Infiniband (screw) connector is attached directly to the back of the PROAVIO EditBOX EB4-ML enclosure.
PROAVIO EditBOX EB4-ML
Once the Infiniband (latch) to Infiniband (screw) data cable is connected between the RocketRAID 2224 and the EditBOX EB4-ML enclosure the power cord will need to be connected. Next, I installed four Seagate 320GB model 7200.10 hard drives in the drive trays and inserted them into the PROAVIO EditBox EB4-ML four bay direct connect enclosure. The EditBox EB4-ML utilizes an 80 watt auto-switching power supply and provides a hot swap interface. Hard drive activity and power lights are provided along with a hinged front door. The silver aluminum enclosure looks great with a PowerMac G5 and it provides a sturdy hard drive mounting environment.
The PROAVIO EditBox EB4-ML works well on top of the PowerMac G5 or at its side. The easy access removable fan module on the rear of the enclosure allows users to replace or upgrade the cooling fan. The design and appearance of the PROAVIO EditBox EB4-ML displays quality construction and an eye for detail.
Cooling
In the cooling test, the PROAVIO EditBox EB4-ML enclosure was tested with a 1.16TB striped RAID set using four Seagate 320GB model 7200.10 hard drives and a PowerMac G5 2.0 GHz. The four drives were worked very hard duplicating a 4.2GB folder of video files up to twenty times simultaneously for 90 minutes. The RocketRAID 2224 Storage Health Inspector (SHI) was used to display the hard drive temperatures. At the end of 90 minutes the Seagate 320GB model 7200.10 hard drives reported temperatures of 118 to 116 degrees Fahrenheit. Twenty minutes into the test the EditBox power supply began to emit a soft high pitched squeal sound. The squeal noise only appeared when the enclosure was under a heavy load for an extended period of time.
The next process of the cooling test was to leave the enclosure turned on with the hard drives mounted for an hour, but with no usage other than temperature monitoring. I wanted to see how well the hard drives might cool down inside the PROAVIO EditBox EB4-ML enclosure. After resting for an hour, the Seagate hard drives reported temperatures of 111 to 113 degrees Fahrenheit. The room temperature was 84 degrees Fahrenheit.
PerformanceThe HighPoint Technologies RocketRAID 2224 was installed in slot 4 of a PowerMac G5 2.0GHz Dual running Mac OS X 10.4.10. HighPoint web manager version 1.6.1 was installed. Eight Seagate 320GB model 7200.10 hard drives were used with four mounted in the PROAVIO EditBox EB4-ML and four mounted internally using the G5 Bracket. DiskTester 2.0 10GB read and write tests were performed using a run area test so that this article could display how each configuration performed. DiskTester is a Terminal application that measures the combined performance of a volume and the Mac OS X operating system. Using the command: ./disktester run-area-test --chunk-size 128M --test-size 10G --delta-percent 10 DriveName, puts DiskTester to work testing how the RAID performs when empty, 10% full, 20% full and so on. The table provided below displays the recorded performance.
HighPoint RocketRAID 2224 - 8 Drive RAID Performance
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 600 | 555 | 546 | 404 | 291 | 432 | 273 | 264 |
| 10% | 607 | 561 | 545 | 403 | 295 | 431 | 275 | 259 |
| 20% | 577 | 539 | 546 | 403 | 297 | 427 | 275 | 265 |
| 30% | 573 | 532 | 550 | 400 | 278 | 427 | 266 | 259 |
| 40% | 535 | 501 | 552 | 397 | 285 | 411 | 268 | 261 |
| 50% | 523 | 481 | 499 | 395 | 293 | 429 | 255 | 251 |
| 60% | 494 | 449 | 497 | 404 | 284 | 408 | 245 | 241 |
| 70% | 439 | 417 | 463 | 403 | 292 | 372 | 224 | 223 |
| 80% | 420 | 382 | 421 | 388 | 297 | 352 | 207 | 208 |
| 90% | 369 | 362 | 373 | 344 | 274 | 311 | 184 | 184 |
| 100% | 313 | 287 | 313 | 288 | 264 | 251 | 153 | 150 |
| Average | 496 | 459 | 482 | 384 | 286 | 386 | 239 | 233 |
| Size | 2.33TB | 2.33TB | 2.04TB | 1.16TB | ||||
| Redundancy | No | No | Yes | Yes |
The highest performance was produced by creating a striped RAID set (RAID 0) using Disk Utility with the eight Seagate 320GB model 7200.10 hard drives. This setup could easily support uncompressed HD video editing. Using the HighPoint web manager to create a striped RAID set provided slower read performance. As a result, I would utilize Disk Utility with the RocketRAID 2224, when a striped RAID set configuration was desired.
The RocketRAID 2224 RAID 5 write performance is slower than the read performance. However, it still provides an average write speed of 286MB/sec. and read performance of 386MB/sec. RAID 5 adds the benefit of redundancy, while RAID 0 provides zero protection. The RocketRAID 2224 RAID 10 read and write performance is much more balanced. While RAID 10 provides the slowest performance it provides the best redundancy in the group. Up to four mirror hard drives can fail and the RAID 10 can still be rebuilt.
When the HighPoint RocketRAID 2224 ($249) SATA host adapter is paired with the PROAVIO EditBox EB4-ML ($345), it can provide a high performance storage upgrade solution for PCI-X and PCI based PowerMac models. This combination can support up to eight SATA hard drives and RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 or JBOD configurations. Users that desire redundancy will find the advantages of RAID 5 and RAID 10 can meet these needs. While setting up or rebuilding a RAID 5 configuration can take several hours, having the flexibility to recover from a hard drive failure is a valuable feature.
The HighPoint RocketRAID 2224 does have some limitations. It does not provide boot capability and it does not support traditional Macintosh hot swap. It also does not share SMART data with Disk Utility or Hardware Monitor. In addition, users will need to purchase a separate data cable to accommodate the external Infiniband (latch) connector.
With that said, the HighPoint RocketRAID 2224 can provide awesome performance when used with eight hard drives. The RocketRAID 2224/EditBox EB4-ML combination brings easy to configure RAID 5 and 10 fault tolerant storage systems to PowerMac users. PowerMac PCI-X models can enjoy increased disk performance and extend their usefulness with this high performance storage upgrade option.
Pros
PROAVIO EditBox EB4-ML
Quiet fan.
Removable hot swap cooling fan design.
Provides hard disk activity and power lights
Includes four hot swap trays.
Good looking and easy to use.
RocketRAID 2224
Works with 8 SATA hard drives on a single host adapter.
Works with PowerMac G5 and G4 PCI and PCI-X slots.
User-upgradeable firmware.
Disk Utility can create RAID 0, 1 and JBOD configurations.
Web manager provides RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD configurations.
Online Capacity Expansion and Online RAID Level Migration feature.
Web Manager displays SMART data.
RAID rebuilding capability.
Provides hot spare feature.
Sleep support.
Cons
PROAVIO EditBox EB4-ML
No power switch on front panel. (Only on the rear)
After extended heavy use, EB4-MK power supply may emit a soft squeal sound.
RocketRAID 2224
No boot capability.
No traditional hot swap support.
Web management software may seem slow.
Requires separate cable purchase.
Does not pass SMART data to Mac OS X.
Does not support SATA PM.
Mac users cannot change Web Manager user name.
Uses external Infiniband (latch) connector.
RR 2224/EB4-ML Bundle gets 4 AMUGs out of 5!
There are plenty of PowerMac PCI and PCI-X models still in use. The RocketRAID 2224/EditBox EB4-ML bundle enhances older PowerMac models with an amazing high performance storage upgrade option that even the new Mac Pro cannot provide without an additional SATA host adapter. The use of PCI and PCI-X slots with the RocketRAID 2224 host adapter can open up the world of RAID redundancy to older PowerMac computers.
Contact Information:
HighPoint Technologies Inc.1161 Cadillac Court
Milpitas, CA 95035
Phone: (408) 942-5800
Fax: (408) 942-5801
http://www.highpoint-tech.com
Contact Information:
PROAVIO12221 Florence Ave.
Santa Fe Springs, CA. 90670 USA
Phone: 1-562-777-3488
http://www.proavio.com
sales@proavio.com
Copyright 2007
Arizona Macintosh Users Group, Inc. (AMUG). Visit AMUG at www.amug.org for news, discounts and friends. JOIN AMUG!
Additional Resources
Barefeats RocketRAID 2224 SATA PCI-X host adapter Review
AMUG FirmTek SeriTek/2SE4 PCI-X SATA Host Adapter Review
AMUG FirmTek SeriTek/2eEN4 eSATA 4 Bay Enclosure Review