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August 4, 2006
Eight Port External PCIe SATA Host Adapter
A Review of the HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 External Mini-SAS to PCIe SATA II RAID Controller
By Arthur Whalem
HighPoint Technologies Inc. is shipping the RocketRAID 2322 External Mini-SAS to PCI-Express SATA II RAID Controller ($299). The eight channel RocketRAID 2322 SATA host adapter has two Mini-SAS connectors that can be used with four different cable options. Available configurations include:
1) External Mini-SAS to SATA (L connector) $49.
2) External Mini-SAS to Infiniband (Latch) used with the HighPoint X4 $49.
3) External Mini-SAS to Infiniband (Screw) for Multilane enclosures $40.
4) External Mini-SAS to eSATA (I connector) for eSATA enclosures.
(Cable #4 should be available sometime next month - August 2006).
To access all eight channels on the RocketRAID 2322, two external Mini-SAS cables are required. The external Mini-SAS to SATA (L connector) cable model Ext-MS-1M4S provides a Mini-SAS connector on one end and four SATA "L" type connectors on the other end. As the eSATA (Ext-MS-1MES) cables were not available at the
time of this review, the Ext-MS-1M4S "Type L" cables were used with this article. If you have the "Type L" cables and want to convert them to eSATA connectors, Addonics sells the AASA2SAP15C, eSATA2 - SATA converter cable for $9. These 6" SATA cables can be connected to the SATA
end of the Highpoint Ext-MS-1M4S Mini-SAS connector to convert them to eSATA connectors. Using the Addonics AASA2SAP15C with the Ext-MS-1M4S allows the RocketRAID 2322 to connect with either "Type L" or "Type I" SATA enclosures.System Requirements
Requires an empty PCI Express slot.
Supports Mac OS X 10.3.x or higher, Windows, Linux and FreeBSD.
Requires up to 8 external SATA I or SATA II 3.5" hard drives.
Dual External Mini-SAS Connectors - cables not included.
PCI Express X4, compatible with X8 and X16 Interface.
Supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 1/0, 5/0 and JBOD.
SMTP support for email notification.
What's Included?
The HighPoint Technologies RocketRAID 2322 External Mini-SAS to PCI-Express SATA II RAID controller includes a PCIe SATA host adapter, a users guide and a CD with software drivers and documentation.
About HighPoint
HighPoint Technologies was founded in 1995. They specialize in providing multi-channel SATA RAID solutions in a variety of configurations that support multiple OS environments. HighPoint SATA host adapters support RAID 0, 1, 5, 1/0 and 5/0 configurations. HighPoint has several PCIe host adapters available for the PowerMac G5 Dual-Core and Quad models. However, the RocketRAID 2322 is currently the only one with external ports.
PCI Express
PCI Express also known as PCIe, communicates using 250MB per second data lanes. PCI Express slot and card bandwidth is determined by the number of data lanes they can accommodate. One lane, four lanes, eight lanes, or 16 lanes are some of the typical PCIe options available. The PowerMac G5 Dual-Core and Quad-Core models have four PCI Express slots. PCI Express slot 1 which is the bottom slot, has 16 lanes. It is designated as "1" 16x on the PowerMac G5 PCIe frame. This16x PCIe slot is the fastest slot in the PowerMac G5. It is factory configured for use with the Apple pre-installed video card. Slots 2 and 4 are empty when your new PowerMac G5 arrives. They both provide 4x speed. At 250MB per second per lane, a four-lane (4x) slot can transfer data at up to 1GB per second which should be similar in speed to a 64-bit 133MHz PCI-X slot which has a theoretical maximum speed of 1067 MB per second. The Apple PowerMac G5 PCIe bus slot 3 is rated at a speed of 8x. At 250MB per second per lane, an eight-lane (8x) slot can transfer data at up to 2GB per second. That is almost twice as fast as a 64-bit 133MHz PCI-X slot.According to page 12 of the Apple PowerMac G5 Technology Overview, "Each slot uses a standard connector that can accommodate a card of any size. This means a four-lane card works perfectly in an eight-lane slot. If the card has more lanes than the slot, the card adjusts to the bandwidth available and “downshifts” to that data rate."
The HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 can be mounted in any PCIe slot available in a PowerMac G5 Dual-Core or Quad computer. The RocketRAID 2322 is a 4x PCIe SATA host adapter that functions well in a 8x or a 16x slot too. During this review the RocketRAID 2322 was tested in slot 2 of the PowerMac G5. It was capable of operating in slot 2 without any problems. The RocketRAID 2322 will work in slots 2, 3 or 4. However, if you are using the RocketRAID 2322 and a Sonnet Tempo E4P installed in the same PowerMac, placing the E4P in slot 4 and the HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 in slot 2 worked best during this review.
As you can see in the system profiler for slot 2, the RocketRAID 2322 utilizes a PCI-bridge that emulates a SCSI bus. During these tests, there was no additional performance benefit to be gained by using the 4x PCIe RocketRAID 2322 SATA host adapter in an 8x slot (slot 3).The RocketRAID 2322 performs at the same speed whether it is in a 4x or an 8x PCIe slot. However, it is very nice that you can use the RocketRAID 2322 in any slot and that you can use multiple RocketRAID 2322 host adapters in a PowerMac G5 PCIe model.
The RocketRAID 2322 utilizes a hardware optimized XOR engine powered by the HPT601 IC. The HPT601 is primarily used for RAID 5 write parity calculations. If you install two RocketRAID 2322 cards in a PC a single RAID cross adapter cable can be used to link the cards. However, this feature is not supported on the Macintosh. Two RocketRAID 2322 cards installed in a Macintosh can work together using Disk Utility but cannot be used to expand a RAID 5, RAID 1/0 or RAID 5/0 disk array.
Features
The HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 is the first shipping eight port external PCI Express (PCIe) 4x SATA host adapter for PowerMac G5 Dual-Core and Quad models, which were released Oct. 19, 2005. The Highpoint RocketRAID 2322 uses a PCI bridge interface to connect up to eight SATA hard drives. The RocketRAID 2322 allows Disk Utility to setup individual hard drives or a RAID configuration. Once the hard drives have been initialized with the HighPoint web based RAID management software each hard drive has to be configured individually as a JBOD for Disk Utility to recognize it. This feature allows users to utilize the familiar functions of Disk Utility or expand their RAID options to include RAID 5, RAID 1/0 or RAID 5/0 using the HighPoint web based RAID management software.
Mini-SAS connectorsThe HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 has dual external Mini-SAS connectors that provide a very secure connection between the hard drives and the host adapter. I found that the Mini-SAS connectors were less likely to have a connection issue than my eSATA connectors. In addition, the RocketRAID 2322 provides four connection interface cable choices for expanding the types of enclosures that it can be used with it. Multiple cable options provide users with many more connection possibilities than most SATA host adapters. The downside to the Mini-SAS connectors is that no cables are included with the RocketRAID 2322. You can easily spend $90 for two HightPoint external Mini-SAS cables. Two cables are required if you want to connect up to eight direct connect hard drives. Even though this is an extra cable expense, I really like the stability and the versatility that the Mini-SAS connectors provide. These cables are easy to install and easy to remove, yet the Mini-SAS provides a rock solid connection on the back of the RocketRAID 2322 host adapter.
Hard Drive Support
The HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 was tested with SATA 150 and SATA 300 hard drives. It works well with both models. It can mount up to eight direct connect hard drives. SATA port multiplier (PM) enclosures are NOT supported. However, hard drives mounted in a direct connect SATA enclosure are supported. The RocketRAID 2322 supports native command queing (NCQ), spread spectrum clocking (SSC), on-line RAID level migration (ORLM) and 64-bit LBA for over 2TB partitions. The RocketRAID 2322 worked very well with every hard drive used in these tests.
No Boot Capability
The HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 does not have boot capability. FirmTek is the only company that is currently shipping a PCI Express SATA host adapter for the Macintosh that supports booting. It is the two port SeriTek/2SE2-E model. However, the HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 provides eight ports while the SeriTek/2SE2-E only has two. FirmTek provides bootable SATA host adapter models for PCI, PCI-X or PCIe slots.
No Sleep Support
The HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 does not currently support sleep mode. When the PowerMac G5 Quad was placed in sleep mode the Kill-a-Watt electricity usage monitor indicated that the Quad was using 216 watts which is approximately 50 watts more than the PowerMac G5 Quad uses while idle. During these tests, sleep mode usually caused the PowerMac G5 fan speeds to increase until the Quad was restarted. HighPoint is working on supporting sleep for the Macintosh, but I have no idea when it might be available.
No Traditional Mac Hot Swap Capability
When a hard drive that is connected to the RocketRAID 2322 is turned off or ejected from a hot swap enclosure an alarm will go off on the 2322 that stays on until the hard drive is detected again by the RocketRAID 2322 or the PowerMac is shutdown. With the introduction of version 1.4 of the HighPoint web manager for Macintosh, users can diable the alarm in the settings menu. The alarm sounds like a truck backing up. When using version 1.2 of the web manager or if you have the alarm active in version 1.4, you can avoid the sound by using the web based RAID management software to "unplug" hard drives before ejecting them or shutdown the computer first. If you use the "unplug" command before dragging the hard drive to the trash, Mac OS X puts up a dialog box that the hard drive has been dismounted improperly.
If the software driver was re-written so that dragging a drive to the trash was considered the same as the "unplug" command then the RocketRAID 2322 would be able to hot swap hard drives properly on a Macintosh. The RocketRAID 2322 can use Disk Utility to mount and unmount hard drives but this does not "unplug" them. If you are using up to eight individual JBOD disks with Disk Utility, it is a slow process to use the HighPoint web manager to "unplug" all eight drives. I usually just shutdown and move the hard drives as it is easier than using the "unplug" web manager command. The RocketRAID 2322 usually did not successfully mount a Disk Utility created RAID without restarting the Macintosh in these tests. Macintosh hot swap is not fully supported by the RocketRAID 2322.
Controller Details
According to the Kill-a-Watt electricity usage monitor, the HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 requires approximately 6-7 watts to operate when installed in a PowerMac G5. The RocketRAID 2322 utilizes the Marvell 88SX6081. The 88SX6081 device supports both 1.5 and 3 Gbps operation. Selectable Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC) provides optimal Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) performance in high-density Hard Disk Drive systems. The 88SX6081 supports both Serial ATA II Native Command Queuing and Serial ATA I/ATA-6 Tag Command Queuing. The software Application Programmer Interface (API) appears as a SCSI subsystem interface to the application. HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 users will not need to be concerned whether their hard drives have SSC turned on or off as the card supports both configurations. The RocketRAID 2322 was able to handle any configuration of SATA I, SATA II, and Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC) that was tested during this review. I could not find a single SATA hard drive that would not work with the RocketRAID 2322.
The Marvell 88SX6081 chip mounted on the RocketRAID 2322 supports SATA PM functions. However, according to HighPoint the 88SX6081 only supports SATA PM Command Based Switching. This system limits the host adapter to issue commands to only one drive at a time which is slower than the FIS (Frame Information Structure) SATA PM method that many Macintosh SATA PM host adapters utilize. AMUG received an email from HighPoint Technical Marketing Manager Allen Mah which stated, "The Marvell IC only supports Command Based Switching, we toyed with the idea of implementing support for PM in our RocketRAID controller but without the performance increase we felt it would not be worth the effort to update our drivers to support PM". As this is the case, the RocketRAID 2322 will not support SATA PM enclosures.
Additional RAID Types
The HighPoint web based RAID management software provides many extended RAID functions that Macintosh users have never had before. While you may be aware of the RAID 0 and RAID 1 functions of Disk Utility, the HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 can provide several new RAID types. These RAID types include:
RAID 5 - stripes data at the block level across several hard drives while distributing parity among these drives. If a single hard drive fails, a RAID 5 setup can usually recover using the rebuild features of the RocketRAID 2322. If more than one drive fails the data on the RAID will be lost. This system provides redundancy with the least amount of hard drives. Backup of data is still necessary with RAID 5, but this system provides some crash protection while a striped RAID set provides none.
RAID 1/0 - creates a striped RAID set with half of the hard drives and a mirror (RAID1) of each hard drive is created so that an exact duplicate of the striped RAID set is available. This configuration can still operate with a hard drive failure when using the RocketRAID 2322. Unmounting a failed hard drive and inserting another hard drive of the same capacity or larger will allow you to rebuild the RAID 1/0 disk array. Any single disk can fail and no data will be lost as long as the mirror of that disk is functional. Backup of critical files is still prudent but the redundancy of a RAID 1/0 disk array is very good.
RAID 5/0 - utilizes two RAID 5 disk arrays in a stripped RAID 0 configuration. This setup provides speed while providing redundancy. One hard drive in each RAID 5 group can fail and the data should still be able to be saved with a RocketRAID 2322 rebuild. If more than one disk is lost in any of the RAID 5 arrays all of the data on the disk array will be lost. Backup of critical files is necessary.
Getting Started
When I received the RocketRAID 2322, the user guide had no Macintosh instructions and the CD had no Macintosh software on it. HighPoint has indicated that a Macintosh "read me" will be provided on the CD in the future which will inform users where they can download the Macintosh software. I found the Macintosh driver version 1.2 at the HighPoint web site. During the review process HighPoint provided me with version 1.4. Once the Macintosh driver is downloaded and installed and the RocketRAID 2322 is mounted in a PCIe slot, its time to attach the Mini-SAS connectors to the back of the RocketRAID 2322. Next, connect the SATA hard drives to the other end of the Mini-SAS connectors. Now its time to turn on the hard drives and startup the PowerMac G5.
Web RAID Management
To utilize the RocketRAID 2322 to create advanced RAID types you will need to learn how the brower based RAID management software works. To launch the web management software you will open Safari and type in a url of https://localhost:7402/. The web software will request a name and a password. These are case sensitive. The user name is RAID. The password is listed in the read me file. Once logged in you will want to change the password which is located in the "Setting" menu.
Within the "Settings" menu you can change your password, change the port number if you want to, and decide if you want access to the Web Management software to be limited to the computer that the RocketRAID 2322 is installed in. In addition, you can have email sent to you or another user displaying the status of the RocketRAID 2322 and the hard drives connected to it. Version 1.4 adds the ability to disable the alarm by unchecking the "Enable audible alarm" box.
After your settings are established you can click on the "Manage" menu and view the available hard drives. If the hard drives have not been used with the RocketRAID 2322 before they will show up as legacy devices. You can use the popup "Device" menu under "Manage" to initialize your hard drives. Just click on the "Initialize Devices" button and all of the connected hard drives will be formatted to the RocketRAID 2322 format. This new format was introduced by HighPoint with their SATA II series host adapters. This feature allows hard drives to operate correctly with the HighPoint Online Capacity Expansion and Online RAID Level Migration feature aka, (OCE/ORLM). The initialization prepares the hard disk by reserving some disk space for (OCE/ORLM) future use. The initialization process wipes the data on the disk and reserves a small amount of space on each hard drive that is initialized. When users want to setup a single disk they will need to create a single disk JBOD. A single disk JBOD can be converted using the OCE/ORLM feature to more advanced RAID array types, should the user decide to add more hard disks to the controller. For example, a user can create a single disk JBOD and if another drive is added later to the controller they can create a RAID 0 without reformatting.
As you can see in the image above the Device menu provides a significant amount of information about your hard drives condition, settings, sizes and model numbers. Clicking on the "SMART" button for each hard drive can provide even more information about the hard drives attached to the RocketRAID 2322.
The HighPoint RAID management software can provide users with more hard drive details than many users will ever need. It is the most advanced set of hard drive monitoring and RAID configuration tools that I have seen for Macintosh computers.
Clicking on the "Create Array" button while the Manage menu is displayed will open the RAID creation window. In the example below, a JBOD volume is being created using one hard drive at a time. This process allows Apple Disk Utility to see each volume individually and mount them as individual volumes or use Disk Utilities RAID 0 or RAID 1 functions. Many users are familiar with the functions of Disk Utility and simply want to create a striped RAID set (RAID 0). Setting up each hard drive as an individual JBOD volume allows the RocketRAID 2322 and Disk Utility to work very well together. You can view the "Create Array" window below.
Once each hard drive is created as a JBOD with the HighPoint web manager the hard drives appear in Disk Utility with the size and a HPT Disk designation. Within Disk Utility you can manage the hard drive just like you would with any other SATA host adapter. You can view how the hard drives appear in Disk Utility in the image below.
Using eight Seagate 320GB model 7200.10 or Maxtor 300GB model 7V300F0 hard drives the RocketRAID 2322 can produce read and write performance of over 500MB/sec. The RocketRAID 2322 is the only SATA host adapter that can mount eight hard drives with a single PCIe card on the PowerMac G5. For many users, using the RocketRAID 2322 with Disk Utility will be all they want. However the RAID 5, RAID 1/0 and RAID 5/0 disk array configurations provided by the RocketRAID 2322 add features that no other currently shipping Macintosh SATA host adapter can provide.
Advanced RAID Options
If users decide that Disk Utility does not meet their RAID needs, they may want to utilize the RocketRAID 2322 web manager to create more advanced types of RAID configurations. If you navigate back to the "Create Array" window and click on the Array Type you will see that RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 1/0 and RAID 5/0 are all available. As RAID 0 and RAID 1 are provided by Disk Utility users will probably only be interested in RAID 5, RAID 1/0 or RAID 5/0 when using the HighPoint web manager on a Macintosh.
RAID 5
In the example above, eight 300GB hard drives were used to create a RAID 5 configuration using the HighPoint web manager. Once all eight drives were selected and the create button was clicked it took 1 hour 44 minutes to format the RAID 5 disk. I did not have eight Seagate 320GB 7200.10 hard drives so two Maxtor 300GB 7V300F0 models were also used in this example.
If you utilize eight hard drives that are all the same identical model, RAID performance will be optimized. As with any RAID, each hard drives capacity for use with the RAID is limited to the smallest volume in the RAID set. Performance is also slowed down to the slowest performing hard drive in the RAID group. In this case, the RAID formatted to 1.91GB of available hard drive space. These same eight hard drives format to 2.18TB when using them in a striped RAID set. The RAID 5 disk array is smaller as it uses the space of one disk to store parity information across all eight hard drives. The parity data can be used to recover the volume should a single disk fail. The RAID 5 setup above is able to provide read speeds while empty of 485MB/sec and write speeds of 320MB/sec. and over 300MB/sec read and write performance when 90% full.
A RAID 5 stability test was completed during this review. An eight drive RAID 5 volume was created and 310GB of data was copied to it. While the 1.91GB RAID 5 volume was writing 4.5GB of data to the RAID, hard drive #3 was pulled from the hot swap enclosure. The HighPoint 2322 began beeping and the web manager indicated that the status of the volume was critical. I restarted the Macintosh and initialized a fresh 300GB hard drive with the HighPoint web manager to use as a replacement. Next, I opened the web manager "Manage" menu and pushed the Maintenance button. The add button was clicked and I selected the new disk. The RocketRAID 2322 began to rebuild the RAID 5 disk. During the rebuilding process the RAID 5 volume was able to still read and write data to the disk. I found the ability of the RocketRAID 2322 to fully recover from the failure even though the RAID was actively copying data to the volume when the hard drive was removed, to be quite a remarkable feature. After two hours, the eight disk RAID 5 volume was rebuilt without loss of data. The web management software displayed a "Normal" status after this successful rebuild and the volume was ready for any future hard drive failure. While you should always have a backup of any data you want to protect on a RAID 5 disk array, the chances of recovery are very good when a single hard drive fails with the RocketRAID 2322 RAID 5 format. I was impressed with this fault tolerant data recovery feature.
RAID 1/0Another RAID option you can select with the RocketRAID 2322 is RAID 1/0. In this configuration, four hard drives are setup in a striped RAID set and the other four hard drives are a mirror copy of each drive in the striped RAID set. RAID 1/0 has more redundancy than most other RAID types. Up to four drives can fail and the RAID 1/0 can still recover. However, if a main striped drive and its mirror both fail data will be lost.
When setting up the RAID 1/0 volume while choosing not to initialize, the volume will be available immediately. This setup allows RAID 1/0 to be setup much quicker than a eight drive RAID 5 system that requires approximately two hours to build the parity data. However, the RAID 1/0 disk array will be a little slower than RAID 5 and the RAID 1/0 disk array will provide significantly less disk space. This is because RAID 5 uses the space of one hard drive of the eight drives for redundancy, while RAID 1/0 uses four hard drives out of the eight in this example for backup. With a RAID 1/0 disk array multiple hard drives can fail without loss of data. This is not true of RAID 5.
As part of this review a RAID 1/0 stability test was completed. An eight drive RAID 1/0 volume was created and 130GB of data was copied to it. While 4.5GB of data was being written to the 1.1TB RAID 1/0 disk array, two hard drives were pulled from the hot swap enclosure. The HighPoint 2322 began beeping and the web manager indicated that the status of the volume was critical. I shutdown and then initialized two new hard drives. Next, I restarted with the RAID 1/0 drives turned on along with the two new 300GB hard drives. Using the web manager, I clicked on the maintenance button and then selected the "Add Disk" command to add the new hard drives. The two new hard drives were added from the web menu and the RAID 1/0 disk array began to rebuild itself. During the rebuilding process the RAID 1/0 volume was able to still read and write data to the disk. After 1.5 hours, the RAID 1/0 disk array was rebuilt and the web management software indicated that the status of the RAID was normal. No data was lost and a complete recovery was performed. The fact that the HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 RAID 1/0 format can achieve a total recovery with multiple hard drive failures is very cool.
RAID 1/0 is one of the most expensive RAID configurations to setup as it requires double the number of hard drives. If you are looking for substantial redundancy in your RAID configuration a RAID 1/0 disk array can provide it. However, no matter what type of RAID you choose, backing up your data to a large single hard drive is important if you want to guarantee that the data is not lost as a result of a RAID failure. While RAID 5 and RAID 1/0 can provide substantial data protection, no RAID can guarantee protection of your data better than a single drive backup system. RAID setups can provide awesome performance gains but they also have increased reliability risk. An eight drive setup is eight times more likely to have a hard drive failure than a single drive setup. Using RAID 5 and RAID 1/0 can help provide methods for recovery but there is no guarantee that rebuilding the RAID will always be successful.
RAID 5/0
A RAID 5/0 disk array is created by combining the block striping and parity of RAID 5 with the basic block striping of RAID 0. RAID 5/0 consists of a RAID 0 array striped across two RAID 5 elements. RAID 5/0 usually provides better write performance than RAID 5 and it should provide good fault tolerance. In the performance test it was found that the write speeds were about 10% higher on average with RAID 5/0 compared to RAID 5. However, the read performance was 17% slower on average with RAID 5/0. There is also less disk space available with RAID 5/0 as more space is required for storing parity data. Fault tolerance should be improved with RAID 5/0 as up to two hard drives can fail provided both drives are not in the same RAID 5 group.
A RAID 5/0 stability test was completed during this review. A RAID 5/0 volume was created using eight 300GB hard drives. Next, 250GB of data was copied to the 1.64TB disk array. While 4.5GB of data was being written to the 1.64TB RAID 5/0 disk array, two hard drives were pulled from the hot swap enclosure. The HighPoint 2322 began beeping and the web manager indicated that the status of the volume was critical. I shutdown the PowerMac G5 Quad, dismounted the RAID drives and then initialized two new hard drives. Next, I restarted with the RAID 5/0 drives turned on along with the two new 300GB hard drives. Using the web manager I clicked on the maintenance button and then used the "Add Disk" command in an attempt to add the new hard drives. The HighPoint web manager would not allow me to add the new disks. A dialog box came up stating, "There is no disk can be added to array."
I clicked the "Rescan" button several times and could see that the new hard disks were available in the web manager but the RAID 5/0 disk array would not rebuild. I deleted the RAID 5/0 and performed the same test again with the same hard drives. The results were identical. I contacted HighPoint and they tested the RAID 5/0 rebuild feature with eight WD 500GB RE2 hard drives. HighPoint reported that they were able to rebuild the RAID 5/0.
As I explored for an alternative way to get the HighPoint RAID 5/0 to rebuild, I found that setting up the new hard drive as a spare using the "Spare Pool" menu under "Manage" allowed the critical RAID 5/0 disk array to automatically rebuild. To add a disk as a spare, users will need to know the name of the newly added hard drive. Once the Rescan button is clicked the new hard drive will be displayed in the Manage Array window. Users can distinguish the replacement hard drive from the other drives in the disk array by the fact that its "Max Free" data will not be zero (as shown in the image below).
In this example, disk 1/6 also known as Device_1_6 was selected using the check box to the left of its name in the Spare Pool menu. Next, the "Add Spare" button was clicked. Within a minute of adding the new hard disk to the Spare Pool, the RAID 5/0 disk array automatically started rebuilding itself.
While using the maintenance "Add Disk" command did not work with the RAID 5/0 rebuild in these tests, I was glad to see that using the Spare Pool function did allow the RAID 5/0 disk array to rebuild automatically. This tip will probably work with RAID 5 and RAID 1/0 disk arrays too but they worked fine using the "Add Disk" command.
The status field in the image above displays how the web manager looks when the RAID 5/0 disk array is rebuilding. While the RAID 5/0 disk array is rebuilding, the volume is also able to read and write data. The issues that were experienced while rebuilding a RAID 5/0 disk array during the AMUG review process may be an isolated issue with my setup. However, if you plan to setup a RAID 5/0 disk array using the RocketRAID 2322, I would test its rebuilding capabilities before trusting it with important data.
PerformanceThe HighPoint Technologies RocketRAID 2322 was tested in slot 2 of a PowerMac G5 Quad running Mac OS X 10.4.7. The HighPoint web manager version 1.4 was installed. Six 320GB Seagate 7200.10 hard drives were used along with two Maxline 300GB 7V300F0 hard drives to create various eight drive RAID configurations. DiskTester 2.0 10GB read and write tests were performed using a run area test so that this article could display how the RAID performed with the RocketRAID 2322 SATA host adapter. 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 will perform when empty, 10% full, 20% full and so on. The table below displays how the RocketRAID 2322 performed when using various RAID configurations.
HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 - 8 Drive RAID Performance
 |
RAID 0 Six Seagate ST3320620AS Two Maxline 7V300F0 |
RAID 5 Six Seagate ST3320620AS Two Maxline 7V300F0 |
RAID 1/0 Six Seagate ST3320620AS Two Maxline 7V300F0 |
RAID 5/0 Six Seagate ST3320620AS Two Maxline 7V300F0 |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 542 | 556 | 320 | 485 | 268 | 292 | 350 | 413 |
| 10% | 550 | 550 | 310 | 478 | 274 | 292 | 361 | 407 |
| 20% | 543 | 533 | 303 | 466 | 270 | 285 | 361 | 398 |
| 30% | 526 | 516 | 298 | 452 | 262 | 276 | 364 | 383 |
| 40% | 516 | 507 | 297 | 447 | 254 | 267 | 358 | 381 |
| 50% | 483 | 474 | 308 | 414 | 240 | 256 | 348 | 353 |
| 60% | 466 | 458 | 323 | 402 | 232 | 244 | 346 | 340 |
| 70% | 424 | 417 | 294 | 364 | 211 | 231 | 316 | 307 |
| 80% | 408 | 404 | 293 | 354 | 203 | 217 | 303 | 302 |
| 90% | 367 | 362 | 311 | 317 | 183 | 194 | 274 | 267 |
| Average | 482.5 | 477.7 | 305.7 | 417.9 | 239.7 | 255.4 | 338.1 | 355.1 |
| Format Size | 2.18TB | 1.91TB | 1.09TB | 1.64TB | ||||
| Redundancy | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 - 6 Drive RAID Performance
|
RAID 0 Six Seagate ST3320620AS |
RAID 5 Six Seagate ST3320620AS |
RAID 1/0 Six Seagate ST3320620AS |
RAID 5/0 Six Seagate ST3320620AS |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 405 | 438 | 278 | 365 | 204 | 223 | 252 | 293 |
| 10% | 416 | 438 | 282 | 365 | 208 | 225 | 255 | 292 |
| 20% | 421 | 427 | 289 | 356 | 211 | 220 | 252 | 285 |
| 30% | 405 | 415 | 281 | 345 | 202 | 212 | 262 | 271 |
| 40% | 390 | 400 | 283 | 333 | 194 | 205 | 257 | 266 |
| 50% | 371 | 381 | 277 | 316 | 187 | 194 | 246 | 252 |
| 60% | 344 | 358 | 276 | 298 | 171 | 187 | 228 | 239 |
| 70% | 322 | 333 | 265 | 277 | 161 | 171 | 213 | 222 |
| 80% | 288 | 308 | 237 | 257 | 143 | 160 | 191 | 205 |
| 90% | 264 | 272 | 219 | 227 | 130 | 138 | 175 | 181 |
| Average | 362.6 | 377 | 268.7 | 313.9 | 181.1 | 193.5 | 233.1 | 250.6 |
| Format Size | 1.75TB | 1.45TB | 893.9GB | 1.16TB | ||||
| Redundancy | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
In the tests above, the RocketRAID 2322 was used with six and eight hard drive disk arrays with various RAID types. As you would expect, the eight drive disk arrays were the fastest. However, the six drive striped RAID set (RAID 0) also provided nice performance. Most Macintosh users that purchase a RocketRAID 2322 will probably do so for the fault tolerance features of RAID 5. The eight drive RAID 5 disk array tested during the review process provided redundancy and good performance. With an average read and write performance rate of over 300MB/sec, the RAID 5 HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 eight drive setup provided outstanding performance for a fault tolerant disk array.
Discussion
The HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 ($299) PCIe SATA host adapter provides RAID 5, RAID 1/0 and RAID 5/0 configurations to PowerMac Dual-core and Quad computers. If you are using your RAID for more than just a fast work area for manipulating multimedia files it is nice to have the fault tolerance that these formats provide. 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. If you are looking for a RAID system for the Macintosh that provides redundancy the HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 meets that requirement.
The HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 does have its short comings for Macintosh users. If you like to use the traditional method of hot swapping SATA hard drives in and out of enclosures the RocketRAID 2322 does not support this feature. In addition, if you like to use Hardware Monitor to keep track of your hard drive temperatures, the HighPoint RocketRAID 2322 does not pass SMART data to Mac OS X making this impossible. You can individually monitor temperatures in Celsius using the web manager. This is slow and each drive has to be examined by itself plus you may need a Celsius to Fahrenheit converter if you are old fashioned like me. No sleep support is also a negative for those that like to save on energy by sleeping the Quad when it is not in use. If you try to sleep the Quad with a RocketRAID 2322 installed it actually uses about 50 more watts than when idle and a few minutes later the fans usually increase dramatically in speed. While I did not expect boot support from the RocketRAID 2322 you should know that FirmTek is currently shipping bootable two port SATA host adapters for PCIe PowerMac G5 models.
Why would someone want a RocketRAID 2322? The answer is two fold. No other Mac PCIe SATA host adapter offers an 8-port card. Those users that want a fast direct connect eight port Macintosh SATA host adapter that only requires the use of one PCIe slot will find the RocketRAID 2322 is the only solution. In addition, if you want RAID 5, RAID 1/0 or RAID 5/0 on a Macintosh, the RocketRAID 2322 is the only shipping solution that provides these features. Servers that are up 24 hours a day and users that do not mind giving up hot swap and deep sleep support in exchange for advanced fault tolerant RAID configurations will find the RocketRAID 2322 is what they have been looking for.
Pros
Works with 8 hard drives on a single host adapter.
Can be used with HighPoint X4 enclosure.
Can be used with direct connect enclosures.
Can be used with Multilane Infiniband enclosures (qBOX-M).
Web Manager version 1.4 allows the alarm to be disabled.
Addonics AASA2SAP15C can be used with Ext-MS-1M4S Mini-SAS.
Mini-SAS connectors are very secure.
Works in all PowerMac G5 PCIe slots.
PCIe 4x compatible. Works in 8x or 16x slot too.
User-upgradeable firmware.
Drive failure alarm.
Disk Utility can create a RAID if drives are formatted individually as JBOD.
Web manager provides RAID 0, 1, 5, 1/0 and 5/0 configurations.
Online Capacity Expansion and Online RAID Level Migration feature.
RAID rebuilding capability.
Provides spare feature.
Web Manager displays SMART data.
Can use multiple RR2322 cards with Disk Utility.
Can work with other host adapters using Disk Utility.
Cons
No sleep support.
No boot capability.
No traditional hot swap support.
Web management software is slow and "clunky" to use.
Requires separate Mini-SAS cable purchase.
Drives on RocketRAID 2322 do not display drive name in Disk Utility.
Does not pass SMART data to Mac OS X.
Does not support SATA PM.
No Mac multiple 2322 card support for RAID 5, 1/0 or 5/0.
Mac users cannot change Web Manager user name.
RocketRAID 2322 gets 4 AMUGs out of 5!
The HighPoint Technologies RocketRAID 2322 PCIe SATA host adapter is the only solution available with RAID 5, RAID 1/0 and RAID 5/0 support on PowerMac G5 models. HighPoint plans to upgrade the RocketRAID 2322 Macintosh drivers to support the new Intel CPU driven Apple PowerMac models once they are released. If an eight port card with fault tolerant RAID capabilities is what you are looking for, the RocketRAID 2322 should be on your shopping list. As long as deep sleep, traditional hot swap and boot
support are all less important to you than 8-ports with RAID 5, RAID 1/0 and RAID 5/0 capabilities, the RocketRAID 2322 is definately worth a look. If you would like more information on using the RocketRAID 2322 with a PowerMac G5, you may want to check out the Barefeats RocketRAID 2322 review.Contact Information:
HighPoint Technologies Inc.
1161 Cadillac Court
Milpitas, CA 95035
Phone: (408) 942-5800
Fax: (408) 942-5801
http://www.highpoint-tech.com
Copyright 2006
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