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January 5, 2007
Sonnet Tempo E4P = Mac Pro HD Expansion
A Review of the Sonnet Tempo E4P SATA II Host Adapter used with the Apple Mac Pro 2.66 GHz
By Arthur Whalem
Sonnet Technologies is shipping the Tempo SATA E4P ($299.95) four port external serial ATA PCI Express host adapter with a new Mac Pro driver. AMUG previously reviewed the Sonnet Tempo E4P installed in a PowerMac G5 and we thought it would be interesting to see how it performs when used with an Apple Mac Pro 2.66 GHz model. This four port external SATA PM compatible PCI Express host adapter works with the Apple Mac Pro and the PowerMac G5 Dual-Core models. It can also be used with a Windows XP computer. When using up to four, 5-bay port multiplier enclosures the Sonnet Tempo E4P can mount up to twenty SATA hard drives. The E4P is SATA II compliant and supports auto-negotiation with both 1.5Gb/s and 3Gb/s hard drives. It supports Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC) , hot swap and sleep mode with an Apple computer with PCIe slots. The latest firmware and drivers for the Tempo E4P SATA host adapter are available at the Sonnet web site. The Mac Pro Sonnet Tempo E4P driver version 2.1, which was released December 22, 2006 was utilized during this review.
System Requirements
Mac OS X Version 10.4.8 and later or Windows XP.
Requires a computer with an available PCIe slot.
Supports up to four external SATA hard drives using direct connect method.
Supports up to twenty external hard drives using four, 5-bay PM enclosures.
InstallationPCI Express also known as PCIe, communicates using 250MB per second data lanes. PCI Express bandwidth is determined by the number of data lanes that can be supported. 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. The Tempo E4P SATA host adapter is a four lane card which works well in slots 4 and 2 of a PowerMac G5 PCIe model. G5 PCIe users do not need to install E4P Mac drivers as they are preloaded on startup from firmware on the card. However, installation of the Tempo E4P in an Apple Mac Pro requires installing the latest Mac Pro Driver which can be obtained from the Sonnet on-line download support site. The current Sonnet E4P Mac Pro driver release version is 2.1.
The Apple Mac Pro PCIe bus design provides a little less bandwidth than is available with the PowerMac G5 Dual-Core models. It uses the "Expansion Slot Utility" application to configure the speed of the PCIe slots. The Expansion Slot Utility can be found within Mac OS X at Macintosh HD: System:Library: CoreServices:Expansion Slot Utility. It will automatically launch when it detects that a card has been installed in a slot with fewer lanes than the hardware is capable of utilizing.
In the example above, the Sonnet Tempo E4P is installed in the top slot of an Apple Mac Pro which is slot 4. There are four configurations that the Expansion Slot Utility allows the user to select. However, most users will want to maintain the video card in a 16 lane slot. With that being the case, only the first two configurations maintain a 16 lane video card setup. When using more than one four lane SATA host adapter the second Expansion Slot Utility configuration allows for PCIe slots 3 and 4 to both provide four lane performance.
In the example above, the Sonnet Tempo E4P is installed in slot 4 and a second Sonnet Tempo E4P PCIe card is installed in slot 3. The second setting of the Apple Expansion Slot utility is selected which provides each card with four PCIe lanes.
If you examine the Sonnet Tempo E4P SATA host adapter using the Mac OS X System Profiler you will find that it is displayed as a pci11ab,7042 card with a type of IDE Controller.
FeaturesThe Sonnet Tempo E4P SATA host adapter utilizes the Marvell 88SX7042 PCIe to Serial ATA Controller chip. It provides a dedicated channel for each SATA port, supports hot-plug SATA drives and is compliant with both SATA 1.0 and SATA II including Native Command Queuing (NCQ) and Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC). The Marvell 88SX7042 controller chip supports both SATA PM and direct connect SATA connections. The Sonnet Tempo E4P utilizes FIS-based port multiplier aware hardware which allows up to twenty hard drives to be used with the Tempo E4P when four 5-bay SATA PM enclosures are connected. Using the direct connect method allows up to four external hard drives to be mounted on the Sonnet Tempo E4P SATA host adapter.
The Sonnet Tempo E4P provides status LED lights that can be seen when the Mac Pro side panel is open. The lights are located on the top of the Sonnet card toward the rear of the Mac Pro. When a green light is on the hard drives are powered and ready for use. When an amber light is flashing the SATA hard drives are reading/writing data. Monitoring these lights can be helpful if you are having trouble mounting a RAID or an individual SATA hard drive on the desktop. Channel 1 is farthest from the back of the Mac Pro and channel 4 is near the eSATA connection ports. Users can also see these channel designations listed in Disk Utility in the connection ID information data.The Tempo SATA E4P Mac Pro driver allows the user to use Disk Utility to setup individual hard drives or RAIDs, supports sleep mode, hot swap and passes hard drive SMART data to
Mac OS X. Having the ability to use SMART data to monitor hard drive temperatures and drive status is a nice feature that some host adapter drivers do not support. With the Sonnet Tempo E4P installed, Mac Pro users can easily monitor hard drive temperatures using Hardware Monitor.While the Sonnet Tempo E4P SATA host adapter supports 5-bay SATA PM enclosures like the Fusion 500P, some third party SATA PM enclosures were shipped with old firmware installed that the E4P does not support. If you have a SATA PM enclosure with out of date Silicon Image 3726 port multiplier firmware installed,
you may find that it will not work with the Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P until the firmware has been upgraded to version 1.0114 or later. This only applies to port multiplier enclosures. You can determine if you have the old 3726 firmware by searching the Mac OS X system log for the word "Port Multiplier". The old firmware will display Port Multiplier 0x1095 0x4726 0x00 0x06 0x06 in the log file. The key to finding the old firmware revision is 0x00 in the third number. Sonnet ships an addendum with each Tempo SATA E4P card which explains this issue. If you have the old firmware, the Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P host adapter will not mount any drives in the enclosure. Most Macintosh enclosure vendors have the proper firmware update already installed. The 1.0114 firmware is available at the Silicon Image web site and can be installed using the command line with a PC.No Boot Capability
One feature that the Sonnet Tempo E4P does not support is booting Mac OS X from the SATA host adapter ports. The FirmTek SeriTek/1eVE4 SATA host adapter provides boot capability for PowerMac models with PCI or PCI-X slots. In addition, the 2-port FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E SATA PCIe host adapter provides boot capability for PowerMac G5 Dual-Core and Quad models. However, no company currently supports Mac OS X booting using a PCI Express SATA host adapter on the Apple Mac Pro.
Energy Usage
According to the Kill-a-Watt electricity usage monitor, the Sonnet Tempo E4P SATA host adapter hardware utilizes approximately 3.5 watts while idle and installed in a Mac Pro 2.66 GHz stock model. This was determined by measuring the energy usage with and without the card installed while the computer was idle for at least 10 minutes. The difference between the two readings is 3.5 watts. When two Sonnet Tempo E4P host adapters are installed the energy usage is approximately 7 watts for both cards.
Enclosures
As the Sonnet Tempo E4P SATA host adapter is an external eSATA solution users will need an enclosure for their SATA hard drives. Sonnet sells two SATA enclosures that work well with their SATA host adapters. AMUG has tested them and found that they provide an elegant design along with a nice balance of quiet operation and good cooling capability.
Sonnet Fusion 400
Image courtesy of Sonnet Technologies
The Sonnet Fusion 400 (ENC-SATA-D4) 4-Bay Serial ATA direct connect hard drive enclosure has a MSRP of $399.95. It features four hot swap hard drive bays enclosed in a silver aluminum case that is the same color as the Apple Mac Pro. This enclosure provides each hard drive with its own eSATA data connection. It works well with the Tempo E4P when the user wants to use each port with a single hard drive. The Fusion 400 has an internal universal power supply and a single 80mm user serviceable exhaust fan mounted in the rear of the enclosure. The front access door design allows the blue LED drive activity lights and the green LED drive presence lights to be monitored while the Fusion 400 front door is open or closed. Each drive bay has its own locking mechanism which supports a key. The enclosure measures 11" deep, 7.5" high and 5.9" wide. The Fusion 400 weighs 9.5 pounds empty and 15 pounds with four Maxtor Maxline III 300GB SATA II hard drives installed. It is compatible with Macintosh, Windows or Linux computers with a compatible SATA host adapter.
Sonnet Fusion 500P
Image courtesy of Sonnet Technologies
The Sonnet Technologies Fusion 500P (ENC-SATA-D5P) 5-Bay SATA hard drive enclosure with port multiplier has an MSRP of $499.95. This enclosure features five hot swap hard drive bays enclosed in a silver aluminum case that is the same color as the Mac Pro. The port multiplier capabilities of the Sonnet Fusion 500P allow all five hard drives in the enclosure to be connected via a single eSATA data cable. The Tempo E4P works in conjunction with the SiI-3726 chip installed in the Fusion 500P to provide fast FIS-based port multiplier switching capabilities between all five hard drives mounted in the enclosure. This feature allows a single Sonnet Tempo E4P to support up to twenty hard drives using four Fusion 500P enclosures.
The Fusion 500P has an internal universal power supply and a single 80mm user serviceable exhaust fan mounted in the rear of the enclosure. It supports both SATA I and SATA II hard drives and provides hard drive activity and power lights. The exterior design of the Fusion 400 is similar to the Fusion 500P. They both use the same hot swap tray system and look good with an Apple Mac Pro. The Fusion 500P measures 11" deep, 8.7" high and 5.9" wide. It weighs 10.8 pounds empty and 17.6 pounds with five Maxtor 300GB SATA hard drives installed. The enclosure is compatible with Macintosh, Windows or Linux computers with a compatible SATA PM host adapter. Using 5-bay SATA PM enclosures like the Fusion 500 with the Sonnet Tempo E4P host adapter provides access to a large array of SATA hard drives.
SATA PM RAID PerformanceThe Sonnet Tempo E4P SATA host adapter was installed in slot 4 of an Apple Mac Pro 2.66 GHz with 3GB of memory using the Mac Pro driver version 2.1 and running Mac OS X 10.4.8. SATA port multiplier enclosures were used with the Tempo E4P for the SATA PM tests. DiskTester 10GB read and write tests were performed using a run area test so that this article could display how the RAID performs with the E4P. 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 two different five drive striped RAID sets perform when using a single port on the Sonnet Tempo E4P with a port multiplier enclosure. Slot 4 was configured with an 8 lane and a 4 lane PCIe bandwidth to see if it might impact performance.
5 Drive SATA Port Multiplier Striped RAID - DiskTester 10GB Test
 E4P - 8 lane 2.1 Driver Seagate 320 7200.10 |
E4P - 4 lane 2.1 Driver Seagate 320 7200.10 |
E4P - 8 lane 2.1 Driver Maxline 300 7V300F0 |
E4P - 4 lane 2.1 Driver Maxline 300 7V300F0 |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 212 | 240 | 214 | 241 | 210 | 245 | 211 | 244 |
| 10% | 216 | 240 | 217 | 241 | 212 | 246 | 212 | 244 |
| 20% | 216 | 240 | 217 | 240 | 212 | 246 | 212 | 245 |
| 30% | 216 | 241 | 217 | 241 | 212 | 244 | 212 | 244 |
| 40% | 217 | 240 | 217 | 241 | 212 | 244 | 212 | 244 |
| 50% | 217 | 241 | 217 | 242 | 212 | 244 | 212 | 241 |
| 60% | 217 | 241 | 217 | 242 | 212 | 244 | 212 | 242 |
| 70% | 217 | 241 | 217 | 241 | 212 | 243 | 212 | 244 |
| 80% | 217 | 239 | 217 | 237 | 213 | 241 | 212 | 242 |
| 90% | 215 | 222 | 216 | 223 | 213 | 220 | 212 | 220 |
| 100% | 181 | 184 | 183 | 183 | 179 | 188 | 177 | 189 |
| Average | 213 | 233 | 213 | 234 | 209 | 237 | 209 | 236 |
| Size | 1.45TB | 1.45TB | 1.36TB | 1.36TB |
As you can see in the table above, the Sonnet Tempo E4P SATA host adapter provides about the same performance when installed in a four lane or an eight lane PCIe bus. However, users should know that if the E4P is installed in a 1x PCIe bus DiskTester performance results for a five drive SATA PM striped RAID set will be reduced to approximately 133MB/sec write speeds and 190MB/sec read speeds. Performance minded users will want to be sure that the Tempo E4P is installed in a 4x PCIe slot or higher.
The next table expands this test to include a ten drive SATA PM striped RAID set. This test compares ten Seagate 320GB 7200.10 hard drives in two 5-bay SATA PM enclosures against ten Maxline III 7V300F0 drives.
10 Drive SATA Port Multiplier Striped RAID - DiskTester 10GB Test
 Tempo E4P 2.1 Driver Ten Seagate 320GB 7200.10 ST3320620AS |
Tempo E4P 2.1 Driver Ten Maxline III 300GB 7V300F0 |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 418 | 453 | 413 | 472 |
| 10% | 421 | 452 | 415 | 475 |
| 20% | 423 | 454 | 413 | 481 |
| 30% | 422 | 460 | 413 | 482 |
| 40% | 423 | 460 | 413 | 481 |
| 50% | 422 | 455 | 414 | 483 |
| 60% | 421 | 451 | 414 | 480 |
| 70% | 421 | 445 | 413 | 482 |
| 80% | 422 | 440 | 414 | 478 |
| 90% | 421 | 410 | 414 | 443 |
| 100% | 364 | 345 | 366 | 376 |
| Average | 416 | 439 | 409 | 467 |
| Size | 2.91TB | 2.73TB |
As you can see in the ten drive striped RAID test above both hard drive models provide about the same performance. However, the Tempo E4P read speeds were a little higher when used with the Maxline III 300GB 7V300F0 hard drives. During these tests it was found that using two SATA PM enclosures with four hard drives each (instead of five) provided a little slower average speed but not by as much as I would have thought.
The next table demonstrates how a fifteen drive SATA PM striped RAID set comprised of ten Maxline III 7V300F0 drives and five Seagate 320GB 7200.10 hard drives performs compared to a twenty drive SATA PM setup installed in four enclosures.
15 Drive vs 20 Drive SATA Port Multiplier Striped RAID Test
Sonnet E4P Three PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (5) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (10) 7V300F0 |
Sonnet E4P Four PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (10) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (10) 7V300F0 |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 540 | 647 | 596 | 707 |
| 10% | 542 | 647 | 608 | 709 |
| 20% | 544 | 645 | 609 | 709 |
| 30% | 544 | 649 | 610 | 713 |
| 40% | 544 | 652 | 609 | 714 |
| 50% | 542 | 647 | 610 | 706 |
| 60% | 541 | 650 | 611 | 714 |
| 70% | 542 | 643 | 611 | 709 |
| 80% | 542 | 639 | 609 | 711 |
| 90% | 546 | 630 | 612 | 708 |
| 100% | 547 | 569 | 611 | 707 |
| Average | 543 | 638 | 609 | 710 |
| Size | 4.09TB | 5.45TB |
a Mac Pro 2.66 GHz model in PCIe slot 4 with a 15/20 drive SATA PM setup.
When I examined the striped RAID set performance difference between the 15 and the 20 drive SATA PM setups it was not as much as I had expected. Approximately 30% more hard drives were added to obtain a 12% performance gain. I wanted to find out if a different combination could provide better performance results.
During these tests, I found that using four SATA PM enclosures with a setup that only utilizes four hard drives per port multiplier could provide similar average performance and slightly better READ rates. I also found that the Sonnet Tempo E4P has a bandwidth limit of about 750MB/sec when using a single card. Users that want performance above 750MB/sec can install a second E4P and use two or more SATA PM enclosures on each card. Results for 16 drives vs 20 drives on a single E4P are compared in the table below along with using two E4P host adapters.
16 Drives vs 20 Drives with Single Tempo E4P Host Adapter
Sonnet E4P Four PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (8) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (8) 7V300F0 |
Sonnet E4P Four PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (10) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (10) 7V300F0 |
 Dual Tempo E4P Four PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (10) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (10) 7V300F0 |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 591 | 731 | 596 | 707 | 707 | 804 |
| 10% | 598 | 734 | 608 | 709 | 723 | 811 |
| 20% | 600 | 734 | 609 | 709 | 721 | 816 |
| 30% | 596 | 735 | 610 | 713 | 720 | 813 |
| 40% | 600 | 736 | 609 | 714 | 722 | 820 |
| 50% | 600 | 725 | 610 | 706 | 726 | 809 |
| 60% | 601 | 722 | 611 | 714 | 729 | 820 |
| 70% | 601 | 730 | 611 | 709 | 727 | 819 |
| 80% | 600 | 698 | 609 | 711 | 730 | 815 |
| 90% | 600 | 686 | 612 | 708 | 729 | 814 |
| 100% | 601 | 608 | 611 | 707 | 727 | 761 |
| Average | 599 | 713 | 609 | 710 | 724 | 809 |
| Size | 4.36TB | 5.45TB | 5.45TB | |||
| MSRP | $299.95 | $299.95 | $598.95 |
With the knowledge that four SATA PM enclosures can sometimes perform better when limited to four hard drives per enclosure, that setup was also tested with two Tempo E4P host adapters. As you can see in the table below the 16 drive setup that utilized dual Sonnet E4P cards was able to provide 880MB/sec. READ performance.
Adding a 5th SATA PM enclosure with the other four drives for a total of twenty hard drives on two E4P cards was able to provide 1060MB/sec. READ and 870MB/sec WRITE performance. When users compare using the same 20 hard drives with a single E4P, they find the two card E4P solution with a 5th SATA PM enclosure can provide 250MB/sec. faster average WRITE speeds and almost 300MB/sec. faster average READ performance.
16 Drives vs 20 Drives with Dual Tempo E4P Host Adapters
Dual Sonnet E4P Four PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (8) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (8) 7V300F0 |
Dual Sonnet E4P Five PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (10) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (10) 7V300F0 |
Single Sonnet E4P Four PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (10) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (10) 7V300F0 |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 758 | 880 | 872 | 1065 | 596 | 707 |
| 10% | 752 | 880 | 837 | 1060 | 608 | 709 |
| 20% | 730 | 882 | 876 | 1067 | 609 | 709 |
| 30% | 758 | 879 | 879 | 1059 | 610 | 713 |
| 40% | 762 | 873 | 873 | 1070 | 609 | 714 |
| 50% | 765 | 859 | 879 | 1051 | 610 | 706 |
| 60% | 767 | 861 | 877 | 1067 | 611 | 714 |
| 70% | 768 | 814 | 874 | 1021 | 611 | 709 |
| 80% | 768 | 786 | 872 | 975 | 609 | 711 |
| 90% | 700 | 698 | 885 | 875 | 612 | 708 |
| 100% | 601 | 605 | 750 | 734 | 611 | 707 |
| Average | 739 | 820 | 861 | 1004 | 609 | 710 |
| Size | 4.36TB | 5.45TB | 5.45TB | |||
| MSRP | $598.95 | $598.95 | $299.95 |
This same logic can be applied to using four SATA PM enclosures with three hard drives per port multiplier. As you can see in the table below a single E4P with 12 hard drives spread out over four port multipliers can provide 730MB/sec READ performance. Moving to dual E4P cards can also increase performance. However, using five SATA PM enclosures with two cards and 15 hard drives provides a more dramatic performance increase.
12 Drives vs 15 Drives with Single & Dual E4P Host Adapters
Sonnet E4P Four PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (3) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (9) 7V300F0 |
Dual Sonnet E4P Four PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (3) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (9) 7V300F0 |
Dual Sonnet E4P Five PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (6) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (9) 7V300F0 |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 615 | 731 | 760 | 792 | 856 | 968 |
| 10% | 615 | 738 | 755 | 792 | 858 | 966 |
| 20% | 613 | 717 | 756 | 786 | 867 | 962 |
| 30% | 620 | 737 | 755 | 760 | 868 | 954 |
| 40% | 619 | 726 | 756 | 730 | 867 | 933 |
| 50% | 618 | 699 | 680 | 694 | 854 | 877 |
| 60% | 619 | 677 | 647 | 670 | 847 | 831 |
| 70% | 619 | 614 | 602 | 613 | 763 | 765 |
| 80% | 580 | 594 | 572 | 591 | 730 | 736 |
| 90% | 516 | 523 | 507 | 526 | 658 | 654 |
| 100% | 434 | 449 | 433 | 448 | 558 | 561 |
| Average | 588 | 655 | 657 | 673 | 793 | 837 |
| Size | 3.27TB | 3.27TB | 4.09TB | |||
| MSRP | $299.95 | $598.95 | $598.95 |
My next question was how would using two hard drives per SATA PM enclosure impact the stripe RAID set performance? Performing the same tests below with dual drives per SATA PM resulted in zero performance gain with dual cards except when also adding a 5th SATA PM enclosure. Using 3-4 hard drives per port multiplier provides so much better performance with four to five SATA PM enclosures that I will rarely utilize a dual drive SATA PM setup.
8 Drives vs 10 Drives with Single & Dual E4P Host Adapters
Sonnet E4P Four PM Enclosures Maxline 300 (8) 7V300F0 |
Dual Sonnet E4P Four PM Enclosures Maxline 300 (8) 7V300F0 |
Dual Sonnet E4P Five PM Enclosures Maxline 300 (10) 7V300F0 |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 522 | 541 | 531 | 531 | 629 | 678 |
| 10% | 517 | 534 | 511 | 536 | 632 | 655 |
| 20% | 498 | 518 | 501 | 521 | 630 | 639 |
| 30% | 487 | 508 | 487 | 506 | 607 | 624 |
| 40% | 470 | 494 | 472 | 492 | 591 | 602 |
| 50% | 456 | 464 | 451 | 465 | 561 | 573 |
| 60% | 436 | 450 | 426 | 448 | 531 | 549 |
| 70% | 405 | 414 | 409 | 415 | 489 |