SATA for the mac mini>>>>

paulcotto · New Member Joined: 24 Jul 2005 Posts: 4 Location: Houston

I had an idea for adding SATA to the Mac mini. You would use the 2.5" to 3.5" adapter by that dude in Australia and then use one of the hardware PATA to SATA adapters that are now available. Then you install a SATA plug into the back of the mini and use a SATA drive in an external case. Right now I am using a Raid-0 external case with 2 Maxtor 250 gig drives to boot and run the mini but I want even more speed Evil or Very Mad

I also saw a hardware device that lets you RAID 5 SATA drives to one SATA connection. Imagine the Mini with a 1TB SATA external drive array hooked to it Very Happy

I do editing with Final Cut HD so I need the speed & space...

Here is the hardware SATA raid>>

http://www.cooldrives.com/cosapomubrso.html

Here is the SATA to PATA adapter>>

http://www.cooldrives.com/sata-drive-to-ide-converter-mini.html

Here is a backplane connector you could use if you remove the bracket and screw it onto the mini vent holes>>

http://www.cooldrives.com/insaexsa1ppc.html

Then you need the 2.5" to 3.5" adapter>>

http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/mini/dock/

Regards,
Paul Cotto

Susurrus · Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2005 1:16 am Post subject:

Why would you want RAID 5 if you're going for speed? RAID 5 provides redundancy which hurts performace. What you'd want is hardware RAID 0 with more drives. Also, why do you want all this to be SATA? Are you thinking about 10k or 15k rpm drives? The extra bandwidth SATA offers is lost through all of this conversion, and it isn't fully used now anyways.

Frankly, you could do a TB external RAID drive now with two 500Gb drives in RAID 0, similar to your setup.
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paulcotto · New Member Joined: 24 Jul 2005 Posts: 4 Location: Houston

I never said any particular raid setup. I said you could use 5 drives with the raid block. I would use raid-0 for speed. Dont you think it would still be faster then a FW400 RAID?

Paul Cotto

homerjatmoes · Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 8:35 am Post subject:

I say give it a shot and report your results. I would use a single drive first then build up to the raid array and test that. With the smaller SATA cables it would look a lot better than the IDE hacks out there.

The SATA would run at IDE performance but the over all hook up would look cleaner in my opinion.
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Susurrus · Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 10:45 am Post subject:

paulcotto · New Member Joined: 24 Jul 2005 Posts: 4 Location: Houston

Yes, I should have put a comma between "RAID, 5 SATA drives" to remove confusion. Good idea on the Modem port, I will consider it. I have an older SCSI 6-bay tower in the closet that will be pressed into service when I get ready. I am still waitiing for the 2.5" adapter from Ausrailia.

Regards,
Paul Cotto

homerjatmoes · Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 12:01 pm Post subject:

h4ns · New Member Joined: 01 Aug 2005 Posts: 12

This is very interesting. So please keep us informed Laughing

In the meantime take a look at these enclosures:

http://www.stardom.com.tw/web/pro-U72.htm

http://www.stardom.com.tw/web/pro-U74.htm

These are not cheap, but I think it would be so cool if I could use
the U7-2-WB2 and mod it a bit so it could take a 5.25" DVD burner,
and two 3.5" HDD's Rolling Eyes

It has 2 Oxford 922 chipsets, and I believe it's possible to add 2 devises (master and slave) on a chipcontroller like that?

paulcotto · New Member Joined: 24 Jul 2005 Posts: 4 Location: Houston

I received the 2.5" to 3.5" drive adapter from Australia today. I also ordered the rest of the parts and they are due in Friday. I will try the SATA adapter by itself on a single SATA drive. If that works I will get 3 more and raid zero them. I should know if it works by next week.

Regards,
Paul Cotto

h4ns · New Member Joined: 01 Aug 2005 Posts: 12

What's the maximum lenght of a SATA cable that can be used from the mini to the storage tank?

homerjatmoes · Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 5:53 pm Post subject:

h4ns · New Member Joined: 01 Aug 2005 Posts: 12

Hey Paul, any news Question

I'm also wondering if it's possible to keep the combo-drive in it's place when adding an external SATA interface?

Please let us know how things turned out! Laughing

Susurrus · Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2005 4:12 pm Post subject:

eSATA, the external version of SATA can support lengths up to 18ft. There is also talk of possible support for 24ft lengths.
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Junior, Brown University
15" NC8430 HP Laptop
1.42Ghz PPC Mac Mini, 1Gb RAM, 1st Gen
40GB G4 iPod
2GB Black iPod Nano

h4ns · New Member Joined: 01 Aug 2005 Posts: 12

Hmm.. 16ft, that should be like 5,4864 meters and that means I could have a drive enclosure stored in the next room holding 2 or 3 harddrives and a nice Dual Layer DVD burner. I sure hope it's possible to leave the combo inside the mini with the 2,5" to 3,5" IDE converter.

h4ns · New Member Joined: 01 Aug 2005 Posts: 12

Looks like it's possible to keep the combo-drive:

http://macmod.com/content/view/273/2/

Laughing


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