Need PCI-X SAS Adapter for PowerMac G5 Quantum LTO-4 External Tape Drive.

Best Mac support for SAS, I would start with ATTO
http://attotech.com/macscsiosx.html

So many have switched from tape to SATA, and the cost of SAS is about $699 and up.

http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/highpoint/2644x4/

Hi DMG1, some info on OSX 10.5.x + SAS HBAs + Quantum (and HP) Ultrium LTO4 tape drives.

+Fear NOT!+ NO NEED to go down the win-duzz path here.... use OSX.

Right now there are some real problems at present LTO4 firmware specification implementation with QUANTUMS HH SAS ULtrium LTO4 tape drive with some SAS HBA's.

Simply the firmware in the QUANTUM LTO4 SAS tape drive is NOT with in the SAS specification as implemented correctly by some SAS HBA vendors. In the case of ATTOTECH EXPRESSAS HBA, the SAS ULTRIUM4 LTO4 tape drive from QUANTUM does NOT respond to a startup/inquiry sequence, hence it is never seen by OSX.

I own one (sadly I bought it for just under $USD3000). Quantum stated to me in several emails that *they might if ever may never fix it!*

Quantum's staple answer to me is to RUN WINDOWS XP.. (yeah righto!). Quantum tape drive support has no clue about OSx ONLY that stuff from redmond. Simply QUANTUM supports is absolutely dreadful for their tape drives. *I would NOT or NEVER recommend anyone buying their ULTRIUM LTO4 SAS tape drive from Quantum.*

*Good News:*

However, I +would recommend HP LTO Ultrium 4+ for OSX using ATTOTECH EXPRESS SAS HBAs (raid and host).. these work amazingly .. as I can demonstrate to anyone using on my MACPRO 8 core!

Right now (and for several months) ATTOTECH have an outstanding issue with Quantum for their SAS LTO4 tape drive and ATTOTECH EXPRESSAS HBA's to which you may refer at http://attotech.com/support/trouble/sas.html

To the question at hand with QUANTUM SAS Ultrium LTO4 SAS tape drives and an HBA that works under OSX 10.5.x

Firstly *May I confirm* that your tape drive is a *QUANTUM HH SAS Ultrium LTO4 desktop tape drive model TC-L42BN-EY?*

IF the above is true, then *I would suggest you use the LSI SAS HBA model LSISAS3442E-R* in your G5 MAC. Yes sure LSI say they dont support OSX and yes you wont find any 'drivers' on the LSI site for this HBA but remebner you are wanting a SAS interface control with SCSI commands to a TAPE DRIVE!

This is confirmed in the REDONE forums at http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=17496&page=3

I believe most of these SAS HBA perform some kind of PASSTHROUGH to tape drives.

Thus the 'device control' logic for this will be in the archive/backup SOFTWARE you buy.

For OSX I would highly recommend *TOLISGROUP BRU-PE* ( http://www.tolisgroup.com) . BRU-PE with the ATTOTECH EXPRESSAS R380 HBA and the HP UTRIUM4 LTO4 SAS tape drive using footage from RED ONE (R3D) and DVCPROHD (these CMF is largely already compressed)

I can demonstrate ARCHIVE data rates of bewteen 103MB-125MB/sec UNCOMPRESSED using a blocksize (bufsize) of 2MB and through the BRU CLI of 4MB as long as the objects being archives are several GB in size.

(dont expect any similar blistering throughput using typical small I.T. type files (or photos or documents) that are small entities in 100MB or less. THe open/close logic slows the tape drive down enormously. Maybe TAR the directory first)

I would also recommend for larger objects such as used in the Media and Entertainment business or similar BLOBs that the source or destination disk storage system be at least equal to the data rate of the tape drives. My disk arrays service well in excess of the 140MB/sec native tape drive r/w that is proclaimed by many of these tape storage manufacturers.

I will post my results when I get an LSI HBA LSISAS3442E this week.

I would say it would be safe for you to get LSI LSISAS3442E-R SAS HBA for your G5 POWERMAC to service your QUANTUM ULTRIUM SAS LTO4 tape drive.

However you best *source some archive/backup software* that had the 'device control' in it.

Again I would recommend TOLISGROUPS BRU - the PE and LE version run natively on OSX.

HTH

warwick
HK

HI DMG1.. good news I CAN confirm that the following works ok: Note this is PCI-E..

LSI SAS3442E-R SAS PCIE HBA + QUANTUM HH Ultrium LTO4 half height tape drives work absolutely fine on my MACPRO at OSX 10.5.5!! (Leopard).

I just bought an LSI SAS3442E-R SAS PCIE HBA because of the out-of_sas specs issue with Quantum Ultrium4 LTO tape drives and my ATTOTECH R380 ExpressSAS (expresssas series all of them). See their web sites.

I use TOLISGROUPS BRU-PE [beta] (not LE)... and t works nearly the sam as the ATTOTECH+HP LTO4 SAS.

I would say it is OK on the G5.

I have now TWO tape drives (an HP Ultrium LTO4 SAS and the Quantum HH SAS Ultrium LTO 4) and TWO (yes 2) SAS HBA's installed in my MACPRO as:
• ATTO TECH R380 SAS PCIE HBA
• LSI LOGIC SAS3442E-R SAS PCIE HBA

SO far my testing using uncompressable 20mins-1hour DVCPROHD and R3D footage (large objects) stored on one of two disk arrays (internal and external) whose data rate FAR exceed the tape drives at 140MB/sec uncompressed with BLOCKSIZES | BUFSIZE of 1MB or 2MB for tape using TOLISGROUP's BRU-PE beta) ....is simple:

ARCHIVE (writes to tape from disk)
• HP SAS LTO 4 + ATTOTECH EXPRESS SAS = 103-105MB/sec
• Quantum SAS LTO4 + ATTOTECH EXPRESS SAS = DOESN'T WORK YET or anymore
• HP SAS LTO 4 + LSI SAS3442E-R SAS PCIE HBA = 102-105MB/sec
• Quantum HH tape + LSI SAS3442E-R SAS PCIE HBA = 100-103MB/sec

YOu wont get this data rate if you use small objects (files .. like typical I.T. files) as the tape drive will slow down.. maybe OPEN/CLOSe latency from the OSX OS.

RECALL (reads/restore to disk from tape drive)
• HP SAS LTO 4 + ATTOTECH EXPRESS SAS = 75-80MB/sec
• Quantum SAS LTO4 + ATTOTECH EXPRESS SAS = DOESN'T WORK YET or anymore
• HP SAS LTO 4 + LSI SAS3442E-R SAS PCIE HBA = 78MB/sec
• Quantum HH tape + LSI SAS3442E-R SAS PCIE HBA = 95MB/sec

THE READS from TAPE .. I need to see why this is.. no info yet.

In short from all my capital outlay, I can tell you that the above al works OK.

HTH

W
Hong Kong

Hi DMG1 and all,

I can *confirm that the following configurations work under MACOSX* for archive(backup) and recall (Restore) to and from an LTO4 Ultrium SAS interface tape drive.

I have posted the details in another forum at http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=21284&page=6

Here's whats works. I purchased most of this gear myself:

MACRO *core @ OSX 10.5.5 + TOLISGROUPS BRU-PE (in BETA at resent):

• *ATTOTECH EXPRESSSAS HBA PCI-E* (I have an R380) + *HP 1840 SAS desktop tape drive*. +(Quantum does not work at all at this time+ for their LTO4 Ultrium SAS - refer http://attotech.com/support/trouble/sas.html
• LSI SAS HBA SAS3442E-R + HP 1840 SAS desktop tape drive or a Quantum TC-L42BN external desktop LTO4 Ultrium tape drive SAS interface.

Please refer to the above link.

hth
w

ATTO plus Tiger is fine. SAS is just Serial Attached SCSI, so still SCSI.

As for OS... Heck, there are controller vendors scratching their heads even now trying to figure out how to support Leopard, so I'd avoid it.