Can't get Mac Pro to recognize OWC Mercury Elite Al-Pro QX2 Raid on eSata

does it appear in disk utilities?

does it need a driver?

into what card are you plugging it into?

Thanks for mentioning what card, and of course Sonnet includes a driver for that card. That said, look at Sonnet's footnote for the E2P (also reposted on OWC) as not all external enclosures will work.

A native SATA box of course will, though I dare say a higher end 6G or 4-port card with 4 direct connections would be much preferable.

Direct your request to OWC, they may have tested the QX2 with various controllers (though then one would hope they would put such findings in footnote and 'supported hardware' on product page).

Heck, I am pretty sure it comes with a CD, uses Silicon Image as do many low end cards. It does not have all that much bandwidth and is not designed for performance or for RAID but for low end 130MB/sec interface total, which is about what 2TB drive needs.

i think the 4-port cards from firmtek, sonnet and highpoint are all equally good

i have the highpoint 2314 and 10+ hard drives hooked up to it and have had no problems under leopard or snow. Their 3 year warranty won me over on that one.

if this one had been offered at the time, at that price, i would've taken that one, ;
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/MXPCIE6GRS/
with port multiplication. (saying that i wouldve taken that one, does not mean that i now know how it wouldve ended up working for me 🙂

ive had no problems with these 5-bay, port-multiplying enclosures, for 200$;
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sans%20Digital/TR5M/

but again, ive heard nothing but good things about the firmtek and the sonnet enclosures too.

http://eshop.macsales.com/search/raid+controller

I have a new OWC Mercury Elite Al-Pro QX2 Raid, set up as Raid 5, w 4 x 2TB Hitachi drives. I have been able to get it to mount on my Mac Pro via FireWire connection only, can't get it to mount via eSATA.

Dear Sunshine22,
The QX2 uses an Oxford 936QS chip that can require up to 45 seconds to startup all of the hard disks and become ready to accept eSATA controller commands. Usually, the QX2 enclosure will beep when it is finally ready.

The amount of time required to startup the enclosure can be longer than some eSATA drivers expect. There are two possible options you might try to get around this issue.

1. Unplug the QX2 eSATA cable from the controller. Turn on the enclosure and wait 45 seconds or until the enclosure beeps indicating it is ready. Next, connect the eSATA cable and the enclosure should show up in Disk Utility within the next 20 - 30 seconds.

OR

2. Turn on the QX2 and wait for 45 seconds or until the enclosure beeps. Now restart the Mac Pro and the enclosure should mount on the desktop or show up in Disk Utility.

Perhaps one of these methods will mount the QX2 for you.

FirmTek has updated our eSATA drivers so that these work arounds are not usually necessary when an Oxford 936QS based enclosure is attached to a FirmTek PCIe controller.

Good luck!