One way to increase drive performance is to take multiple drives and create one RAID 0 volume.
Jonathan Seff RAID: The penny-pincher’s path to faster performanceĪlthough the standard Mac Pro configuration has just one 250GB hard drive, you can install up to four SATA hard drives in it.
(Or, when Mac OS X Leopard arrives, you could dedicate one drive to the Time Machine backup utility.).
On two drives-for an up-to-the-minute backup. You could also create a mirrored RAID-in which the same data is stored, or If you’re considering this setup, note that a startup drive and multiple RAIDs work best. For example, you could use Drive Utility to set up your drives in a striped RAID volume-multiple drives configured so they act as one single, speedy volume (see below). With a little work, they can also speed up essential hard-drive tasks. Of course, those four drive bays give you more than just raw storage. (Just don’t try to slide them in and out when the Mac Pro is turned on! Although the drive bays and carriers look similar to those in Apple’s Xserve, the Mac Pro drives are The drive connects directly to the motherboard, without messy data or power cables.
You simply attach the drive to the carrier with four screws and slide the carrier back into place. Each empty hard-drive bay includes a metal drive carrier. Installing drives in the Mac Pro is easier than installing drives in any other recent Mac. Storage topic page, which includes recent reviews of theĪnd WiebeTech’s SilverSATA II SR 1TB hard drive.) However, this doesn’ actually translate into doubled speed-drive mechanisms aren’t currently fast enough to pump out that much data in that amount of time. But while the Power Mac supported SATA drives with a maximum bandwidth of 1.5 gigabits per second (Gbps), the Mac Pro supports the second generation of SATA drives-sometimes known as SATA II or SATA-300-which have a maximum potential bandwidth of 3 Gbps. Like the Power Mac G5, the Mac Pro uses SATA hard drives. The standard Mac Pro includes one 250GB hard drive. The Mac Pro is a nice step forward in both respects. Sure, the G5 featured improved Serial ATA (SATA) hard-drive technology-but it also halved the number of internal hard drives to two and made the process of installing them more complicated. One nice thing about the G4-based Power Macs was that they had lots of room inside for things like internal hard drives.