Review: power users will want to drive this Sidecar
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Feb 27, 2007 at 6:15am
Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AMCC)’s 3ware Sidecar is a handy, easy-to-use, external RAID storage solution for the Mac Pro and Power Mac G5 workstations. Offering storage capacities of up to three terabytes and RAID 5 write and read speeds up to 200MB per second, the 3ware Sidecar is targeted to pro video and audio, high-end graphics, digital photography storage and other capacity-hungry applications. In other words if you need speed, capacity and an integrated external chassis, this baby is for you.
The 3ware Sidecar hardware RAID storage system is a SATA II RAID solution that features a management software suite designed to simplify the configuration, management and monitoring of the storage solution. Additionally, the Sidecar’s two meter Multi-lane SATA cable enables four lanes of high speed 3Gb/s SATA traffic to travel from the PCI Express RAID controller to the four-bay external enclosure.
AMCC’s 4-bay external desktop storage enclosure provides up to 3TB of additional capacity when loaded with easily sourced 750GB SATA II, 3Gb/s drives. SATA II hard drives are hot swappable and each has its own dedicated channel to the 3ware SATA II RAID controller via a two meter Multi-lane SATA cable. Functions include online capacity expansion enabling disk drives to be added on the fly, RAID level migration, hot swap support, and extent notification and logging.
The Mac Pro driver ships with new 3ware Sidecars and can also be downloaded free of charge here. The easy to install 3ware 9590SE-4ME SATA II to PCI Express RAID controller can deliver over 200MB/s RAID 5 reads and more than 150MB/s RAID 5 writes. If you’ve ever installed a PCI or PCI Express card, you’ll have no problem with the procedure. Heck, even if you’ve not done it before, using the instructions that came with your Mac Pro or Power Mac G5 and AMCC’s instructions, it’s relatively easy to install the PCI Express RAID controller.
The 3ware is one fast Sidecar. Performance is driven by dedicated RAID processors that manage I/O functions. Your Mac workstation’s system CPU is free to manage your vital audio, video, and applications for optimized overall system performance. It’s also relatively loud, which is its main disadvantage. I’d also like to see an increase the Sidecar’s cable size, which is currently limited to just three meters.
The 3ware Sidecar has a manufacturers’ suggested retail price of US$1,295. Disk drives aren’t included, but you can get them in prices ranging from $291 to $449.99 (the price of the Barracuda 7200.10 model that I used).
The 3ware Sidecar is the best storage choice I’m aware of for Apple workstations when capacity, performance, data protection, and ease of use are the goals. The easy-to-configure RAID controller teamed with an intuitive management suite and multi-lane connectivity make it an a breeze to you. Overall, the AMCC device admirably fills the gap between previous Mac storage options, such as Apple’s Fibre Channel Xserve RAIDm and Mac desktop single-drive removable media usually connected by Firewire.
Macsimum rating; 8 out of 10.
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
