[Guide & Software] Complete Intel Bad Axe 2 Walkthrough with Software

[hakeem9]

Update: just installed the Leopard Graphics Update which appeared in my system update, no problems. Haven't really seen any improvement in speed but everything seems to be fine.

[caseyh]

ok, got it down to everything but the power supply. do I go with a 430w 80plus model like so

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817371006

 

OR get the 500w version of the same model?

 

OR the 380w version????

 

I am asking in here because I will be running very close the the same hardware as many of you. I plan on running AT LEAST 4 hard drives at anytime- a Q6600 - a 7600gt card and 4gb ram on 2 sticks. I have done all the power supply calculators suggested but everyone is pointing to larger power supplies.

[onLIKEdk]

The thing is that we can't connect a mac to the internal network because they are not approved (not even a PC with Vista for the moment until it has been tested thoroughly -It's a big company and the rules come from overseas), It has to be a PC with XP at the most.

 

They Let me spend money on a PC -period. I'm just trying to be sneaky and buy a PC that I can run OS X too ;-)

 

 

Running OSX on hacked hardware is going to be the same as running OSX on Apple's hardware. If they're monitoring the network closely enough to tell which OS you're running, they'll sniff you out in no time, regardless of the sticker on your computer case.

[Nano07]

Running OSX on hacked hardware is going to be the same as running OSX on Apple's hardware. If they're monitoring the network closely enough to tell which OS you're running, they'll sniff you out in no time, regardless of the sticker on your computer case.

 

True. The thing is the Graphics Dept. belongs to the I.T. department locally in our organization, so I know I can get away with it. Thanks for the advice anyway

I wouldn't like to go deeper into this discussion so not to be off-topic in this thread.

 

I just thought that, due to the fact that they are going to buy the PC anyway, maybe some of you would be able to give me some advice on what hardware to buy.

[Gatorfreak]

Try using the 10.4.8 IO8011/IONetworkingFamily kext's - these work great for me, you can find them here:http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=510131

 

I tried the above suggestion but the wireless card wouldn't respond at all with that. I changed back to the IONetworkingFamily.kext that is included in this guide. The wired ethernet works so that's good enough for now. Also, sound and everything else works. Dual monitors work perfectly on my 8600GT (with 10.5.2 nvidia kexts). I updated to 10.5.1 with no issues. Overall, I'm really happy with the results. This guide made it all relatively easy.

 

For the wireless, I guess I just need to try different IO8011 kexts. I have an Asus WL-138Gv2 wireless PCI card. I saw that other model Asus cards actually have OSX drivers. So I may give one of those a try (even though it's for a different model).

 

When I tried doing the netkas 10.5.2 update method before, I hadn't yet updated to 10.5.1. I was going straight from 10.5.0. Perhaps that's why I had problems while others did not. I'll give it another shot in the next few days now that I'm at 10.5.1.

 

[edit]

Silly me, I didn't backup my IO8011 kext (if I even had one) before trying the 10.4.8 version. Could someone point me where to get a 10.5.* version?

[/edit]

[weaksauce12]

ok, got it down to everything but the power supply. do I go with a 430w 80plus model like so

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817371006

 

OR get the 500w version of the same model?

 

OR the 380w version????

 

I am asking in here because I will be running very close the the same hardware as many of you. I plan on running AT LEAST 4 hard drives at anytime- a Q6600 - a 7600gt card and 4gb ram on 2 sticks. I have done all the power supply calculators suggested but everyone is pointing to larger power supplies.

 

If you can afford it, get the 500-watt. The more wattage you buy now, the longer your machine is future-proof as far as your power supply goes.

 

Also my 8800GTX came in yesterday. Holy COW this thing is huge - it's half the size of my motherboard! And it requires TWO power plugs to run, lol. Time to convert it into a Quadro 5600!

[weaksauce12]

I have successfully booted off an 8gb USB memory stick. I used SuperDuper to clone a fresh installation of Leopard to it (about 7 gigs). It took a couple boots to startup but it does work. It is fairly slow, which is to be expected. I didn't realize how much web surfing speeds are affected by the hard drive speed - it's pretty slow to even surf the Internet! Anyway it does work, so if you need an alternative to a LiveCD for whatever reason, you can pick up an 8gb+ memory stick. I would recommend 16 gigs if you need one because I only have about 620 megs free on the hard drive with the default installation of Leopard with SuperDuper - not a lot of room for other apps.

 

I don't feel that this is a good option for an emergency boot drive, despite its convience. The price is fairly low ($40), but at that pricepoint you can buy a 40/80/160gb 3.5" SATA drive off Newegg. In addition, you can simply clone Leopard to a small partition on your backup drive so that you can easily restore a backup. If worst comes to worst, you can always use your patched Leopard DVD (and probably Kalyway) to use Disk Utility to restore a SuperDuper sparse image backup. So a good use of the USB stick would be to keep a virgin installation of Leopard on as an image clone, then use a bootable OS X DVD to clone that image file to a hard drive.

 

So USB sticks are another option (albeit slow) for booting

[Gatorfreak]

An update on my wireless slowness issues... I've installed Windows XP (dual boot) and it's doing the exact same thing under Windows (recognizes available networks but can barely connect with speed <1KBps). So it worked fine for one day and died? Is it possible that OSX actually damaged it?

Oh well, I'll try to get it replaced by Asus under warranty.

[weaksauce12]

@ Gatorfreak, sometimes hardware just dies. I'm pretty sure there's no way OS X could have caused a physical hardware malfunction.

 

Has anyone else been having problems with the latest BIOS? (2813)

 

The 8800GTX to Quadro FX 5600 flash was successful!

 

Using this mod from aquamac, you can turn a (relatively) inexpensive 8800GTX into a professional Quadro FX 5600 video card. I say "relatively inexpensive" because the Quadro FX 5600 is $2,850 from Apple (for just the card!) while the 8800GTX is only $430 (currently $380 with a $50 MIR!). The only difference is that the 8800GTX has 768mb vram and the real Quadro has 1.5gb vram. So even if you cut the price in half because the 8800GTX has half the ram, that's still $1425 for the card, which translates to nearly $1,000 in savings for a simple ROM flash. Here is the exact card I purchased from Newegg:

 

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx...N82E16814143080

 

Note: I do not gaurantee any sort of success with this mod. This is an expensive card to replace if you break it! I would suggest joining aquamac's forums and doing some research before purchasing:

 

http://aquamac.proboards106.com/index.cgi

 

Here is the ROM page, be sure to do your homework first!

 

http://www.s155158671.websitehome.co.uk/nv...512cardrom.html

 

Here is what you need:

 

1. BFG 600mhz 768mb 8800GTX card, model # BFGR88768GTXOCE (this EXACT model!)

2. USB floppy drive (or internal, if you have it)

3. Floppy disk

4. NVFLASH (google it)

5. Appropriate ROM

 

* Package for BA2/FX5600 is attached to this post

 

Here is the procedure:

 

1. Create a Windows startup disk (right-click on the floppy, format, set as startup disk)

2. Unzip NVFLASH and copy both files to the floppy

3. Copy FX5600.rom to the floppy

4. Set your BIOS to boot to Floppy/USB first

5. Boot up to the A: prompt and type in "nvflash -b save.rom" (this makes a backup)

6. Reboot the computer

7. At the A: prompt again, type "nvflash -4 -5 -6 -j FX5600.rom" (make sure you have all the spaces!)

8. Hit "Y" 3 times when it prompts you

9. Reboot and remove the floppy when done

10. Install the modded NVinject (I included Kexthelper so it's drag-and-drop like AppleHDApatcher) and reboot

 

And that's all there is to it! Backup your existing ROM, install the new one, install the new NVinject! I've attached a ZIP file containing NVFLASH, the FX5600 rom, and a custom NVinject kext courtesy of aquamac. So format the floppy disk as a Windows boot disk and dump the files in the Floppy folder onto it, and then after running the steps above use Kexthelper to dump in the modded NVinject and reboot. Very simple, no hardware mod needed, save yourself $2,400!

 

Special thanks to aquamac again for helping me with this mod!

QuadroPack.zip

[Team Scream]

Nice Sauce, I want to hear some reports on the quadro mod!

[weaksauce12]

Nice Sauce, I want to hear some reports on the quadro mod!

 

So far it's great! I didn't see any difference in Xbench scores; in fact, the Quadro was a few points lower in some areas. However it wakes up from sleep super fast - I didn't realize the video card had anything to do with wake from sleep, but it pops right up now

[Team Scream]

Well just so you know I have some faith in you and I am prepared to order up everything I need to do a new Hackintosh for my personal computer at work.

 

Are you still stoked on the BadAxe2 as the board of choice or should I consider something else before i pull the trigger?

 

Money is not the issue, I do not want to use DDR3 however, I would way rather stay with DDR2

[Nano07]

Hi Team Scream,

 

This is the response I got from Ontrack this morning. I know he has himself a DFI Blood Iron, but if you're looking at a dual CPU he suggests Tyan Tempest 5000t.

 

More info about the DFI one is this topic http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=78325

 

Weaksauce, What do you think? Do you know any of these mobos?

 

EDIT:

hehe, I didn't check your signature before answering. I can see you have Tyan yourself. What's your experience with this one? Is it not good?

 

 

 

You're looking for a motherboard that is better than the BA2, I would suggest the DFI Blood Iron, as its an intel p35 based board, works flawlessly, audio in/out and spdif supported by alc885, and it supports 8 gig ram, quads and penryns.

 

Beyond that if you want to get insane, there is a dual quad board from tyan that is very well supported. The Tyan Tempest 5000t - check it out here:

 

http://www.tyan.com/product_board_detail.aspx?pid=43

[Team Scream]

Hi Team Scream,

 

This is the response I got from Ontrack this morning. I know he has himself a DFI Blood Iron, but if you're looking at a dual CPU he suggests Tyan Tempest 5000t.

 

More info about the DFI one is this topic http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=78325

 

Weaksauce, What do you think? Do you know any of these mobos?

 

EDIT:

hehe, I didn't check your signature before answering. I can see you have Tyan yourself. What's your experience with this one? Is it not good?

 

Heya Nano,

 

YES I have the Tyan S2696 See it here and it works absolutely 100%

I now have 8 gigs of ram, and the BFG 8800 GT OC (640MB) video card working 100%, everything on this board works 100%, audio in/out all 14 SATA/SAS ports work, system profiler works, Time Machine, everything.

 

I want to build a smaller single chip machine for work that I can play with and get back into the Mac groove which I have avoided for the last few years for various reasons.

 

I have owned well over 30 brand new Apple/Mac computers since 1985, they were all I used well before the internet was what it is today, I remember being on BBS's long before the WWW was ever even conceived, anyway I got mad that I could not upgrade my Mac's so about 5 or 6 years ago I stopped buying them completely and switched to PC, something I never thought I would do, but now that I can build my own and play with the OS again and not feel like I am required to spend several thousand dollars each time I need a performance increase I am back on board thanks to this site and guys like Weaksauce and many others willing to share time and energy this has become fun again for me.

 

I want to contribute as well so the more I learn the more I can share, but since I never really embraced OSX.xxx and my experience is with pre-OSX and I have a lot to learn.

 

Thanks for the heads up Nano, I really enjoyt this whole thing, and I will definitely look into the Blood Iron board and see if I can make something happen with that set up.

[weaksauce12]

Well just so you know I have some faith in you and I am prepared to order up everything I need to do a new Hackintosh for my personal computer at work.

 

Are you still stoked on the BadAxe2 as the board of choice or should I consider something else before i pull the trigger?

 

Money is not the issue, I do not want to use DDR3 however, I would way rather stay with DDR2

 

Yeah, skip the BA2 and get a DFI. Both the Lanparty and Blood Iron have been confirmed working (100% working, that is!). Here are the features:

 

-Penryn support

-Dual-core and Quad-core support

-Max 8 gigs of ram

-6 working SATA ports onboard

-Fully supported Audio (in/out/digital)

-Fully supported Ethernet

 

All for $150, which is $30-$40 cheaper than the BA2. As much as I love my board, I think we have a new poster child for the single-processor Hackintosh scene

[funstuie]

I am on my 3rd reinstall after the 10.5.2 update. I keep screwing something up. The first time I got the restart grey screen and the 2nd time it would not boot at all.

 

for what it's worth there is a good guide here on updating to 10.5.2:

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=87078

 

It's a little cleared than netkas.

 

Stu

[weaksauce12]

I am on my 3rd reinstall after the 10.5.2 update. I keep screwing something up. The first time I got the restart grey screen and the 2nd time it would not boot at all.

 

for what it's worth there is a good guide here on updating to 10.5.2:

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=87078

 

It's a little cleared than netkas.

 

Stu

 

Excellent, thanks! That's a good resource to have on hand!

 

I am testing dual RAID cards today. Once I see if that works, I'll mess with 10.5.2, probably tomorrow. I have to work Saturday so my weekend will be pretty busy, but I'll start hammering on EFI 8.0 after that!

 

Update: More good news! Dual SI3132 RAID cards work!

 

I am now running dual SI3132 RAID cards successfully! The 2-port cards from Rosewill are down to just $21.99 each on Newegg:

 

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx...N82E16816132008

 

You can set them up as RAID 0 (fast, striping) or RAID 1 (safe, mirroring). I currently have 2x250gb and 2x500gb in RAID 0 setup on 2 separate cards. I did a quick copy test using a 700mb file between the RAID sets and it copied it in just 5 seconds! HOLY COW!! At boot, the RAID BIOS screens appear one after the other, in the order they are installed in (so the one closest to the CPU will appear first). So my boot sequence now goes like this:

 

1. Video card BIOS

2. Motherboard BIOS (press F2)

3. RAID Card #1 BIOS (press F4 or CTRL+S)

4. RAID Card #2 BIOS (press F4 or CTRL+S)

* The Marvell BIOS appears here (after the Silicon Image RAID BIOSes) if you have it enabled

5. Darwin bootloader

6. White Apple loading screen

7. Leopard Desktop

 

Very, very cool! If you need a cheap RAID setup, this is an excellent way to go!

[deleted_account]

Excellent, thanks! That's a good resource to have on hand!

 

I am testing dual RAID cards today. Once I see if that works, I'll mess with 10.5.2, probably tomorrow. I have to work Saturday so my weekend will be pretty busy, but I'll start hammering on EFI 8.0 after that!

 

Update: More good news! Dual SI3132 RAID cards work!

 

I am now running dual SI3132 RAID cards successfully! The 2-port cards from Rosewill are down to just $21.99 each on Newegg:

 

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx...N82E16816132008

 

You can set them up as RAID 0 (fast, striping) or RAID 1 (safe, mirroring). I currently have 2x250gb and 2x500gb in RAID 0 setup on 2 separate cards. I did a quick copy test using a 700mb file between the RAID sets and it copied it in just 5 seconds! HOLY COW!! At boot, the RAID BIOS screens appear one after the other, in the order they are installed in (so the one closest to the CPU will appear first). So my boot sequence now goes like this:

 

1. Video card BIOS

2. Motherboard BIOS (press F2)

3. RAID Card #1 BIOS (press F4 or CTRL+S)

4. RAID Card #2 BIOS (press F4 or CTRL+S)

* The Marvell BIOS appears here (after the Silicon Image RAID BIOSes) if you have it enabled

5. Darwin bootloader

6. White Apple loading screen

7. Leopard Desktop

 

Very, very cool! If you need a cheap RAID setup, this is an excellent way to go!

 

So you're saying you have 2 RAID Cards, 2-Internal Port SATAs each, in total giving you 4-ports to 4 hard drives. And the system can read both RAID cards as 1 RAID card, giving a 4 x 1 hard drive array? (instead of reading 2x2 separate hard drive raids) < let me know if that was totally confusing, sorry :\

[weaksauce12]

So you're saying you have 2 RAID Cards, 2-Internal Port SATAs each, in total giving you 4-ports to 4 hard drives. And the system can read both RAID cards as 1 RAID card, giving a 4 x 1 hard drive array? (instead of reading 2x2 separate hard drive raids) < let me know if that was totally confusing, sorry :\

 

No, they read as separate cards, sorry if I worded that funny. Each card sees two drives, each set is separate from the other. Each card has its own BIOS which is separate from the other card, so they don't talk to each other. There are 4-port cards available, they are just more expensive, that's all.

[deleted_account]

No, they read as separate cards, sorry if I worded that funny. Each card sees two drives, each set is separate from the other. Each card has its own BIOS which is separate from the other card, so they don't talk to each other. There are 4-port cards available, they are just more expensive, that's all.

 

Yes, thanks for the confirmation, I managed to get the 4-Port SATA Sonnet Tempo e4i (used) for around $100: http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_e4i.html

Although those Silicon Image 3132 cards say only compatible with Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, etc...it did not mention Mac OS X, but I can see that SI3132 works, you know any others that work?

 

But now I'm thinking of SAS Solutions like what Highpoint and ATTO has to offer, i'd have to add my compliment to this thread, and wow, that was an instant reply.

[weaksauce12]

Yes, thanks for the confirmation, I managed to get the 4-Port SATA Sonnet Tempo e4i (used) for around $100: http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_e4i.html

Although those Silicon Image 3132 cards say only compatible with Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, etc...it did not mention Mac OS X, but I can see that SI3132 works, you know any others that work?

 

But now I'm thinking of SAS Solutions like what Highpoint and ATTO has to offer, i'd have to add my compliment to this thread, and wow, that was an instant reply.

 

I believe some other Silicon Image chipsets work, check out the SI thread:

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=24254

 

Highpoint cards work fine, theotherone tested a model or two in his system. I'm jealous, but unfortunately broke from all these little parts I've been picking up haha. So the $22 RAID cards will have to suffice until I can afford one of those 12-port monsters

[weaksauce12]

gramarye, can you elaborate on SAS more? I've seen it used with multiple SATA cables but I'm not too familiar with it...

 

No, they read as separate cards, sorry if I worded that funny. Each card sees two drives, each set is separate from the other. Each card has its own BIOS which is separate from the other card, so they don't talk to each other. There are 4-port cards available, they are just more expensive, that's all.

 

Just for fun, I tried using Software RAID in OS X's Disk Utility to RAID my two Hardware RAID sets together...and it worked! So the setup is:

 

[ (2x500gb in Hardware RAID 0) + (2x250gb in Hardware RAID 0) ] in Software RAID 1

 

Some sort of weird Frankenstein-esqe software/hardware RAID 0+1 (or is that 1+0?) hybrid. Copy speeds were double that of just a plain RAID 0 set (10 seconds instead of 5 seconds) from my single boot drive. But hey, it works

 

Update: haha...I just tested a Software RAID 0 set of Hardware RAID 0 sets as working. What's wrong with me lol...here's a screenshot:

 

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/756/megaraidhi0.png

 

The RAID card also has options for JBOD and stuff, and I believe you can flash the BIOS as just a SATA controller rather than a RAID controller, so if you want to do some fancy Software RAID stuff it should be quite possible. Unforunately there aren't any Software RAID 5 options at the moment...although there is that ZFS beta for OS X out...hmm...

[deleted_account]

gramarye, can you elaborate on SAS more? I've seen it used with multiple SATA cables but I'm not too familiar with it...Just for fun, I tried using Software RAID in OS X's Disk Utility to RAID my two Hardware RAID sets together...and it worked! So the setup is:[ (2x500gb in RAID 0) + (2x250gb in RAID 0) ] in RAID 1Some sort of weird Frankenstein-esqe software/hardware RAID 0+1 hybrid. Copy speeds were double that of just a plain RAID 0 set (10 seconds instead of 5 seconds) from my single boot drive. But hey, it works

 

 

Yes, I almost forgot about RAID via Software RAID. I personally like Disk Utility sicne I'm not a big fan of 3rd party software for these things. As for RAID 0+1, as much as it may seem weird or "frankenstian-eque" hyrbid thing it's not really all that much of a scientific experiment. Meaning, you'd be surprised RAID 0+1 is quite commonly used in the server world. So yes, that is a good setup, and a good choice for a RAID. And wow, i was just saying how quick you are, you did all that whithin minutes!

 

Now about SAS. SAS is Serial Attached SCSI which essentially are SCSI drives with a new-implemented SATA output, however, SAS drives can only run on SAS Controllers or SAS Motherboards. (SATA drives on the other hand can run on SAS Controllers, SAS drives can't run on SATA controllers) SAS drives are intended for a server enterprise environment. But what highlights these drives are its performance. They're FAST, the new Mac Pros (early 2008) can be configured with a SAS drive option, which is becoming the new Video Production Standard. Probably because of its high capacity, reliablity, and above all fast performance. The SAS drives shipped with Mac Pros are 15K RPM (15000 RPM) Hard Drives, and are 300gb. (Seagate will release a 400gb 15K RPM SAS drive later this quarter.) Those are quick and fast, and have ample/enough storage capacity, you can say goodbye to the raptors. I've invested in one due to the plentiful storage capacity, reliability (don't have to worry about RAID disks), which comes with performance) It's great for rendering large files (though thats highly dependent on CPU and GPU as well) and works as a great Scratch Disk.

 

Here were some Mac OS X SAS Drives: (dont' want to steer off-topic too much)

ATTO ExpressSAS H308 http://www.ibeast.com/content/tools/RaidCalc/RaidCalc.asp

Highpoint RocketRAID 3520 http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA/rr3520.htm

 

They come with a price, but they're fast! I believe the Highpoint RocketRAID (3520 specifically) is rated "FASTEST SATA RAID" http://www.hptmac.com/US/index.htm

^Unfortunately, this is intended for only SATA drives, but this is superfast! I believe forum member, theotherone, owns this.

 

That particular adapter comes with 2-mini SAS ports, which lead to 4-SATA drives each, which in total make 8-SATA drives in an array possible. That's quite a bit for one controller. That's 4 of those SI3132 cards! Anyway, since i've seen you linked newegg quite a bit, here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...ighpoint%2b3520

 

A review: http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/storag...oint_raid_3520/

 

A picture of what you can do:

 

 

I hope thats a bit of information on what SAS is and other whatnots, others can probably explain better, but I tried my best not to go off-topic and mention what it is and what it can do briefly. Hope this helps.

[weaksauce12]

So basically you can use SAS for either SAS-SATA drives or for regular SATA drives?

 

Those are some pretty good speeds, although MAN are they expensive! The cheapest I could find the Seagate for from a reliable source was $620:

 

http://www.provantage.com/seagate-st3300655ss~7SEGS1E9.htm

 

"Up to 125-MB/s sustained transfer rate" - nice! However I think that for most work, regular SATA drives would be a better bang-for-your-buck. 1TB drives are going for around $250 now and you can RAID those together to get 125 MB/s without too much effort, plus have a nice 2TB RAID array ready to go for $100 less than a 300gb SAS drive.

 

Also I have plans for my next build in a year or so, which is focused on storage - Addonics makes a great 5-port multiplier unit for $85 and I found a 4-port eSATA PCIe card for $125 that supports port multiplication. So for $465 plus the cost of power/enclosures I can get a system that would support 20 drives in whatever kind of RAID setup I want! It's easy enough to jump a power supply and I could pick up a cheap PC case or two to house everything. Now I just gotta wait for the price of storage to drop lol.

 

 

In other news...

 

XBMC for OS X works very nicely so far, despite its early beta status:

 

http://www.osxbmc.com/

 

I'm a huge, huge fan of XBMC and I'm very excited to see it being ported to the Mac platform. If you don't need DVR (Tivo functionality), then XBMC on OS X will probably be the way to go. With a Hackintosh, all you need is a DVD drive for DVD movie disc playback and an E4500 for encoded 1080p file playback. Almost time to put my Xboxes up for sale, haha!

[caseyh]

So basically you can use SAS for either SAS-SATA drives or for regular SATA drives?

 

Those are some pretty good speeds, although MAN are they expensive! The cheapest I could find the Seagate for from a reliable source was $620:

 

http://www.provantage.com/seagate-st3300655ss~7SEGS1E9.htm

 

"Up to 125-MB/s sustained transfer rate" - nice! However I think that for most work, regular SATA drives would be a better bang-for-your-buck. 1TB drives are going for around $250 now and you can RAID those together to get 125 MB/s without too much effort, plus have a nice 2TB RAID array ready to go for $100 less than a 300gb SAS drive.

 

Also I have plans for my next build in a year or so, which is focused on storage - Addonics makes a great 5-port multiplier unit for $85 and I found a 4-port eSATA PCIe card for $125 that supports port multiplication. So for $465 plus the cost of power/enclosures I can get a system that would support 20 drives in whatever kind of RAID setup I want! It's easy enough to jump a power supply and I could pick up a cheap PC case or two to house everything. Now I just gotta wait for the price of storage to drop lol.

 

 

In other news...

 

XBMC for OS X works very nicely so far, despite its early beta status:

 

http://www.osxbmc.com/

 

I'm a huge, huge fan of XBMC and I'm very excited to see it being ported to the Mac platform. If you don't need DVR (Tivo functionality), then XBMC on OS X will probably be the way to go. With a Hackintosh, all you need is a DVD drive for DVD movie disc playback and an E4500 for encoded 1080p file playback. Almost time to put my Xboxes up for sale, haha!

 

I have an xbmc box on all my tvs! I am still waiting on the last of my badaxe2 build to arrive, but excited to see how the shares will work, and will be trying this osxbmc for sure. I dont know that I will ever put my boxes for sale, you can't beat em for what they can do for the price, HUGE bang for the buck. Esp if you can TSOP them on your own and use big scrap hard drives!

 

Now just need to figure out what to do with a pile of 8gb ide drives that are in such high demand. (anyone?)