MP 7,1 Alternative to High Point for Fanless NVME Card?

[Theophilos]

Hello,

I recently got rid of a High Point SSD7101-A card that caused my 2019 Mac Pro to panic/crash when sleeping or waking from short sleep. After working with AppleCare and the Mac Pro engineering team for three weeks and sending over numerous system reports, they ruled out software and said the problem was the High Point card itself. Unfortunately, High Point customer support was not good at all. Despite Apple's rigorous testing and conclusion, they gave me a hard time about sending a warranty replacement card, even though I just got the card at the beginning of February. Finally, not wanting to waste any more time, I disposed of the card and am now looking for a fanless equivalent.

I already have the Sonnet 4x4, which is great in terms of speed, stability, and compatibility, but my sensitive ears do hear the quiet fan in that model. I'm worried that adding another one would increase the noise and make it difficult to record in my studio.

The Amfeltec Squid is another good option, but I don't want to buy it because (a) it's expensive (I was quoted $700 for a 4-bay card) and (b) the company is outside the U.S., which could be a problem if something doesn't go well.

Do you have any recommendations for a fanless 4-bay card that offers similar performance and compatibility as the Sonnet? I will never buy another High Point product again.

Thank you kindly

 

[Snow Tiger]

I'll venture a guess that placing aluminum VRAM passive heatsinks on the individual controller and NAND chips of the installed NVMe drives and also on the controller chip of the PCIe RAID controller Card would help keep things cool enough . If the Card comes with a shroud , you should remove it and let Apple's beautiful System fans do some work . For physical reasons , you'd probably have to remove it anyways .

In this particular instance , I'd recommend an adhesive TIM to prevent those heatsinks from coming loose . This tends to be a permanent connection . You might want to keep this in mind for any possible warranty service claims .

In the following picture , you do not necessarily have to install the thermocouples shown .

 

[Theophilos]

Interesting solution! If I could get my hands on a Sonnet, I would try this, but they are still out of stock everywhere.