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MP 7,1 Benefits to running OSX off faster Samsung 970 EVO?
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Unsure what adapter/setup, but macOS cannot be installed onto a RAID'd array without serious workaround. It's officially unsupported.
Also seriously doubt you're reaching an OS bottleneck in MP7,1 with 2500MB/s+ speeds, at least nothing that couldn't be resolved with using the 8TB array setup in conjunction.
Also seriously doubt you're reaching an OS bottleneck in MP7,1 with 2500MB/s+ speeds, at least nothing that couldn't be resolved with using the 8TB array setup in conjunction.
You can't boot from an APFS RAID, last officially supported bootable RAID died with HFS+ and 10.13.6.
Anyway, you should use your array for data or scratch disks, you will gain nothing reading macOS 1s earlier.
Samsung 970 PRO NVMe are rated at 3,500MB/s read and 2,700MB/s write.
Samsung 970 EVO NVMe are rated at 3,400MB/s read and 2,300MB/s write.
Internal MP7,1 is rated up to 3,400MB/s for both read and write.
What exactly are you looking to achieve? Larger capacity OS drive? You’re not going to get much faster speed in non-RAID configs than what Apple issues.
Samsung 970 EVO NVMe are rated at 3,400MB/s read and 2,300MB/s write.
Internal MP7,1 is rated up to 3,400MB/s for both read and write.
What exactly are you looking to achieve? Larger capacity OS drive? You’re not going to get much faster speed in non-RAID configs than what Apple issues.
I think the only good reason to boot from an external such as the Samsung 970 EVO single blade would be if you find the internal Apple SSD has insufficient free space for your daily workflows, and the Samsung blade being larger. This would be in consideration of changing the Apple's internal SSD to be larger requiring a trip to the Apple Store.
If you did find your internal Apple SSD was running very low on free space (a bad situation for any SSD) the first action take is to see what data you could move off elsewhere easily without any severe impact to your running system.
If you did find your internal Apple SSD was running very low on free space (a bad situation for any SSD) the first action take is to see what data you could move off elsewhere easily without any severe impact to your running system.
Perhaps you've missed this thread:
No, it is not possible for an owner to bring a 7,1 Mac Pro back in to Apple to have the boot drive upgraded.
Thanks... but...
It seems that thread shows or indicates to change the internal Apple SSD it can be done and requires the Mac to be returned to Apple for making the change. This is what I said (maybe I wasn't clear about that) in my post.
I assume if a user had say a 256 GB SSD and wanted a larger one, they would take the Mac to Apple to have a larger one installed.... and of course for a fee.
blackadde: Thanks for that. 'Tis a shame for sure. My MP7,1 (1TB SSD) is still in its processing phase so I could in fact cancel it and change the order to have 2TB SSD for +$376 with my business discount.... but don't want to disturb its current delivery date. If I had known about this issue I would have opted for the 2TB for the extra +$376.... bummer.
No matter, using a PCIe x16 card with a single Samsung 970 EVO Plus blade configured as APFS will have to be my only option at this time for having a larger boot SSD storage.
I did confirm the above with a phone call to my Apple Business contact and suggested that Apple state this on the MP7,1 'Buy' web site for the SSD options. Now, during this conversation I was told that if the internal Apple SSD fails for whatever reason, the MP7,1 can be taken in to Apple for repairs but only the SSD size (256GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB 8TB) that was ordered initially with the MP7,1 would be installed - that is, the SSD size cannot be made larger.
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Hopefully Apple will add an option to upgrade the internal drive at a later time. It may not have been a high priority at the beginning because you can configure the drive size you need, and if you find it's not enough within 14 days you can return it (or more, they can be flexible within reason). It's only been available for a month after all. They do offer a service to "remove and replace" the SSD, so offering a similar service to upgrade it shouldn't involve a much different service. When you consider they now offer RAM upgrades for iMac Pros, and the price they'll charge will make it worth their while (some amount higher than the initial price to custom configure), I think it's likely they'll at least offer the current drive options (up to 8TB) as upgrades in the future for those with smaller drives.
I, respectfully, disagree with you. Got a HighPoint SSD7101A-1 with 2x970 Pro in raid0 and is bootable and running macOS Mojave without a problem.
This is the speed I get and is fairly consistent
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Nice!
Doesn’t that card have a hardware raid chip? I thought MacOS’s issues are with software raid setups.
Good reason to go with the Highpoint cards if so, particularly for raid 1 setups - the card would be responsible for the dual writes rather than the OS/cpu?
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Physical hardware RAID would work around almost every single macOS bootable RAID issue. The software RAID setups are officially unsupported. It is possible to workaround, but it's not officially supported. Make sure you have a bootable single drive clone available if/when you run into issues.
Thanks alex, but I'm still happy with it 😁😁
btw, thinking about trying to install Elive (debian based) 64 bit, but the fact that GRUB could mess up my bootrom, kept me from doing it. if possible its going to be on a seperate 860 EVO (sata III)
Elive
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I checked the Highpoint website, and in the specs for the SSD7101A-1 they say:
| Storage Mode | Data Storage only (non-bootable) |
In the feature matrix two other models, SSD7103 and SSD7110, are explicitly listed with a green tick for boot support, but the SSD7101A-1 not.
So, I expect the SD7101A-1 does not have hardware raid, and is depending on driver luck to work.
AFAIK, PCIe NVMe cards with a physical switch for hardware RAID do not yet exist. You'd really need something like this with drive mode selection, but NVMe instead of SATA SSD:
The support notes of all officially compatible macOS PCIe NVMe adapters state basically the same thing:
Boot Support - macOS Only from single SSD (not RAIDed) Mac Pro 5,1 or Mac Pro 7,1
These products really should be considered supplemental/external storage, separate from the primary OS/system drive. There are people using them in other ways, but it's not officially supported. Those are situations where firmware updates become difficult and even some software updates could become a challenge. It's a workaround, not a solution.
This chart is the best summary for the available HighPoint cards with MP7,1:
The support notes of all officially compatible macOS PCIe NVMe adapters state basically the same thing:
Boot Support - macOS Only from single SSD (not RAIDed) Mac Pro 5,1 or Mac Pro 7,1
These products really should be considered supplemental/external storage, separate from the primary OS/system drive. There are people using them in other ways, but it's not officially supported. Those are situations where firmware updates become difficult and even some software updates could become a challenge. It's a workaround, not a solution.
This chart is the best summary for the available HighPoint cards with MP7,1:
I checked the Highpoint website, and in the specs for the SSD7101A-1 they say:
Storage Mode Data Storage only (non-bootable)
In the feature matrix two other models, SSD7103 and SSD7110, are explicitly listed with a green tick for boot support, but the SSD7101A-1 not.
So, I expect the SD7101A-1 does not have hardware raid, and is depending on driver luck to work.
this matrix reference to a windows system
the 7101A-1 has boot support under macOS
but unsupported as bootable RAID by macOS
This is not the correct thread to do this, open a thread for your problem or use other diagnose thread.
Download the Apple Technician Guide for Mac Pro 2010 and go to pages 33-38 to know how to use the Diagnostic LEDs of the backplane.
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