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MP All Models Bootable PCI SSD Cards/Drives for Mac Pro (NVMe M.2, U.2, EDSFF E3.S, etc.)
- Thread starter ZombiePhysicist
- Start date
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I've purchased and installed two of the Sonnet cards for my new Mac Pro 7,1. I was posting and reading on this thread awhile back (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/blade-ssds-nvme-ahci.2146725/post-28056235) and on advice from tsialex, I purchased 2 TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus blades directly from Samsung and had no problems using Disk Utility to reformat and mount them. As long as you buy directly from Samsung, they have the latest firmware and there's no need to use Windows to update them.
How is the fan noise of the Sonnet? That's the only thing that worries me i don't want to add noise to a near silent machine. Thanks
They’re very expensive and almost no one makes them outside of Intel, although now Micron and Samsung seem to be in the market. 12-20TB? LOL!!! Think 280GB-1.2TB. Although as @ZombiePhysicist notes, Micron makes a 15TB model for ~$3,000 USD.
Kingston makes U.2 as well:
Believe 15.36TB is highest single capacity currently, but maybe they're sold elsewhere?
Believe 15.36TB is highest single capacity currently, but maybe they're sold elsewhere?
>PCI-E SSD 15.36TB at ServerSupply.com
Buy PCI-E PCI-E 15.36TB.With Free ground shipping.Same day shipping and great customer service.
www.serversupply.com
>PCI-E SSD 12.8TB at ServerSupply.com
Buy PCI-E PCI-E 12.8TB.With Free ground shipping.Same day shipping and great customer service.
www.serversupply.com
Haven't heard any noise from both Sonnets so far, but I've also barely used them. I can report back after I give them a workout.
Still trying to figure out the best configuration/setup, trying to decide whether or not to use SoftRAID to merge the blades together as a single drive.
I had asked this in the other thread, but I was wondering if I need to enable TRIM on these SSDs...?
After reformatting them in Disk Utility -- I chose "Mac OS Extended (Journaled) -- when I go into my "System Information" app and click on NVMExpress//Generic SSD Controller/Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 2TB -- I see "Trim Support: Yes" in the information for all the SSD blades I've mounted using the Sonnet.
Does this mean I need to enable TRIM Support on my Samsung SSDs mounted on the Sonnets, or is it already enabled?
Also, should I format the drives using Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or should I be using AFPS? Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is the default so that's what I went with, plus I'm going to be using Carbon Copy Cloner to move a bunch of stuff from older drives that were in my previous system over to the Sonnets, and those older drives were all formatted with Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Still trying to figure out the best configuration/setup, trying to decide whether or not to use SoftRAID to merge the blades together as a single drive.
I had asked this in the other thread, but I was wondering if I need to enable TRIM on these SSDs...?
After reformatting them in Disk Utility -- I chose "Mac OS Extended (Journaled) -- when I go into my "System Information" app and click on NVMExpress//Generic SSD Controller/Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 2TB -- I see "Trim Support: Yes" in the information for all the SSD blades I've mounted using the Sonnet.
Does this mean I need to enable TRIM Support on my Samsung SSDs mounted on the Sonnets, or is it already enabled?
Also, should I format the drives using Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or should I be using AFPS? Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is the default so that's what I went with, plus I'm going to be using Carbon Copy Cloner to move a bunch of stuff from older drives that were in my previous system over to the Sonnets, and those older drives were all formatted with Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
I was going to purchase the OWC Accelsior 4TB unit, but with their latest offering that has caused them to increase the price to $950 based on them having to tweak the Accelsior (presumably for MP7,1 compatibility), I feel some angst toward OWC even with me being a long-time fan of OWC products and their warranties and tech help. I chatted with OWC yesterday about this and I was not impressed with their explanation for the 'tweaking' nor the necessity for increasing the price. However, I do like their 5 yr warranty for this Accelsior unit, but the stated TBW for this unit being 380 gives me concern. A 380 TBW gives a mere 1.5 yrs if some 5TB is written every week. Maybe the value of 380 is a typo error, but when asking about this with the OWC tech person they were unsure and could not say if the 380 should be higher, such as 3800.
I believe the Samsung SSD/flash blades state TBW up to 1200. With this value then writing 5TB per week to the blades gives you some 5 yrs before likely failure. I suspect the 5TB/week is likely to be more than most users would attain.
At this time I'm seriously considering the Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCIe card for $399, and 4x Samsung EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD 1TB blades for some $800 total. Thus a total outlay of some $1,200.
Also, according to postings here the Sonnet/Samsung unit is a bit faster that the OWC'S Accelsior, and uses x16 vs. x8 for the Accelsior, but comes with 3 yr warranty.
I have a question that I need some confirmation on.
If I buy the Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCIe Card along with...
3x 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD 1TB
and
1x 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB
can I configure the 4 blades as follows...
1) Divide the 2TB blade into two 1TB HFS+ pieces named Son-1-1 and Son-1-2
2) Format the the other 3 blades as HFS+ and name them Son-2, Son-3 and Son-4
3) Reformat Son-1-1 to be APFS
4) Stripe the HFS+ Son-1-2, Son-2, Son-3 and Son-4 to obtain RAID-0 across the four blades.
5) Use Son-1-1 as a bootable clone of my macOS that resides on my internal Apple SSD in MP7,1.
Thanks.
I believe the Samsung SSD/flash blades state TBW up to 1200. With this value then writing 5TB per week to the blades gives you some 5 yrs before likely failure. I suspect the 5TB/week is likely to be more than most users would attain.
At this time I'm seriously considering the Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCIe card for $399, and 4x Samsung EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD 1TB blades for some $800 total. Thus a total outlay of some $1,200.
Also, according to postings here the Sonnet/Samsung unit is a bit faster that the OWC'S Accelsior, and uses x16 vs. x8 for the Accelsior, but comes with 3 yr warranty.
I have a question that I need some confirmation on.
If I buy the Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCIe Card along with...
3x 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD 1TB
and
1x 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB
can I configure the 4 blades as follows...
1) Divide the 2TB blade into two 1TB HFS+ pieces named Son-1-1 and Son-1-2
2) Format the the other 3 blades as HFS+ and name them Son-2, Son-3 and Son-4
3) Reformat Son-1-1 to be APFS
4) Stripe the HFS+ Son-1-2, Son-2, Son-3 and Son-4 to obtain RAID-0 across the four blades.
5) Use Son-1-1 as a bootable clone of my macOS that resides on my internal Apple SSD in MP7,1.
Thanks.
Personally I wouldn't JBOD anything. The only justification I can think of is if you have different sized drives but then that was just poor planning. Any other situation I'd go RAID 0 before JBOD (and highly likely I'd go with a higher RAID level). Given that MacOS won't boot from RAID though you can't RAID it, I still wouldn't go JBOD though, I'd boot from single drive and then create an array for a second volume out of what remains. Even that would be second choice, I'd boot the native drive and then create one array out of everything on that card as a second volume.
FYI, you don't need windows to update the Samsung firmware. Or at least you shouldn't. I haven't tried this yet with the M.2 Samsungs but I'm pretty sure I updated the firmware in the same way with a regular SSD some years ago. I built the bootable USB drive as described below. I plan on trying later today or tomorrow. One of the Plus M.2s I ordered from Amazon has an older production date.
Samsung EVO Plus USB Firmware Update
Samsung EVO Plus USB Firmware Update
I also purchased the 2010-2012 Accelsior 8TB Card earlier this week, and received it yesterday. This is before they listed the 2019 version. I have received so much conflicting information from OWC regarding this card it's appalling. Just two days ago they told me that it was compatible etc. and said nothing about a new card specifically for the 2019 MP - that was coming out today. I haven't installed it yet but the SKU is definitely different from the new card. I just chatted with OWC *again* and here's what they said:
"Looking into this further, we found that the original Accelsior was a tad too thick for some of the 2019 Mac Pro models. The only real difference here is that the newer ones are a slight bit different than the original ones. At this point, I would recommend installing it in the Mac Pro and as long as it seats properly in the computer, it should be good to go. The actual body of the card was too thick. My apologies for the confusion. The card was slightly too wide."
And then I asked about the firmware - and how someone on the forum was told that it was different:"The new card does not have different firmware on it. That is the same between the two."
So it seems like they're charging a few hundred dollars extra for fit? What the?
In any case I will probably just try this one and see if it fits. If not, they have a 30-day return policy with no restocking fee for these.
Ok now I’m pretty frustrated. I just received this from them after inquiring:
“Thank you for choosing OWC for your customer service needs. I would be happy to assist you with this. Regrettably the model you have is strictly for the 2010-2012 systems.“
I’m going to install and use mine as well. My only concern is future compatibility issues. Let’s say MacOS is updated. Will I be able to upgrade firmware accordingly, or what.
I was going to purchase the OWC Accelsior 4TB unit, but with their latest offering that has caused them to increase the price to $950 based on them having to tweak the Accelsior (presumably for MP7,1 compatibility), I feel some angst toward OWC even with me being a long-time fan of OWC products and their warranties and tech help. I chatted with OWC yesterday about this and I was not impressed with their explanation for the 'tweaking' nor the necessity for increasing the price. However, I do like their 5 yr warranty for this Accelsior unit, but the stated TBW for this unit being 380 gives me concern. A 380 TBW gives a mere 1.5 yrs if some 5TB is written every week. Maybe the value of 380 is a typo error, but when asking about this with the OWC tech person they were unsure and could not say if the 380 should be higher, such as 3800.
I believe the Samsung SSD/flash blades state TBW up to 1200. With this value then writing 5TB per week to the blades gives you some 5 yrs before likely failure. I suspect the 5TB/week is likely to be more than most users would attain.
At this time I'm seriously considering the Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCIe card for $399, and 4x Samsung EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD 1TB blades for some $800 total. Thus a total outlay of some $1,200.
Also, according to postings here the Sonnet/Samsung unit is a bit faster that the OWC'S Accelsior, and uses x16 vs. x8 for the Accelsior, but comes with 3 yr warranty.
I have a question that I need some confirmation on.
If I buy the Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCIe Card along with...
3x 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD 1TB
and
1x 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB
can I configure the 4 blades as follows...
1) Divide the 2TB blade into two 1TB HFS+ pieces named Son-1-1 and Son-1-2
2) Format the the other 3 blades as HFS+ and name them Son-2, Son-3 and Son-4
3) Reformat Son-1-1 to be APFS
4) Stripe the HFS+ Son-1-2, Son-2, Son-3 and Son-4 to obtain RAID-0 across the four blades.
5) Use Son-1-1 as a bootable clone of my macOS that resides on my internal Apple SSD in MP7,1.
Thanks.
I picked up the 1tb "Older" OWC card this morning, imediatly ripped out the four 256gb cards and put in two 2tb 970 evo, one 2tb 970 evo plus and one 1tb evo pro...
The speeds are great, plus I like the fact that the card is smaller without a fan.... 9to5 mac on youtube posted a video with the sonnet card and it looks like it was warping where the m.2s were mounted..
Either way I love my OWC and have no problem with it on my 7,1
Yes, 12-20TB (Shooting RED cameras)
Most of my active projects start anywhere from 4TB and go up to 15TB so I'd like to leave a bit of overhead; ideally Raid two 15.36TB drives together.
You may want to consider solutions like these:
SSD6540 External NVMe RAID Enclosure | HighPoint Technologies, Inc.
SSD6540 is a portable 4-bay 2.5" U.2 NVMe RAID Enclosure, with LCD maintenance screen, dedicated PCIe 3.0 x16, delivering up to 14,000MB/s of transfer speed.
highpoint-tech.com
Every time I see HighPoint mentioned I throw up in my mouth a little.You may want to consider solutions like these:
SSD6540 External NVMe RAID Enclosure | HighPoint Technologies, Inc.
SSD6540 is a portable 4-bay 2.5" U.2 NVMe RAID Enclosure, with LCD maintenance screen, dedicated PCIe 3.0 x16, delivering up to 14,000MB/s of transfer speed.
Never have had worse after-the-sale support from any other company. If it works out-of-the-box fine, but don't expect any firmware or driver fixes if it doesn't.
My life is HighPoint free at this point, and much better.
I have the "old" card installed and running right now with no problems, including the fit. I did call OWC earlier today and this is exactly what they told me, too. They stated the card will be fine.
Being first buyers on the market is usually risky, but in the case maybe we lucked out with a cheaper price for the same card.
Having said that, the lack of noise IS really nice. I am a little concerned about the weird longevity thing. I'll call them back maybe in a week or two to see if they have that sorted out.
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That's really weird. They have now told me twice over the phone 2010-2012 will work fine.
If I were you, I'd do the same - install it and try it. It's working great for a couple of us on here.
Having said that, I just ordered a 14TB backup USBC drive just in case this thing decides to do anything crazy. 😂
Well, the older card is still available so anyone can get that price hah. Which is again why it’s kind of nuts that the new ‘same card’ is more expensive.
Still mulling over the various options for how to set up my Sonnet M.2s. In a different thread, I was advised not to use SoftRAID - I was thinking of using one of the blades as a scratch disk, and then using SoftRAID to join the remaining blades together into one drive -- but users have warned me against using SoftRAID with Samsung SSDs, and warning that this could really slow down the drives.
I'm also not sure of the best way to format these SSDs. Would love some feedback -- should I use Mac OS Extended (Journaled), the default option in Disk Utility, or should I use APFS? And if I then were to use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a backup of an SSD drive that's been formatted in APFS, would I run into any issues if the external backup drive (a spinner) where the copy is going was formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) rather than APFS?
I'm also not sure of the best way to format these SSDs. Would love some feedback -- should I use Mac OS Extended (Journaled), the default option in Disk Utility, or should I use APFS? And if I then were to use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a backup of an SSD drive that's been formatted in APFS, would I run into any issues if the external backup drive (a spinner) where the copy is going was formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) rather than APFS?
So my understanding from these postings discussing the differences between the old (MP 2010-2012) Accelsior and the new Accelsior (MP7,1 2019) cards is that the new and more pricer one is not as big dimensionally as the old card. The OWC testing done using the old Accelsior card in the MP7,1 showed issues with it seating in with sufficient room. When I chatted with OWC it was mention that the OWC engineers had to tweak the card and/or made some changes to the firmware. However, this was all said without too much confidence that what was being said was the 'real truth' and maybe speculation to some degree. I certainly was not comfortable with this explanation.
One other note - the OWC web site page for the Accelsior has been updated. The durability/endurance TBW number has been updated from 350 to 1665. This is almost a 5x increase. This translates to 4.5 TB per week for 7 years. This is about my use case and much, much better than the previous 5TB/week for 1.5 yrs.
I'm considering both the OWC Accelsior 4TB and the Sonnet/Samsung combo Sonnet SSD M.2 4x4 PCIe card with 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 blades.
My requirement for either of these cards is
1) I need a fast i/o 4TB internal storage.
2) I need/want a 1TB internal storage space for a fast bootable APFS image.
OWC's pluses and minuses
- +ive - The OWC Accelsior provides the 4TB of fast internal i/o
- -ive - The OWC Accelsior can provide for a fast 1TB APFS bootable image but one blade of the 4 has to be sacrificed, thus the requirement for 4TB of fast internal i/o is compromised by being reduced to 3TB resulting in lower i/o with having only three blades to RAID-0..
- -ive - The OWC 4TB card can be opened and possibly one blade be taken out and replaced with a 2TB so it can be partition into a 1TB APFS and the other as a 1TB HFS+.... but this likely breaks the five year warranty and opening the blade protective casing may be difficult and finding a compatible 2TB blade might present a problem. Also the removal of the 1TB blade ether sits idle on the shelf or has to find a new home.
- -ive - If the OWC 4TB card cannot be opened to remove one 1TB blade and replaced with a 2TB blade this means one of the 1TB blades has to be sacrificed for the APFS bootable image, leaving the other three 1TB blades for RAID-0 and not providing the best i/o rate its capable of providing.
- -ive - the postings here have indicated the speed of the OWC is not as good as the Sonnet/Samsung card. This may have something to do with the OWC card being a x8 vs. the Sonnet/Samsung card being a x16 card.
- +ive - the OWC card is fanless.
- +ive the OWC card is less expensive than the Sonnet/Samsung combo card. However its expense rises if one blade is removed and replaced with a 2TB blade (if indeed this possible).
- -ive - the OWC card's TBW (1665) is less than for the Sonnet/Samsung combo card's TBW (2400).
- +ive - the purchase of the OWC card includes SoftRAID.
- +ive - For me as a long time user of OWC products I've found their after sales customer service to be ecxcellent.
- +ive the OWC card is smaller than the Sonnet/Samsung combo card.
The Sonnet/Samsung pluses and minuses
- +ive - The Sonnet/Samsung card can easily be configured with one 2TB blade and three 1TB blades that allows the 2TB blade to be partition into a 1TB APFS for a boot image and the other as a 1TB HFS+. This leaves 4x 1TB blades to be configured as RAID-0 for faster internal i/o storage. compared to the OWC card.
- -ive - The Sonnet/Samsung card combo is on the face of it is more expensive, but this may be negligible if the OWC card has to be opened and one of its 1TB blades replaced with a 2TB blade. To me the cost diligence is a wash.
- -ive - The Sonnet/Samsung combo card requires a fan (will noise of the fan be a nuisance?).
- +ive - the Samsung blades carry a 5 yr warranty.
- +ive - the Samsung 4x blades have aggregate TBW of 2400.
- -ive - the Sonnet/Samsung combo card is larger (longer) that the OWC card.
- -ive - the size of the Sonnet/Samsung combo card is larger (longer) that the OWC card does not include SotRAID software.
- -ive - The after sales service customer support is unknown to me, as I never ever purchased Sonnet and/or Samsung products.
At this time I favor the Sonnet/Samsung combo card because IMO it trumps the OWC card on the following basis - its flexibility, upgradeability, potential better performance for fast internal I/o, better TBW value, and easy access to the blades, replacing the blades without disturbing the overall Sonnet/Samsung warranty.
Questions about TBW values.
- The OWC states TBW as 1665 for its Acellsior card. Is the aggregate TBW for all 4 Internal SSD/flash blades or for each blade. I'm assuming it's an aggregate value and based on the 4 blades setup as RAID-0 ?
- The Samsung blades states TBW as 600. This I assume is for a single blade. Thus for 4 blades the aggregate TBW for 4 blades would be 2400 ?
- Comments welcomed.
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Do you have another brand you prefer for a U.2 4 drive bay box?
I just ordered a Sonnet M2 4x4 PCIe card and 4 x 2TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus for my Mac Pro 7,1.
But I am debating getting this 4 x 4TB Sabrent instead as I could use the extra space - https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Rock...la-838585227790&ref=&adgrpid=80571461181&th=1
Will this combination work/supported? Any downsides to the Sabrent? I'm' sure the Samsung are better, but would prefer the 4TB size.
But I am debating getting this 4 x 4TB Sabrent instead as I could use the extra space - https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Rock...la-838585227790&ref=&adgrpid=80571461181&th=1
Will this combination work/supported? Any downsides to the Sabrent? I'm' sure the Samsung are better, but would prefer the 4TB size.
According to reviewers on amazon this blade has difficulty cloning drives due to 4kb sectors. I’m far from an expert on this so someone more knowledgeable can chime in on what that means in reality.
I know everybody here is into ultra-fast nvme pcie storage (and for good reasons), but I just imagined installing 2 of these adapters in a Pegasus j2i
we now have 4 x 2.5” tool less slots
2 of those can be connected using the j2i included sata+power cables
1 additional drive can be connected using a USB3.0-to-SATA using the internal USB port (right? it’s not like, being intended for license dongles, it lacks power or anything?)
So 3 x 2.5” “internal” SSDs just using the built-in ports on the motherboard.
I would do
boot (sata): 2TB samsung 2.5” 860 Pro (MLC, fast)
time machine (sata): 4TB samsung 2,5” 860 EVO (TLC, nice speed)
CarbonCopyCloner clone (internal_usb-to-sata cable): 4TB samsung 2.5” 860 QVO (low-end model, it’s a “what if” thing anyway and would be used for a couple of days until the primary boot drive is up and running again)
5 years from now just double all the capacities (keeping the 1:2 ratio between boot drive and TM/CCC)
being all solid state, one can use PowerNap no problem without HDDs ramping up
being disposable SSDs (not the unreplaceable Apple one), one can use Safe Sleep (hibernatemode = 3) without fear of deteriorating the boot drive too early by means of RAM-to-disk write operations
Yeah it’s “slow” 6Gbps (or 0.75GB/s) Sata3...could be enough for some user who just wants a silent modular Mac with powerful internal GPUs...
we now have 4 x 2.5” tool less slots
2 of those can be connected using the j2i included sata+power cables
1 additional drive can be connected using a USB3.0-to-SATA using the internal USB port (right? it’s not like, being intended for license dongles, it lacks power or anything?)
So 3 x 2.5” “internal” SSDs just using the built-in ports on the motherboard.
I would do
boot (sata): 2TB samsung 2.5” 860 Pro (MLC, fast)
time machine (sata): 4TB samsung 2,5” 860 EVO (TLC, nice speed)
CarbonCopyCloner clone (internal_usb-to-sata cable): 4TB samsung 2.5” 860 QVO (low-end model, it’s a “what if” thing anyway and would be used for a couple of days until the primary boot drive is up and running again)
5 years from now just double all the capacities (keeping the 1:2 ratio between boot drive and TM/CCC)
being all solid state, one can use PowerNap no problem without HDDs ramping up
being disposable SSDs (not the unreplaceable Apple one), one can use Safe Sleep (hibernatemode = 3) without fear of deteriorating the boot drive too early by means of RAM-to-disk write operations
Yeah it’s “slow” 6Gbps (or 0.75GB/s) Sata3...could be enough for some user who just wants a silent modular Mac with powerful internal GPUs...