MP All Models Bootable PCI SSD Cards/Drives for Mac Pro (NVMe M.2, U.2, EDSFF E3.S, etc.)

[ZombiePhysicist]

Im hesitant to try any more Micron drives, but curious if anyone has tried the new 30TB Micron ION 6500?

Micron 6500 ION 30.72 TB Solid State Drive, 2.5" Internal, U.3 (PCI Express NVMe 4.0 x4), TAA Compliant - Walmart.com

Buy Micron 6500 ION 30.72 TB Solid State Drive, 2.5" Internal, U.3 (PCI Express NVMe 4.0 x4), TAA Compliant at Walmart.com

www.walmart.com

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Thanks @joevt . Not comfortable sharing the output of those commands. They include too much private/system info. Perhaps if there is a section of that you wish to see that I could search for?

I have tried switching the position of the drives, same result. It is strange. But it gets stranger.

I'm having a frustrating time talking to Highpoint tech support about the problem. They want me to install a driver and I want nothing to do with a driver (you have to disable SIP and bunch of other things) as it always ends up borking the system, and the cards run just fine without the driver. They want some diagnostic report from their WebUI tool, but wont tell me how to install that without installing the macOS driver. I can tell they are just following a script, and there few things worse than people abandoning their brains to follow a script.

Anyway, they just informed me, get this, that the Highpoint 1580 does not support macOS:


The above is useful in that they do not think the U.3 style cabling (with the different power source) is what makes the difference in compatibility, so at least I do not have to go further down that rabbit hole.

But with regard to macOS compatibility, really, then what explains the macOS logo on that very same page!?!
View attachment 2246792

Not to mention, the 1580 is literally working right now as I type this out, without a driver on my 9300 Pro, BTW. It's bizzaro world.

And I also still have the 7120 card, way not to answer the question of what 30TB or larger U2/U3 drives work on macOS with your cards. Which I re-asked, for the 7120 too, to them to make it clear...I don't care which of their cards support it, tell me of any such drives.

Highpoint got back to me. They basically say the havent tested larger drives. The only drive they tested was the 6.4TB (WD SN630)! Kind of shocking actually.

Also, highpoint seems to believe macOS has problems with U2/U3 compatibility. Ya think?

To be fair they wanted to help by getting debugging, but again, their debugging tools expose too much personal information (like account names, locations, etc.) and I don't like sharing that info (just seems bad hygiene). So to be fair, they probably could help more if you lean in to their tech support. And to be even more fair, considering everything works fine under windows, this seems more like an area where apple dropped the ball than highpoint or Micron or any of the U2/U3 drive manufacturers.

 

[Rimmsi]

I think your data storage requirements are too specific and you will be the only member here on the forum to address this. Maybe if you try to post a question on facebook or redit, maybe there will be someone who can help you.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I think your data storage requirements are too specific and you will be the only member here on the forum to address this. Maybe if you try to post a question on facebook or redit, maybe there will be someone who can help you.

You may be right. But not sure what I'm asking for is that exotic. I just want a single large bootable drive. Seems kind of remedial.

Wanting more than an 8TB stick does not feel 'exotic'. Over in windows land, they sell machines with 8-16 U2/EDSFF bays!

Considering the Micron 9400 Pro works under windows, with no drivers (ie the built in drivers from 2006), it seems rather pedestrian.

Furthermore, U2/U3 and EDSFF, IMO, are the obvious standard drive interface to replace SATA moving forward. It's weird, at least to me, to have no ability to use drives from an emergent standard.

Many might say the same thing about my wanting an 8k display and having to hack that together myself (despite apple promoting 8k work flows and having no ability to actually see those work flows in 8k). This seems like just another area where apple dropped the ball, and having driven away so many pros from macOS, there are less and less people to point out how deficient apple is.

That's my take. But yours is a fair take too.

As for Facebook/reddit. Both are toxic hellholes. I'd rather do many unpleasant things than be on either of those sites. As always, YMMV.

 

[Rimmsi]

Sorry, I wasn't very precise, your request is specific to the Apple ecosystem, it's quite common on Windows/Linux devices.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Sorry, I wasn't very precise, your request is specific to the Apple ecosystem, it's quite common on Windows/Linux devices.

Well it's hard to argue with the reality of that. But I'll still argue that having a large single boot drive is not an exotic desire on the Mac. That it is difficult to get is meaningless in that regard. It's difficult to get good games on the Mac, but many people would want it if they could get it.

 

[Daleyelama]

Running Martin Lo's Package with Monterey 12.6.8 installed on my cMP 5,1, i've tried to enhance my internal data storage to it's possible maximum, because we do multicam editing with several 4K ProRes streams.

The 10 GBe connection via McFiver does not allow speeds above 700 MB/s (tested on 3 different cMP 5,1s), which is far too slow in Premiere Pro.

So I gave it a try with the Sonnet Fusion Dual U.2 SSD PCIe Card, which is officially supported on the MacPro 5,1. Installing two empty Micron 7450 Pro drives from the Sonnet compatibility list, results in a black screen after the booting chime. The boot picker does not show up, and start up with pressed option key does also not work.

Does anyone have an idea or another solution for fast and big internal RAID storage for a cMP 5,1?

I don't need to boot up from the internal RAID, because my OS is located on a NMVe on the McFiver.
But around 30TB would be nice for editing my projects. So, if there is no solution to get the Sonnet card working, I will reach back to my HighPoint or Sonnet 4x NVMe controller and try to find 4x 8TB NvMe blades, which will work in my setup.

ZombiePhysicist.. may I ask you, what's your final solution (I assume, you are on a MacPro 7,1 not a 5,1, correct?)

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Running Martin Lo's Package with Monterey 12.6.8 installed on my cMP 5,1, i've tried to enhance my internal data storage to it's possible maximum, because we do multicam editing with several 4K ProRes streams.

The 10 GBe connection via McFiver does not allow speeds above 700 MB/s (tested on 3 different cMP 5,1s), which is far too slow in Premiere Pro.

So I gave it a try with the Sonnet Fusion Dual U.2 SSD PCIe Card, which is officially supported on the MacPro 5,1. Installing two empty Micron 7450 Pro drives from the Sonnet compatibility list, results in a black screen after the booting chime. The boot picker does not show up, and start up with pressed option key does also not work.

Does anyone have an idea or another solution for fast and big internal RAID storage for a cMP 5,1?

I don't need to boot up from the internal RAID, because my OS is located on a NMVe on the McFiver.
But around 30TB would be nice for editing my projects. So, if there is no solution to get the Sonnet card working, I will reach back to my HighPoint or Sonnet 4x NVMe controller and try to find 4x 8TB NvMe blades, which will work in my setup.

ZombiePhysicist.. may I ask you, what's your final solution (I assume, you are on a MacPro 7,1 not a 5,1, correct?)

I'm still trying to find a drive thats larger than 15TB that works. Currently the only known U.2 drive to work is the Micron 9300 Pro (which comes in up to a 15TB size), which I have been using for over 3 years with no problems. It sells for around $1500:

Micron 9300 Pro 15.36TB NVMe U.2 Enterprise Solid State Drive

Performance-critical cloud and enterprise workloads demand consistently Fast throughput and immediate access to data. The Micron 9300 Series of NVMe SSDs delivers industry-leading sequential write performance with the lowest write latency on the market, to accelerate your datacenter to meet the g...

www.amazon.com

With encryption on, it gets about 2600MB/sec throughput on my 7,1. I've never tried it on my 5,1, but I would imagine it works fine too.

I think they also sell 3.8TB and 7.6TB along with the 15TB versions of the 9300Pro if you want to try and RAID them. I've never tried raiding them. Also, I do not have the sonnet Duo. I have successfully run the 9300 Pro on 2 different Highpoint cards. The 7120 and my current 1580 highpoint cards work with the Micron 9300 pro with no problems. I do not know for a fact that the 9300 Pro works with the Sonnet card, but I would bet it does.

So if you dont need to boot off the big RAID'd drive, you could get 2 of the 15TB 9300 pros, and put them in your sonnet and RAID them, and it should give you the 30TB you want. On a 7,1 you would likely get around 5200MB/sec throughput with encryption on. Im not sure what the throughput would be on the 5,1.

That said, if you do not need to boot off a RAID, you have a lot more options using NVMe sticks. OWC sells a few cards that will let you go over 30TB:

OWC Accelsior 4M2 32.0TB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD for Mac Pro

OWC's fastest SSD with over 6,000MB/s speed for large format video editing, VR/AR/MR environments, extreme gaming, and other high bandwidth needs.

eshop.macsales.com

Hope that helps!

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

So the plot thickens.

Looks like Apple spitefully removed support for at least some U.2 drives in Catalina (see time marker 6:23 below):

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/pcie-ssds-nvme-ahci.2146725/post-28197274

Not clear why this would happen, and more unclear why does the Micron 9300 Pro still work?

Also, I wonder, would it be possible to find the U.2 driver that was in macOS prior to Catalina and get it to make more drives work with Ventura/ Sonoma?

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

A very useful u.2/u.3 compatibility chart from sonnet, including Mac compatibility!

https://www.sonnettech.com/support/downloads/manuals/u2_ssds.pdf

 

[spookybathtub]

A very useful u.2/u.3 compatibility chart from sonnet, including Mac compatibility!

https://www.sonnettech.com/support/downloads/manuals/u2_ssds.pdf

View attachment 2261812

I thought this was helpful until I learned it's inaccurate! I tried 15TB Micron 7450 Pro and it's not recognized. Sonnet tech support acknowledged the problem and they will be revising the list.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I thought this was helpful until I learned it's inaccurate! I tried 15TB Micron 7450 Pro and it's not recognized. Sonnet tech support acknowledged the problem and they will be revising the list.

Thank you for sharing that. I'm desperate to try another drive, but other than the Micron 9400 Pro, I cannot find any reputable places to even try buying any of the other drives. Most of the shady places have lunatic 35% restocking fees, and refunding you with store credit and all sorts of stuff like that. So I dont want to risk buying from them. It's so sad that no one even tries to compete with Amazon.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

SABRENT USB 3.2 Type A to SATA/U.2 SSD Adapter Cable with 12V/2A Power supply [EC-U2SA]

SABRENT USB 3.2 Type A to SATA/U.2 SSD Adapter Cable with 12V/2A Power supply [EC-U2SA]

www.amazon.com

USB4 40Gbps Compatible with Thunderbolt 3 to U.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure, Up to 3000Mb/s Type C to U.2(SFF-8639) PCIe Adapter, Aluminum External 2.5” U.2 SSD Case Compatible with Thunderbolt 3/4 USB3.2/3.1

USB4 40Gbps Compatible with Thunderbolt 3 to U.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure, Up to 3000Mb/s Type C to U.2(SFF-8639) PCIe Adapter, Aluminum External 2.5” U.2 SSD Case Compatible with Thunderbolt 3/4 USB3.2/3.1

www.amazon.com

I wonder if the above might not be a way of getting some large u.2 drives working on macos?

 

[timerickson]

Worth noting that U.2 drives have higher power draw than USB or Thunderbolt currently offer. You'll need to also have the barrel connector plugged in to provide sufficient power. I believe we'll need to wait for Thunderbolt 5 which dramatically increases the power offered by the port, if you want it to be bus-powered.

This wont magically improve drive compatibility in macOS, the same drives that worked or didnt work over PCIe will have the same results here.

 

[DrEGPU]

Worth noting that U.2 drives have higher power draw than USB or Thunderbolt currently offer. You'll need to also have the barrel connector plugged in to provide sufficient power. I believe we'll need to wait for Thunderbolt 5 which dramatically increases the power offered by the port, if you want it to be bus-powered.

This wont magically improve drive compatibility in macOS, the same drives that worked or didnt work over PCIe will have the same results here.

The drives do have a higher power draw, but Thunderbolt and USB specs theoretically do allow for enough power for bus-powered use

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I thought this was helpful until I learned it's inaccurate! I tried 15TB Micron 7450 Pro and it's not recognized. Sonnet tech support acknowledged the problem and they will be revising the list.

Man please let us know if they inform you of an updated list. If they include some of the newly released u.2/u.3 drives as compatible, it would be a really big help to the community. I still can’t find a compatible 30 or 60tb u.2/u.3 drive.

 

[Rimmsi]

Can someone confirm if the Sonnet Fusion Dual U.2 SSD PCIe Card can boot Windows on MP 7.1 winth Micron 9200/9300 drive?

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Can someone confirm if the Sonnet Fusion Dual U.2 SSD PCIe Card can boot Windows on MP 7.1 winth Micron 9200/9300 drive?

I do not have the sonnet, I have a high point card, but I do have a 9300 pro and it works fine with windows 10 natively using the built-in Windows driver from 2006. I’d bet it works fine with the sonnet and windows 7 as well, but haven’t tried.

 

[djshd]

ZombiePhysicist Have you by chance tried buying Kioxia drives. I currently use a 30TB CM6 and it has been working great with my Mac. However I am looking for an option with higher 4kb write iops so this thread has been quite useful. Prior to that I tried the Samsum PM1733 which was a disaster.​

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

ZombiePhysicist Have you by chance tried buying Kioxia drives. I currently use a 30TB CM6 and it has been working great with my Mac. However I am looking for an option with higher 4kb write iops so this thread has been quite useful. Prior to that I tried the Samsum PM1733 which was a disaster.​

No I have not. Frankly I'm not even sure where to buy them from. What do you have your CM6 plugged into?

I was hoping to get any 30 or 60tb drive I could, but particularly was hoping I could get a drive that would run at over 5000MB/sec.

The Micron 9400 Pro I tried, while not working under macOS, did work at well over 5000MB/sec read and writes under windows. A lot of the other other 30TB drives seem to poop out at 2500 or 3500MB/sec writes.

Anyway, would love know the exact model youre using and what card you're driving it with.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I did see this drive:

Kioxia KCMYXRUG30T7 CM7-R 30.72TB PCIe5.0 NVMe 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive

Buy 100% Genuine Kioxia KCMYXRUG30T7 CM7-R 30.72TB PCIe5.0 NVMe 2.5-Inch SSD online from eSaitech. Buy Kioxia KCMYXRUG30T7 CM7-R 30.72TB PCIe5.0 NVMe 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive

esaitech.com

Not sure if the above is a reputable reseller, but my guess is that reads and writes should be pretty fast with it if it were compatible...

I noticed sonnet updated their chart on Nov 13, 2023, but not much good news on it for macOS:

https://www.sonnettech.com/support/downloads/manuals/u2_ssds.pdf

However, note their footnote 2 for the Micron 9300 Pro, where they say that the 7.68TB drive works but they have reports the 15TB does not work. I cannot confirm that is so with their sonnet card, but it is inaccurate with regard to Highpoint controller cards as I'm currently using the 15tb 9300 pro with my current PCIe4 Highpoint card and it worked with my previous PCIe3 highpoint card as well.

Which makes me wonder if there are not other inaccuracies there as they note the Kioxia CM6 15tb drive as not working, but you seem to be getting it to work @djshd .

 

[djshd]

ZombiePhysicist​

I am currently using this drive in an OWC Helios 3s and the only bottleneck is that the drive is running on PCIE 3.1 instead PCIE 4.0. From my research, I am yet to find a Thunderbolt enclosure with PCIE 4.0. Even the e-GPU ones aren't. Worth noting that using a generic StarTech U.2 card in the Helios yields same results as the OWC tray in the Helios.

I initially used the Sonnet as reference and realized that their chart was wildly inaccurate. At the time when I bought my drive, it said that Kioxia drives worked on Mac on that same chart and it also said the Samsung PM1733 worked as well (did not work via enclosure as stated in previous message). Maybe compatibility in that card is different from the enclosure but I literally have datapoints on Kioxia drives working fine for Mac both via PCIE in mac pro and via enclosure.

The CM7 is a drive I have considered as well because the speeds are frankly disgusting (in a good way) but it's worth noting that it is a PCIE 5.0 drive which is still fairly new in implementation and may open up another can of worms despite it theoretically being backward compatible with PCIE 4. Also Kioxia doesn't have the PCIE 4 performance of the CM7 in their datasheets. I just settled for the CD8 as my next drive.

Another note is that while sequential speeds are always beautiful to look at, I found that the single most important performance metric for all these enterprise u.2/u.3 nvme drives is Rand 4KiB Write in IOPS. It's the one stat that you will see real world gains in especially when using it as a boot drive.

 

[Rimmsi]

I would also like to add that the performance of enterprise SSDs does not decrease when writing a large amount of data, and when disks are full, the speeds are still constant, as well as their tremendous reliability compared to consumer disks.

 

[djshd]

I would also like to add that the performance of enterprise SSDs does not decrease when writing a large amount of data, and when disks are full, the speeds are still constant, as well as their tremendous reliability compared to consumer disks.

preaching to the choir

 

[jimmy_john]

ZombiePhysicist​

I am currently using this drive in an OWC Helios 3s and the only bottleneck is that the drive is running on PCIE 3.1 instead PCIE 4.0. From my research, I am yet to find a Thunderbolt enclosure with PCIE 4.0. Even the e-GPU ones aren't. Worth noting that using a generic StarTech U.2 card in the Helios yields same results as the OWC tray in the Helios.

I initially used the Sonnet as reference and realized that their chart was wildly inaccurate. At the time when I bought my drive, it said that Kioxia drives worked on Mac on that same chart and it also said the Samsung PM1733 worked as well (did not work via enclosure as stated in previous message). Maybe compatibility in that card is different from the enclosure but I literally have datapoints on Kioxia drives working fine for Mac both via PCIE in mac pro and via enclosure.

The CM7 is a drive I have considered as well because the speeds are frankly disgusting (in a good way) but it's worth noting that it is a PCIE 5.0 drive which is still fairly new in implementation and may open up another can of worms despite it theoretically being backward compatible with PCIE 4. Also Kioxia doesn't have the PCIE 4 performance of the CM7 in their datasheets. I just settled for the CD8 as my next drive.

Another note is that while sequential speeds are always beautiful to look at, I found that the single most important performance metric for all these enterprise u.2/u.3 nvme drives is Rand 4KiB Write in IOPS. It's the one stat that you will see real world gains in especially when using it as a boot drive.

The Helios runs PCIe 3 because it's a Thunderbolt chassis. Thunderbolt 3 and 4 are PCIe 3.x based.