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

[ZombiePhysicist]

Ok, this is the place I got my drive from for those wanting either the 30TB or 60TB drives

SOLIDIGM SBFPF2BV307TOP1 D5-P5336 Solid State Drive, 30.72 TB Internal

Upgrade your server storage with the high-performance SOLIDIGM D5-P5336 30.72 TB Solid State Drive.

www.networkhardwares.com

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Some more initial stats. It seems the Solidigm runs much cooler than the Micron:

 

[Rimmsi]

One thing that discourages me from buying these drives is that they have QLC type memories. Temps are in Fahrenheit?

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

One thing that discourages me from buying these drives is that they have QLC type memories. Temps are in Fahrenheit?

Yea, the temps are in Fahrenheit.

The QLC doesnt bother me (other than it's slower). I've had great success with the QLC. That said, yea, TLC is preferable. I suspect in a few years capacities will be up greatly and TLC will become more economical.

I just needed to get to 30TB and for right now, this Solidigm (and it's 61TB alternative) is the only option. It's proving to be about 15% faster overall as well, which is nice. If you need 15TB or less, you have a lot more options.

As always, YMMV.

 

[mkush]

Does the Solidigm drive maintain its write speed even for really large transfers? Reason I ask is that I had experience with a Samsung 8TB SATA drive (QLC) which slowed down to basically HDD speeds on writes as soon as its cache was full. If these Solidigm drives maintain good write speeds, and are compatible with Macs, that's great!

Did you say you were running this drive inside a Mac Pro M2 or an external enclosure?

The 61TB drives are available from Provantage, which is a reputable place I've dealt with many times.

PROVANTAGE: Solidigm SBFPF2BV614T001 Solidigm D5-P5336 Series (61.44TB, 2.5 inch PCIE 4.0 X4, 3D5, QLC) Single Pack

Get Fast Service & Low Prices on SBFPF2BV614T001 Solidigm D5-P5336 Series (61.44TB, 2.5 inch PCIE 4.0 X4, 3D5, QLC) Single Pack and Much More at PROVANTAGE.

www.provantage.com

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Solidigm P5336 61.44TB SSD Review

The Solidigm P5336 comes in an amazing 61.44TB capacity and a wide variety of form factors including U.2, E1.S and E1.L.

www.storagereview.com

They did a pretty good review of the drive. If there is some specific benchmark you want me to test, happy to do it. I havent noticed slowdown but havent done a massive write other than the restore, which I couldnt really measure too well, but seemed pretty fast.

 

[mkush]

If it seemed pretty fast to you, having used a 9300 Pro, then I’m sure it was fine. You’d notice what I was talking about with the 8TB Samsung QLC… for a copy of any decent size at all, it would start start out looking like a reasonable copy time then quickly fall into the realm of a spinning hard disks.

Are you using this inside an M2 Mac Pro or in a Thunderbolt enclosure? If the latter, which one? And no issues at all? I’ve used 9300 Pros quite a bit (not boot) and usually they’re fine but I’ve gotten kernel panics on both an M2 Mac Pro and an M2 Mac Studio that only happen with a 9300 Pro attached. Is your system stable?

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

If it seemed pretty fast to you, having used a 9300 Pro, then I’m sure it was fine. You’d notice what I was talking about with the 8TB Samsung QLC… for a copy of any decent size at all, it would start start out looking like a reasonable copy time then quickly fall into the realm of a spinning hard disks.

Are you using this inside an M2 Mac Pro or in a Thunderbolt enclosure? If the latter, which one? And no issues at all? I’ve used 9300 Pros quite a bit (not boot) and usually they’re fine but I’ve gotten kernel panics on both an M2 Mac Pro and an M2 Mac Studio that only happen with a 9300 Pro attached. Is your system stable?

I'm using it the 2019 Mac Pro (Intel) which only has PCIe3 slots but with a Highpoint 1580 Rocket card that is PCI4. The good news is even this old setup seems to wring out close to the max speed of this drive, and this drive is working faster than the 9300 Pro ever did. And yes, I'm using it inside the mac Pro with the Sonnet J3i bracket holding the 15TB Micron 9300 Pro and the 30TB Solidigm D5-P5336 (as well as an 8TB SATA Samsung 870 drive for windows/bootcamp). The U.2 drives are housed in old velociraptor heatsink enclosures (thanks to @tsialex ) suggestion/help here.

There is a good chance it will be faster on the 2023 with PCIe4 slots.

For a point of comparison, when I tested the 30TB Micron 9400 Pro on my setup it got 5000MB/sec reads (although only around 3500MB/sec writes) in windows, but it didnt work in macOS. So it's nice to see that with the HighPoint PCI4 card, I'm getting similar speeds to what the Micron 9400 Pro was getting under windows. I think higher performance is possible even on my PCIe3 system, meaning with the right drive, the old 2019 Mac Pro, can probably get around 6000MB/s read/writes with a PCIe4 card despite it's relatively slow PCIe3 slots.

My system seems to be stable. I still have the 9300 Pro in there (which is now working as time machine drive, and it's glorious moving between the two drives). I regularly see 2.1GB/s real world throughput between the drives via iStat menus between those drives.

Here I did a few bench marks on this. Please note my system was doing a lot of work, including a lot of disk work, so the drive was decently busy during the test, but hopefully it gives you some sense of performance under macOS.

The atto test shows writes around 2GB/s and reads around 5930MB/sec. Not sure I trust it because most I saw on iStat was around 3GB/s reads. The Aja is somewhere in the middle, and the black magic (which only uses 5GB files) seems slowest. You can see the test with larger file sizes (64GB) seems to get the better throughput. If you deal with larger files, like multi terabyte files the performance could be different perhaps. Interestingly the settings on the AJA app says it disables read/write cache by default, so in theory it's using the raw throughput of the drive. All of the above tests are on a FileVault drive, so odds are it would be say 10% faster without the encryption.

Sorry to hear about your panics. What controller card are you using for your drives?

 

[mkush]

No controller. Just mounted on a “dumb” carrier card which lets the drive plug straight into a PCIe slot, either inside a Mac Pro or a Thunderbolt chassis. I’m scared now that I know your success has happened on an Intel Mac. M-series Macs seem to have more trouble with NVMe drives. I could take a chance but I hate returning such an expensive item and who knows if the panics would even begin within the return period?

Thanks for the benchmarks and for relating your observed performance. I appreciate that and it make me feel good about the drives, at least from that perspective.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

No controller. Just mounted on a “dumb” carrier card which lets the drive plug straight into a PCIe slot, either inside a Mac Pro or a Thunderbolt chassis. I’m scared now that I know your success has happened on an Intel Mac. M-series Macs seem to have more trouble with NVMe drives. I could take a chance but I hate returning such an expensive item and who knows if the panics would even begin within the return period?

Thanks for the benchmarks and for relating your observed performance. I appreciate that and it make me feel good about the drives, at least from that perspective.

Well I tried several cards like that, and the highpoint card definitely was way better in many ways than the straight cards like that. Not sure that would ultimately make a difference, but earlier in this thread I tried a LOT of HBA cards, and really, the 1580 was by far the best I tested. HighPoint may now make even better cards. What I do like about the Highpoint card, although they make a driver, I never use a driver. It just works natively.

For what it's worth, the place I bought from noted free returns, which is why I ordered from them.

As always, YMMV.

 

[mkush]

Well I tried several cards like that, and the highpoint card definitely was way better in many ways than the straight cards like that. Not sure that would ultimately make a difference, but earlier in this thread I tried a LOT of HBA cards, and really, the 1580 was by far the best I tested. HighPoint may now make even better cards. What I do like about the Highpoint card, although they make a driver, I never use a driver. It just works natively.

For what it's worth, the place I bought from noted free returns, which is why I ordered from them.

As always, YMMV.

Provantage also allows returns but I try not to return things in general. Of course I still do but I wanted to be as sure as possible before buying the most expensive computer component I’ve ever bought. I wish someone out there had experience with the Solidigm drives on Apple silicon Macs.

 

[MichaelRCiancio]

Provantage also allows returns but I try not to return things in general. Of course I still do but I wanted to be as sure as possible before buying the most expensive computer component I’ve ever bought. I wish someone out there had experience with the Solidigm drives on Apple silicon Macs.

I can tell you that the Intel SSDPF2NV153TZ D5-P5316 Series 15.36TB drive I have in a trebleet enclosure works very well with a M2 Ultra mac studio. I have transferred 800 gigs in one go with no slowdown from the drive, but it was held back to about 800MBps by the other media the data was transfering from. I'm not sure this info would help you as it's not the 30 or 60 TB new drives, but its a data point.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Looks like HighPoint now has to Gen5 cards (with and without hardware RAID):

https://www.highpoint-tech.com/nvme-raid-adapter/gen5/rocket-7628a

https://www.highpoint-tech.com/nvme-switch-adapter/gen5/rocket-1628a

Impressively, both set to be fanless, which is nice. Not clear if it will work on the mac. Of course, odds of Apple releasing a mac pro with PCIe5, any time soon or ever, is sadly low.

https://www.highpoint-tech.com/gen5

What I like about their cards is they are a bit future proof in that you just need a different cable and can use either U.2/U.3 format drives or E3.S connector based drives.

 

[mkush]

I can tell you that the Intel SSDPF2NV153TZ D5-P5316 Series 15.36TB drive I have in a trebleet enclosure works very well with a M2 Ultra mac studio. I have transferred 800 gigs in one go with no slowdown from the drive, but it was held back to about 800MBps by the other media the data was transfering from. I'm not sure this info would help you as it's not the 30 or 60 TB new drives, but its a data point.

That’s helpful. I’m also curious about the Trebleet enclosure. So is that Thunderbolt 3 or USB 4? No issues? Did you run any benchmarks on it? How’s the fan noise? Did you also consider Acasis? I’m wondering how they compare. And I haven’t completely understood the difference between Thunderbolt 3 and USB 4 and which would be preferable.

 

[MichaelRCiancio]

That’s helpful. I’m also curious about the Trebleet enclosure. So is that Thunderbolt 3 or USB 4? No issues? Did you run any benchmarks on it? How’s the fan noise? Did you also consider Acasis? I’m wondering how they compare. And I haven’t completely understood the difference between Thunderbolt 3 and USB 4 and which would be preferable.

It is both thunderbolt 3 and USB. USB 4 CAN have thunderbolt 3 specs, but there are a TON of "optional" features they can omit and still call it USB4, where to be Thunderbolt it has to have 100% of the feature set.

I have used it on a windows laptop both thunderbolt and USB along with the mac studio. Off the top of my head i think the Black Magic speed test had it at 2.3GB write and read, but the first time it hits the drive it sits at 800MB for about 10 sec and then ramps to full speed on mac. On my windows computer it was writing at about 1 GB, I only tried it once to see if it worked and didn't troubleshoot why it would have been slow. Read is always full speed.

The fan is not very loud, It's on my DIT cart with a ton of other stuff so it might not be silent, but I can't hear it.

As far as I remember the Acasis one was sold out when I was looking for solutions and I dislike OWC so I didn't look at their offerings when I found other options.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

It is both thunderbolt 3 and USB. USB 4 CAN have thunderbolt 3 specs, but there are a TON of "optional" features they can omit and still call it USB4, where to be Thunderbolt it has to have 100% of the feature set.

I have used it on a windows laptop both thunderbolt and USB along with the mac studio. Off the top of my head i think the Black Magic speed test had it at 2.3GB write and read, but the first time it hits the drive it sits at 800MB for about 10 sec and then ramps to full speed on mac. On my windows computer it was writing at about 1 GB, I only tried it once to see if it worked and didn't troubleshoot why it would have been slow. Read is always full speed.

The fan is not very loud, It's on my DIT cart with a ton of other stuff so it might not be silent, but I can't hear it.

As far as I remember the Acasis one was sold out when I was looking for solutions and I dislike OWC so I didn't look at their offerings when I found other options.

I also ran it earlier in the thread and confirm it works with my Solidigm, albiet at much slower speeds.

 

[mkush]

Ok, got the drive. Hooray! And plugged it into the TB4 enclosure and it worked with writes at 2100MB/s and reads around the same. That's a good sign and probably the limits of TB4. So now backing up and will plug it in internally. Fingers crossed!

But so far, it seems that the SOLIDIGM D5-P5336 Series (30.72TB, 2.5”) SBFPF2BV307T001 (and it's 61TB brother SOLIDIGM D5-P5336 Series (61.44TB, 2.5”) SBFPF2BV614T001) might be the real deal.

Ok, got the drive. Hooray! And plugged it into the TB4 enclosure and it worked with writes at 2100MB/s and reads around the same. That's a good sign and probably the limits of TB4. So now backing up and will plug it in internally. Fingers crossed!

But so far, it seems that the SOLIDIGM D5-P5336 Series (30.72TB, 2.5”) SBFPF2BV307T001 (and it's 61TB brother SOLIDIGM D5-P5336 Series (61.44TB, 2.5”) SBFPF2BV614T001) might be the real deal.

I can’t tell which enclosure you’re talking about here. I do see earlier in the thread where you mention the Trebleet, but that was before you got the D5-P5336. Was it the Trebleet or a different one?

Also: I can probably find this and I haven’t tried but does anyone know off the top of their head what controller chip the Trebleet has? The Acasis? I may just order one of each. I have a 9300 Pro I can use to test somewhat at least.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I can’t tell which enclosure you’re talking about here. I do see earlier in the thread where you mention the Trebleet, but that was before you got the D5-P5336. Was it the Trebleet or a different one?

Also: I can probably find this and I haven’t tried but does anyone know off the top of their head what controller chip the Trebleet has? The Acasis? I may just order one of each. I have a 9300 Pro I can use to test somewhat at least.

The links in my post 791 above take you to the correct posts. I refer to a u.2 to tb4 adapter, and that is the trebleet. The 2nd link in the post above mentions the speeds I got with the d5-p5336 in the Trebleet which are around 2100MB/sec.

 

[mkush]

The links in my post 791 above take you to the correct posts. I refer to a u.2 to tb4 adapter, and that is the trebleet. The 2nd link in the post above mentions the speeds I got with the d5-p5336 in the Trebleet which are around 2100MB/sec.

My bad… wasn’t reading closely enough. I see now. I also saw where you have an Apple silicon MacBook Pro. Have you had the D5-P5336 in the Trebleet hooked to the MBP? That would come very close to simulating my proposed setup, which would be that drive in that enclosure (or similar) on an M2 Studio.

If you haven’t tried that, would it be too much trouble to try it? And I guess just run a few benchmarks and copy something big to it from the boot drive in the MBP. If you prefer not to I totally understand. It seems like this is a good enough bet for me to proceed but that would seal the deal.

I did order both a Trebleet and an Acasis today, both of which should come by the end of this week.

Thanks so much to you and others in this thread for illuminating a subject that, if things were as they should be, would not need illuminating.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

My bad… wasn’t reading closely enough. I see now. I also saw where you have an Apple silicon MacBook Pro. Have you had the D5-P5336 in the Trebleet hooked to the MBP? That would come very close to simulating my proposed setup, which would be that drive in that enclosure (or similar) on an M2 Studio.

If you haven’t tried that, would it be too much trouble to try it? And I guess just run a few benchmarks and copy something big to it from the boot drive in the MBP. If you prefer not to I totally understand. It seems like this is a good enough bet for me to proceed but that would seal the deal.

I did order both a Trebleet and an Acasis today, both of which should come by the end of this week.

Thanks so much to you and others in this thread for illuminating a subject that, if things were as they should be, would not need illuminating.

Sorry, I don't think I tried it on the MBP. And unfortunatly, it's too 'installed' for me to yank and test it as it's on my production system. I don't see why it wouldnt work, but havent actually tested it.

 

[mkush]

I understand. The only reason it wouldn't work is because the drivers for Intel and Apple silicon are not the same and just because a piece of hardware is supported on Intel doesn't mean it is on Apple. But MichaelRCiancio above says the 5316 works on a Studio so that's a good sign.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

What is interesting is the 5315 30TB did not fully work for me (and the sonnetech lists it as such). I tried it with the TB4 enclosure and had the same problem with the 5316 in the TB4 case as with internal connectors. He has not. I only ran it on my intel system, perhaps the ASi machines are *more* compatible?

 

[MichaelRCiancio]

What is interesting is the 5315 30TB did not fully work for me (and the sonnetech lists it as such). I tried it with the TB4 enclosure and had the same problem with the 5316 in the TB4 case as with internal connectors. He has not. I only ran it on my intel system, perhaps the ASi machines are *more* compatible?

I reread all your posts. In one of your posts you posted a reply from sonnet that said the limit of mac os was 15tb at that time and I only found post you had talking about the 30tb one. That might be why? There might be a new driver for the new model drive but not the older one? Just a guess.

 

[MichaelRCiancio]

Also, the drive I have has OPAL support, the one you linked does not. I don't think that would matter but who knows.

From what I can find the intel drives all have a OPAL and non OPAL version. OPAL seems to be an encryption protocol so you have to give the drive a password before the computer can decrypt any data on it. I'm not using that feature, but i'm guessing the driver has to know it does that in some way.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I reread all your posts. In one of your posts you posted a reply from sonnet that said the limit of mac os was 15tb at that time and I only found post you had talking about the 30tb one. That might be why? There might be a new driver for the new model drive but not the older one? Just a guess.

Yea, I dont think the limit is inaccurate in that we have 24TB spinner drives that work just fine. I've been using 20+TB spinner drives for years. I suspect it is a driver thing, but who knows. Maybe the 15tb works and the 30 gets janky.