MP 1,1-5,1 Highpoint 7101A vs Sonnet M.2 4x4

[ybakos2]

Anyone try these specific cards in a Mac Pro ~5,1 and do a comparison benchmark between them? Any long-time users of the Sonnet care to share their experience w/ reliability, noise and temperatures?

Any major pros/cons between the two, specifically, assuming one doesn't need to boot Windows?

 

[crjackson2134]

Give the search function a try...

MANY of us have the 7101A and have tested other cards. There are several threads/posts to peruse.

 

[ybakos2]

Yes, thank you, I've scoured the threads but have yet to see a direct comparison between the Highpoint and the Sonnet. I'm about to purchase the Highpoint but wanted to learn more about the Sonnet.

 

[Slash-2CPU]

Electrically, they are identical. They will perform the same on a simple benchmark.

The Sonnet card has better heat sinks and mounting for the heatsink and shroud. 7101 uses the thin aluminum shroud as the heatsink. Sonnet has decent size heat sinks for both the PCIe chip and m.2 drives.

If you’re doing heavy, continuous reads and writes for 30+ minutes, the drives in the Sonnet card will probably never throttle due to heat. The 7101 might get close to throttling if you’ve got other warm cards near it.

Sonnet card more likely to live longer with better cooling. No telling if “longer” is 3 yrs vs 9 yrs or if it’s 7 yrs vs 7.1 yrs.

 

[ybakos2]

Thanks everyone - I ordered the Highpoint.

 

[handheldgames]

...If you’re doing heavy, continuous reads and writes for 30+ minutes, the drives in the Sonnet card will probably never throttle due to heat. The 7101 might get close to throttling if you’ve got other warm cards near it.
Sonnet card more likely to live longer with better cooling. No telling if “longer” is 3 yrs vs 9 yrs or if it’s 7 yrs vs 7.1 yrs.

WOW! That's one heck of a claim. Can you please elaborate a bit more?

 

[Slash-2CPU]

WOW! That's one heck of a claim. Can you please elaborate a bit more?

I did, in the sentence right above that one. "The Sonnet card has better heat sinks and mounting for the heatsink and shroud. 7101 uses the thin aluminum shroud as the heatsink. Sonnet has decent size heat sinks for both the PCIe chip and m.2 drives."

We have seen a few reports here of 7101's with dead PCIe bridge chips. These chips make quite a lot of heat. High temperatures shorten the lifespan of any component. Cooler components live longer. Not much of a "WOW" thing. Pretty basic. Just like I said though, no telling how long "longer" is without doing a lot of testing.

Review with photos of 7101's shroud and two thermal pads: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/highpoint-ssd7101-ssd,5200.html Note total lack of anything that resembles heat sink fins. Where's the area for heat exchange to air? It has a fan, but no clear path for air to flow over fins, and thus very little surface area for heat transfer.

Skip to 8:04 of this video

to see what the Sonnet m.2 4x4 has for cooling. Thermal pad under m.2 drives, to sink heat into the PCB. Separate heatsink for bridge chip, then a big heatsink with a thermal pad over the m.2 drives. Fan with shroud directing air across all heatsinks. What they could've done better was adding a baffle in the shroud to force all airflow through the m.2 heatsink. It's also a much larger, higher CFM fan with air inlets on both sides.

It's also entirely possible that the temperature difference won't matter enough to cause any given 7101 to die before its useful lifespan ends. Odds being odds, an empirical sample of 1 or 2 isn't exactly a scientific study, is it?

 

[crjackson2134]

Have you actually tested the Sonnet and the High Point adapters in a head to head 30+ minute, continuous read/write test?

Without comparative testing, the 30+ minute statement (very specific btw) probably needs to be qualified a bit on how you arrived at that. If you arrived at this based on specifications and photo review, then it’s a poor qualification. Perhaps this is where the WOW! is invoked.

I ASSUME the “bridge chip” you are referring to is the PLX PCIe switch? Yes, they do generate some heat, and I suspect a finned heatsink/cover might dissipate the heat better, but without actual controlled testing, my suspicions are meaningless.

Also of consideration for some users....

Technical Notes

1. You may install fewer than four SSDs now and add more later without needing to reformat existing ones. Only 2280 (80mm—the most common length) length M.2 SSDs and with memory components on only the top side are supported. M.2 SSDs longer or shorter than 80mm don’t fit. M.2 SSDs with with components on both sides don’t fit.

The 7101A does not have that limitation. Could it be that trying to put HS Fins on the case would make it prohibitively wider, since it already accommodates double-sided, high capacity SSD’s? I think possibly yes.

 

[Slash-2CPU]

Have you actually tested the Sonnet and the Hight Point adapters in a head to head 30+ minute, continuous read/write test, or is this an assumption that you have made?

Without comparative testing, the 30+ minute assumption (very specific btw) probably needs to be qualified a bit on how you arrived at that statement. If you arrived at this based on specifications and photo review, then it’s a poor qualification. Perhaps this is where the WOW! is invoked.

I ASSUME the “bridge chip” you are referring to is the PLX PCIe switch? Yes, they do generate some heat, and I suspect a finned heatsink/cover might dissipate the heat better, but without actual controlled testing, my suspicions are meaningless.

I did say that the 7101 will throttle at 30 minutes? Nope, sure didn't. Go back and check. I said the Sonnet card won't throttle after 30 minutes. I'm not the assumer here.

Why exactly 30 minutes? That's my own personal stress test for air-cooled systems. Run any well-ventilated system or component flat out for half an hour, and you're going to see max temperature and plateau at or usually well before then. Usually, you'll see it hit and plateau in under 15 minutes. There are obvious exceptions, such as a liquid cooled system with a ridiculous amount of thermal mass or a poorly-ventilated case. The 4,1/5,1 are well-ventilated.

Switch is the correct term, since it's same serial interface to same serial interface. You're right that bridge is isn't right. That's me showing my age. PCIe to PCI would be bridge since it's serial to parallel.

It's not my problem if the 7101 isn't well-cooled. Don't own one, don't plan to buy one.

 

[handheldgames]

I did say that the 7101 will throttle at 30 minutes? Nope, sure didn't. Go back and check. I said the Sonnet card won't throttle after 30 minutes. I'm not the assumer here.

Why exactly 30 minutes? That's my own personal stress test for air-cooled systems. Run any well-ventilated system or component flat out for half an hour, and you're going to see max temperature and plateau at or usually well before then. Usually, you'll see it hit and plateau in under 15 minutes. There are obvious exceptions, such as a liquid cooled system with a ridiculous amount of thermal mass or a poorly-ventilated case. The 4,1/5,1 are well-ventilated.

Switch is the correct term, since it's same serial interface to same serial interface. You're right that bridge is isn't right. That's me showing my age. PCIe to PCI would be bridge since it's serial to parallel.

It's not my problem if the 7101 isn't well-cooled. Don't own one, don't plan to buy one.

To quote your words "The 7101 might get close to throttling if you’ve got other warm cards near it." To the contrary, The SSD-7101-A is a well cooled solution that does not throttle SSD's. Whilst you may have a different opinion, the forums would benefit from any results results that illustrate this claim.

The SSD-7101A's large heat-sink does a great job of removing heat. Case in point, when I had 4 high-temp SM951 SSD's installed in a raid-0 configuration with minimal increase in temps and absolute no throttling over extended tests. I'd be interested in ANY results that show the contrary. While I'd like to retest, I no longer have those legacy SSD's.

Regarding users who burned out their Broadcom PEX8747, this was likely a self inflicted issue caused by users replacing the factory provided heat sink with an insufficient cooling solution that allowed the chip to exceed the maximum temp of 70c. Excessive heat build up from 8w of power consumption without an adequate heat sink and directed airflow can easily shorten the lifespan of any PCIe switch.

Installation documentation shows the Sonnet m.2 4x4 uses a two step approach for cooling where the overall surface area of it's heatsink is much less than the Highpoint's case while requiring twice as many screws to get to the SSD's.

With that said, without comparing both cards in the same configuration, it's difficult to ascertain if the Sonnet approach is superior to the highpoint from a cooling or fan noise perspective. If you put either of these M.2 cards into a poorly ventilated case that's subjected to heat buildup from other components, proper cooling will be an issue as the warm air is equally pulled into both.


Deal Alert: Anyone Looking for a deal on a Highpoint SSD7101a... Amazon has one for $297.00. That's about $100 off of the regular price.

 

[startergo]

Deal Alert: Anyone Looking for a deal on a Highpoint SSD7101a... Amazon has one for $297.00. That's about $100 off of the regular price.

Good deal, but for a used one.

 

[bsbeamer]

FYI, shipping times for the Sonnet M.2 4x4 have slipped quite a bit in the past week. Wonder if Apple will be selling them directly when stocking the MP7,1.

 

[handheldgames]

Good deal, but for a used one.

I've purchased two "used" cards that were basically NIB from Amazon @275 each.One was new. One was used. Not one issue. @crjackson2134 and @tsialex also took advantage of the same deals on Amazon. Knock on weed. None of us had any problems.

 

[tsialex]

I've purchased two "used" cards that were basically NIB from Amazon @275 each.One was new. One was used. Not one issue. @crjackson2134 and @tsialex also took advantage of the same deals on Amazon. Knock on weed. None of us had any problems.

I payed the same price as you and @crjackson2134 but I bought it on eBay some weeks later from someone that bought on Amazon and didn’t get it to work, pre-140.0.0.0.0 times.

My card arrived virtually new, the same box and documentation as yours, with the thermal pad showing that just one blade was ever installed.

Still going strong.

 

[w1z]

Thanks to @handheldgames who shared with us Amazon's early warehouse deal of $275 on a new 7101A lot, I bought mine and modded it to be near silent with effective cooling to both the switch and 2x 970 blades (1TB Pro/2TB Evo Plus). Summer was quite hot this year here and my 970 Pro never crossed 42C under heavy writes at 28C ambient temperature (average is 24C). The Evo Plus, which I only recently bought and is also known for running hotter than the Pro, had a max temp of 44C under heavy writes.

As for the switch's temperatures, I recently took another reading with the infrared thermometer and noticed an increase of 2 ~ 2.5C to the earlier reported max temp of 41.5C to 43.5C ~ 44C which is still way below than the switch's max temp spec of 70C. I am attributing this increase to the newly installed Evo Plus blade.

The reported temperatures are very normal, and within specs, for Samung's NAND and Broadcom's PEX8747.

 

[tommy chen]

my 2 evo plus ran more hotter (picture in idle mod) than the normal 2 evo
(change all to evo plus end of week)

 

[Adult80HD]

I did, in the sentence right above that one. "The Sonnet card has better heat sinks and mounting for the heatsink and shroud. 7101 uses the thin aluminum shroud as the heatsink. Sonnet has decent size heat sinks for both the PCIe chip and m.2 drives."

We have seen a few reports here of 7101's with dead PCIe bridge chips. These chips make quite a lot of heat. High temperatures shorten the lifespan of any component. Cooler components live longer. Not much of a "WOW" thing. Pretty basic. Just like I said though, no telling how long "longer" is without doing a lot of testing.

Review with photos of 7101's shroud and two thermal pads: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/highpoint-ssd7101-ssd,5200.html Note total lack of anything that resembles heat sink fins. Where's the area for heat exchange to air? It has a fan, but no clear path for air to flow over fins, and thus very little surface area for heat transfer.

Skip to 8:04 of this video

to see what the Sonnet m.2 4x4 has for cooling. Thermal pad under m.2 drives, to sink heat into the PCB. Separate heatsink for bridge chip, then a big heatsink with a thermal pad over the m.2 drives. Fan with shroud directing air across all heatsinks. What they could've done better was adding a baffle in the shroud to force all airflow through the m.2 heatsink. It's also a much larger, higher CFM fan with air inlets on both sides.

It's also entirely possible that the temperature difference won't matter enough to cause any given 7101 to die before its useful lifespan ends. Odds being odds, an empirical sample of 1 or 2 isn't exactly a scientific study, is it?

I just opened up a 7101A to install my NVMe drives and wondered about those heat pads, and when I looked carefully, there are LARGE fins on the opposite sides of the pads, so your assumption/statement is incorrect.

 

[Getthisfaster]

I received my Highpoint and installed it. The massive noise was shocking. I will send it back. What about Sonnet 4x4? Is it as loud? Can I switch the fan off? I need a really silent system...

 

[Adult80HD]

I received my Highpoint and installed it. The massive noise was shocking. I will send it back. What about Sonnet 4x4? Is it as loud? Can I switch the fan off? I need a really silent system...

If you're comfortable doing it yourself, you can swap out the fan as @w1z did--see his post a couple above yours.

 

[jasonmvp]

I bought mine and modded it to be near silent with effective cooling to both the switch and 2x 970 blades

Potentially dumb question: did you bother putting the shroud back on? I'd imagine not, unless you also pulled the thermal pads off the inside of it first. The reason I'm asking is, aren't you basically rendering the fan completely useless by having the shroud off? It looks like an impeller fan, meaning it's drawing air into it and expecting the shroud to direct the air out towards the back of the machine.

 

[w1z]

Potentially dumb question: did you bother putting the shroud back on? I'd imagine not, unless you also pulled the thermal pads off the inside of it first. The reason I'm asking is, aren't you basically rendering the fan completely useless by having the shroud off? It looks like an impeller fan, meaning it's drawing air into it and expecting the shroud to direct the air out towards the back of the machine.

No, I left it off as I was seeing better (lower) temperatures on both the PLX switch and NVMe blades with the copper heatsinks attached.

The fan is pushing ample cfm to cool the switch and blades, including the backplate/side of the 5700XT card, without needing the shroud just as long as you install a heatsink on the switch. Heatsinks are optional with quality blades or sub 21C ambient temperatures.

 

[jasonmvp]

No, I left it off as I was seeing better (lower) temperatures on both the PLX switch and NVMe blades with the copper heatsinks attached.

Cool, thanks for the info. I've got drive heatsinks and something for the switch coming soon(ish), along with 2 new fans since I have two of these cards. I'll be starting off without the mods since my new rig arrives tomorrow, and am sure I'll be plenty annoyed at HighPoint's OEM solution for a short time.

 

[ldstern10]

Cool, thanks for the info. I've got drive heatsinks and something for the switch coming soon(ish), along with 2 new fans since I have two of these cards. I'll be starting off without the mods since my new rig arrives tomorrow, and am sure I'll be plenty annoyed at HighPoint's OEM solution for a short time.

I’m confused. Did you only remove the end plate or did you also keep the main cover off? If you kept the main cover on, how was there enough space for ssd and switch heatsinks. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[jasonmvp]

I’m confused. Did you only remove the end plate or did you also keep the main cover off? If you kept the main cover on, how was there enough space for ssd and switch heatsinks. Thanks for clarifying.

I didn't do this mod yet. I was asking W1z about what he'd done.

 

[XNorth]

The OWC Accelsior 4M2 looks like a good alternative. Anyone have experience with it? It comes with 5 year warranty vs 2 for the Sonnet. It’s passively cooled and supposed to be completely silent. The sonnet has a fan.