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Which card offers the best value?

  • Amfeltec 4 bay

    Votes: 2 8.3%
  • Amfeltec 6 bay

    Votes: 5 20.8%
  • Sonnet 4x4

    Votes: 10 41.7%
  • Highpoint 7101

    Votes: 7 29.2%

  • Total voters
    24

Casey P

macrumors member
Jan 16, 2020
43
13
Part of the annoyance is that the 2TB Samsung Evo Plus that plays best in the Sonnet and Highpoint are currently in short supply from what I can tell.
 

tommy chen

macrumors 6502a
Oct 1, 2018
907
390

Kedbear

macrumors member
Dec 15, 2019
79
55

chfilm

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Nov 15, 2012
3,427
2,110
Berlin
Al of the PCIe NVMe risers mentioned here require a 16x slot for optimal performance. If 2xMPX modules & afterburner are installed there will not be any more x16 slots left (see mac pro slot layout on the Apple site). You 'could' use an x8 slot if available, but that would decrease the performance; better then to use the OWC M.2 x8 riser.

how bad is the performance gonna be decreased? Like how would the data rates be?
And why do you think the OWC card would be a better choice in that case?
 
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Hydle

macrumors newbie
Jan 10, 2020
11
2
Part of the annoyance is that the 2TB Samsung Evo Plus that plays best in the Sonnet and Highpoint are currently in short supply from what I can tell.
I was thinking of using it with the Sabrent Rocket blades, they should be fine also?
 

Casey P

macrumors member
Jan 16, 2020
43
13
The 1Tb and 2tb Rocket blades are reported not to fit into the Highpoint or the Sonnet. Both of those cards were not designed to fit double sided Nvme. Most of the cheaper high capacity blades are double sided.
 

chfilm

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Nov 15, 2012
3,427
2,110
Berlin
The 1Tb and 2tb Rocket blades are reported not to fit into the Highpoint or the Sonnet. Both of those cards were not designed to fit double sided Nvme. Most of the cheaper high capacity blades are double sided.
Aren’t those the blades being used in the video about the amfeltec though?
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Al of the PCIe NVMe risers mentioned here require a 16x slot for optimal performance. If 2xMPX modules & afterburner are installed there will not be any more x16 slots left (see mac pro slot layout on the Apple site). You 'could' use an x8 slot if available, but that would decrease the performance; better then to use the OWC M.2 x8 riser.
Why would you recommend the OWC in this case? For simplicity reasons?
I understand that in an x8 slot, performance would cap at around 8Gigabyte/s, correct? Probably a tad lower?
i think that’s fine for me ;)
 

Casey P

macrumors member
Jan 16, 2020
43
13
The Amfeltec is designed to accept thicker blades, although I have concerns about its ability to cool those double sided blades.
 

chfilm

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Nov 15, 2012
3,427
2,110
Berlin

customs and tax included !!!

and in a 7.1 it does not matter if it is the new version or the old v2.00.
remove fan and side plate as recommended by HP:

Well yes of course I can buy it from a German retailer but I want the version where I can disable the fan via software, not having to remove parts of the card.... Im not sure if I can trust these hacks and my abilities to perform them ;)
 

jasonmvp

macrumors 6502
Jun 15, 2015
422
345
Northern VA
how bad is the performance gonna be decreased? Like how would the data rates be?
And why do you think the OWC card would be a better choice in that case?

It will literally halve the theoretical speed of the card. If you only have two NVMe drives in it, you'll be fine. Any more than that and they'll be competing for bandwidth.

x16 slot == 128Gbits/sec
x8 slot == 64Gbits/sec

Each NVMe drive running at full bore can theoretically hit 32Gbits/sec. They'll rarely actually hit that, but that's their speed cap.
 

Kedbear

macrumors member
Dec 15, 2019
79
55
ah, they changed the text
a week ago it was still there

Can you remember what it said exactly? Was it just saying remove the fan completely and the end plate? Did it give any guide or any other temperature info and why they recommend that rather than the whole shroud coming off etc?

Thanks
 

JesterJJZ

macrumors 68020
Jul 21, 2004
2,463
827
Anyone know where the Sonnet is in stock? I ordered from B&H last month and now they are saying mid-march...
 

tommy chen

macrumors 6502a
Oct 1, 2018
907
390
Can you remember what it said exactly? Was it just saying remove the fan completely and the end plate? Did it give any guide or any other temperature info and why they recommend that rather than the whole shroud coming off etc?

Thanks


HP wrote that you can unplug the fan and remove the endplate.
but to get better airflow i would remove the fan completely.

but now that you have the possibility to control the fan with the current firmware,
it seems that they have changed the text.

the best thing I would do is to send a mail to the support
 

chfilm

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Nov 15, 2012
3,427
2,110
Berlin
HP wrote that you can unplug the fan and remove the endplate.
but to get better airflow i would remove the fan completely.

but now that you have the possibility to control the fan with the current firmware,
it seems that they have changed the text.

the best thing I would do is to send a mail to the support
I’ve don’t that yesterday, waiting for a response...
 

V1g0

macrumors newbie
Dec 30, 2019
7
3
I decided to go for the Amfeltec 6 drive version because I would rather use double sided m.2 drives that are considerably cheaper than the Samsung EVO drives. This isn’t my long term or even primary storage so I don’t need the best drives out there.

The question is whether the Mac Pro can supply enough cooling on its own. Frankly, from just looking at the fan design on the Amfeltec I am not sure how the fans would actually help that much. Amfeltec stated that they are working on drivers and USB adapter for temperature monitoring of the card in a Mac, but it isn't available right now.

I have been testing it with and without the fans (but only with 4 drives, leaving the middle slot open on both sides, as that is what I had on hand) and according to the temp read outs from iStat Menus there is very little difference between the fans being plugged or not. In a 24C room, I get 24-30C idle drive temps and under load from Blackmagic speed test over 20 minutes the drives vary from 40-50C. With the fans on, the temps may drop a couple degrees but there is nothing wildly different about the fans being on other than how loud they are. And compared to the near silent nMP, these fans are LOUD.
 

Casey P

macrumors member
Jan 16, 2020
43
13
I decided to go for the Amfeltec 6 drive version because I would rather use double sided m.2 drives that are considerably cheaper than the Samsung EVO drives. This isn’t my long term or even primary storage so I don’t need the best drives out there.

I also made the same choice. If the drives are showing temperature problems then I will tie the Mac Pro's internal fan to keeping them cool.

I don't have the Amfeltec yet, but I am going to attempt to use it as a RAID 5 or 6. We'll see how it goes.
 

chfilm

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Nov 15, 2012
3,427
2,110
Berlin
Amfeltec wrote me today:


Everything is depend of how intensive you are working with SSDs.



The Fans on the SKU-086-36 and SKU-086-34 can be easily disconnected and removed. On the SKU-086-36 we have fan speed controlled by temperature.



We have may be half customers that using SKU-086-36 with fans and half without.”
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I decided to go for the Amfeltec 6 drive version because I would rather use double sided m.2 drives that are considerably cheaper than the Samsung EVO drives. This isn’t my long term or even primary storage so I don’t need the best drives out there.



I have been testing it with and without the fans (but only with 4 drives, leaving the middle slot open on both sides, as that is what I had on hand) and according to the temp read outs from iStat Menus there is very little difference between the fans being plugged or not. In a 24C room, I get 24-30C idle drive temps and under load from Blackmagic speed test over 20 minutes the drives vary from 40-50C. With the fans on, the temps may drop a couple degrees but there is nothing wildly different about the fans being on other than how loud they are. And compared to the near silent nMP, these fans are LOUD.
What kind if cheaper blades are you using? Can you recommend any?
 

Casey P

macrumors member
Jan 16, 2020
43
13
What kind if cheaper blades are you using? Can you recommend any?

There seems to be a group lower of tier brands taking Hitachi chips and a Phison E12 controller and putting their sticker on it and selling it for around $250/ 2TB and $130/1TB on Amazon. All of these cards have basically the same performance and are two sided sticks. Brands like Silicon Power, Sabrent, XPG, Mushkin. I don't think anybody would actually recommend them vs a WD or Samsung, but they are a cheaper option if you want to take the chance.
 

tommy chen

macrumors 6502a
Oct 1, 2018
907
390
for my video work i would never use cheap NVMe memory that has
weaknesses (throttling) compared to samsung 970 evo plus or samsung 970pro
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Casey P

macrumors member
Jan 16, 2020
43
13
I was wrong about the cheaper second tier nvme. They are using Toshiba chips and they seem to have recently changed the controller. Also, some of them are now single sided. It is a bit of rabbit hole when you try to figure out what is going on, but this post seems to be a good resource. https://www.reddit.com/r/NewMaxx/
 
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V1g0

macrumors newbie
Dec 30, 2019
7
3
What kind if cheaper blades are you using? Can you recommend any?

I am using Sabrent Rocket 2TB drives.

In my RAID 0 with 4 drives testing with Blackmagic disk speed test, using 5GB files, I was getting max speeds around 6-7GB/s. When they would fill the buffer and throttle speeds they would drop to as little as 1-2GB/s for one cycle of read or write. When the buffer would clear, it would jump back up to max speeds and alternate with speeds in the middle of the range, around 3-4GB/s as well.

I should note that testing with Atto reported speeds around 10-11 GB/s at peak.

For my use, mostly working with ingesting media and then doing cascading offloads I don't have any issues with what I am getting because my bottleneck is the media I am ingesting from. My needs are solely maxing out internal storage for a fraction of what Apple would charge.


for my video work i would never use cheap NVMe memory that has
weaknesses (throttling) as samsung 970 evo plus or samsung 970pro

I think this is smart, if you are working with critical data and potentially multiple streams of 4K or 8K the potential for throttling seems too real. Samsung would be choice if I needed the best possible drives.
 

bxs

macrumors 65816
Oct 20, 2007
1,151
529
Seattle, WA
I am using Sabrent Rocket 2TB drives.

In my RAID 0 with 4 drives testing with Blackmagic disk speed test, using 5GB files, I was getting max speeds around 6-7GB/s. When they would fill the buffer and throttle speeds they would drop to as little as 1-2GB/s for one cycle of read or write. When the buffer would clear, it would jump back up to max speeds and alternate with speeds in the middle of the range, around 3-4GB/s as well.

I should note that testing with Atto reported speeds around 10-11 GB/s at peak.

For my use, mostly working with ingesting media and then doing cascading offloads I don't have any issues with what I am getting because my bottleneck is the media I am ingesting from. My needs are solely maxing out internal storage for a fraction of what Apple would charge.




I think this is smart, if you are working with critical data and potentially multiple streams of 4K or 8K the potential for throttling seems too real. Samsung would be choice if I needed the best possible drives.
This aspect is one good reason to have ample RAM for the streamed in data to be cached in RAM so it can be accessed and transferred to the associated application at the very best optimum transfer rates.
 
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