Hey Friends,
I'm posting my reply to another thread about the Sonnet 4x4 PCIe being card back ordered for months around the world because I think it could be useful to many fellow nerds trying to get the most out of their recent Mac Pro purchases. This is my current solution, I'll update as it improves, but this looks like the best cost/performance route. I will absolutely swap the $14 adaptors for the more elegant space saving option when it arrives.
My authorized retail supplier in Los Angeles, who got me the Mac Pro and Cinema Display within 24 hours of ordering this week, says that the shipment of the 4x4 has gone from 3 days to sometime in march. I asked them to keep the order and went with 4 of these little PCI adapters to get me by for the time being. (chosen because the black matches that back of the computer #dontjudgemeyoureprobablythiscrazytoo)
Some M.2 heat syncs:
The M.2 drives I went with:
The obvious problem with this set up is that it takes up 4 PCIe slots, but it was the best cheap/temporary solution I could find without using bifurcation or spending the same money on 2 2x slot adapters as the 1 slot sonnet option. Most of the 2x NVME us one 4x port and one sata 3 cable as a cheap/slow option. Don't go there.
The results speak for themselves. While not ideal, this setup cost less than $1000.
I did order a VROC raid controller that supports 128gb/s, and it looks like the Xeon W-3200 series supports CPU raid, but I don't know about Mac OS. If it tests well, I'll make all kind of noise about it in another post and link from here. If it doesn't work, we can all stay the course.
Any ideas for improvement?
God Speed.
I'm posting my reply to another thread about the Sonnet 4x4 PCIe being card back ordered for months around the world because I think it could be useful to many fellow nerds trying to get the most out of their recent Mac Pro purchases. This is my current solution, I'll update as it improves, but this looks like the best cost/performance route. I will absolutely swap the $14 adaptors for the more elegant space saving option when it arrives.
My authorized retail supplier in Los Angeles, who got me the Mac Pro and Cinema Display within 24 hours of ordering this week, says that the shipment of the 4x4 has gone from 3 days to sometime in march. I asked them to keep the order and went with 4 of these little PCI adapters to get me by for the time being. (chosen because the black matches that back of the computer #dontjudgemeyoureprobablythiscrazytoo)
EZDIY-FAB PCI Express M.2 SSD NGFF PCIe Card to PCIe 4.0 x4 M2 Adapter (Support M.2 PCIe 22110,2280, 2260, 2242)
EZDIY-FAB PCI Express M.2 SSD NGFF PCIe Card to PCIe 4.0 x4 M2 Adapter (Support M.2 PCIe 22110,2280, 2260, 2242)
www.amazon.com
Some M.2 heat syncs:
The M.2 drives I went with:
The obvious problem with this set up is that it takes up 4 PCIe slots, but it was the best cheap/temporary solution I could find without using bifurcation or spending the same money on 2 2x slot adapters as the 1 slot sonnet option. Most of the 2x NVME us one 4x port and one sata 3 cable as a cheap/slow option. Don't go there.
The results speak for themselves. While not ideal, this setup cost less than $1000.
I did order a VROC raid controller that supports 128gb/s, and it looks like the Xeon W-3200 series supports CPU raid, but I don't know about Mac OS. If it tests well, I'll make all kind of noise about it in another post and link from here. If it doesn't work, we can all stay the course.
Any ideas for improvement?
God Speed.
