MP 7,1 Mac Pro 2019 NVME RAID drives failing to mount

[smckenzie]

80% you have already tried this...

When I can't get macOS to recognize my OWC 4m2 I sometimes have to remove it, boot, shutdown, replace it, and then boot to get it to be recognized. Major pain, but works as a method of last resort for me.

Yeah, I moved it into another slot just for kicks, no difference. FWIW, this is my second one of these SSD's (Crucial) to fail, happened earlier this year. Same thing - all working fine until a Winserver error and then boom. Wouldn't mount and couldn't be repaired or formatted. Got the last one replaced under warranty which didn't even make it 6 months.

 

[avro707]

Whatever causes this, it has happened again to me - I went ages without a single problem now it is frequent.

Since the final release of 14.5 this is now a permanent issue for me, I cannot get any files on or off the NVME drives on the Sonnet card.

 

[bax2023]

Interestingly, Sonnet 4x M2.2 Silent and HighPoint SSD7101A-1 do not have the same model of PLX PCIe switch.

Sonnet has PEX-8732 vs PEX-8747 on HighPoint. Anyway, I'll give you my experience with HighPoint when it arrives in a few days.

 

[mattspace]

Interestingly, Sonnet 4x M2.2 Silent and HighPoint SSD7101A-1 do not have the same model of PLX PCIe switch.

Sonnet has PEX-8732 vs PEX-8747 on HighPoint. Anyway, I'll give you my experience with HighPoint when it arrives in a few days.

The Highpoint 1104f has the 8747, so it will be interesting to see how yours behaves.

 

[CanPhantom]

Whatever causes this, it has happened again to me - I went ages without a single problem now it is frequent.

Since the final release of 14.5 this is now a permanent issue for me, I cannot get any files on or off the NVME drives on the Sonnet card.

Same here. It's worse than it's ever been now. Every time I start or restart the machine, I already know I'm going to have to do it at least twice.

 

[avro707]

Same here. It's worse than it's ever been now. Every time I start or restart the machine, I already know I'm going to have to do it at least twice.

Yesterday it was very bad - worse I had the boot camp drive showing three times in the shortcut bar in finder.

I had to restart. This final release of 14.5 Sonoma is really, really bad.

Apple obviously doesn’t want to know.

With this sort of terrible unreliability you’d never touch any new Mac Pro for fear it has the same bugs.

 

[Norbert Mikołajczyk]

I have some observations. It seems that booting to windows and back to MacOS makes the things worse.
Before, using only MacOS I had only one accident with the drives in a month.
With booting back and forth to Windows11 and MacOS, I had the problem almost each time.
Maybe windows is trying to write something in NVRAM?

 

[avro707]

Yes, I was also doing that - restarting in windows a few times using the Startup Disk option in macOS settings and then when finished in windows the reboot on macOS icon from the windows task bar.

I did restart in windows yesterday but today had no troubles. The machine was shutdown overnight.

 

[LukeMacPro]

I concur! I've noticed the same thing! Always thought that when switching between Windows and Mac OS would be when the drive mount fail seemed to happen.

 

[Norbert Mikołajczyk]

Yeah, now I'm not sure about this one accident in a month I had using only MacOS.
Maybe I booted to windows to do the windows updates and forgot about it or haven't connected the dots back then?
Now I'm often playing Diablo 4 so I switch almost everyday and noticed this annoying NVME not mounting accidents.
I can see it very early while booting, the screen goes black after apple logo and stays black for a minute or two and then it is showing the login screen. Then I know I will not have the drives mounted and I need to shout down and boot again, and then it is fixed.
Without booting back from the Windows I see the login screen almost immediately so I know I will see the drives mounted.
It is good to mention that it was the same with Windows 10.
Maybe we need some workaround and NVRAM protection using OpenCore like it was made for the cMP 4.1/5.1?

 

[avro707]

Yeah, now I'm not sure about this one accident in a month I had using only MacOS.
Maybe I booted to windows to do the windows updates and forgot about it or haven't connected the dots back then?
Now I'm often playing Diablo 4 so I switch almost everyday and noticed this annoying NVME not mounting accidents.
I can see it very early while booting, the screen goes black after apple logo and stays black for a minute or two and then it is showing the login screen. Then I know I will not have the drives mounted and I need to shout down and boot again, and then it is fixed.
Without booting back from the Windows I see the login screen almost immediately so I know I will see the drives mounted.
It is good to mention that it was the same with Windows 10.
Maybe we need some workaround and NVRAM protection using OpenCore like it was made for the cMP 4.1/5.1?

Well this is still only with Sonoma, not Mac OS 13.x. And I still had same setup with 13.x and no problems on that time so really it's an Apple problem.

 

[Norbert Mikołajczyk]

Well this is still only with Sonoma, not Mac OS 13.x. And I still had same setup with 13.x and no problems on that time so really it's an Apple problem

Yes, probably it's Apple problem, something wrong with the drivers, firmware or hardware...

 

[nopster]

For me, after weeks that I solved this issue simply moving the card into another slot, yesterday evening a notification showed on desktop: the disk is unmounted. And the drive disappeared from desktop. I had to power off the machine and I haven't got time to re-test. But this thing is becoming very very annoying.

 

[bax2023]

Reporting with two NVMe controllers with PLX PCIe switch:

Its definately not the problem with the cards, or with the NVMe chips. Bottom card, HighPoint 7101A-1 also has issues in Mac Pro (Late 2019) with random disappearance of the drives during boot as the Sonnet has.

BTW this little fan on HighPoint card screems like crazy.

 

[avro707]

BTW this little fan on HighPoint card screems like crazy.

Yes, they do that. I had one and couldn't stand it. The one I had also encountered lots of crashes anyway (in the 5,1 machine). I didn't bother to return it - just replaced with the Sonnet M2 4x4 card which is so much better (silence).

One thing, mine don't disappear during bootup, my drives vanish while in MacOS while I'm working.

Looks like you have the same SSDs as I have on my Sonnet. This issue is certainly not our equipment. Apple has to sort this out.

Edit: I know mentioning issues with a Highpoint 7101A is akin to stirring a hornets nest, but it had them so I swapped to a different card and no troubles since. That's done and dusted.

 

[flowrider]

^^^^

Nope _ I have two PCI cards (HighPoint SSD7103 & IOCrest IO-PCE2824-TM2) with five Samsung NVME SSDs and one Samsung AHCI SSD. I boot from one of the NVME Drives. I have never had a problem with drives not mounting👍🏻

Lou

As posted earlier in this thread. My HighPoint card has no such issues.

Lou

 

[mattspace]

^^^^



As posted earlier in this thread. My HighPoint card has no such issues.

Lou

yup, my 1104f gives a shout as it spins up for a second or two on wake, sleep, boot and shutdown, the rest of the time, I can't hear it.

*edit* and also no disappearing drives under Ventura.

• Always booting in Verbose Mode.
• Locked Power Management.
• Not Dual-Booting any other OS.

 

[nopster]

Sonnettech has updated its webpage for the PCIe M.2 NVMe Silent card.
Look at the bottom, first notice in the technical notes.
Months ago, I wrote to Sonnettech for assistance, and they told me the same thing that is reported on the link I wrote before.
Very very disappointed: before OS Ventura, everything worked.

 

[sfalatko]

Not hopeful on Sequoia - installed the beta to an internal sata drive and after the last reboot my NVME wasn't there. I had to power down and restart.....

 

[benmuetsch]

Hi everyone,

do you guys know if that mounting problem also affects SATA drives via PCIe ?

I'm thinking about upgrading from Monterey but I have a Crucial MX500 2TB SSD via an OWC Accelsior card in my 7,1 which I absoluteley need everyday and cannot work when this is not mounting correctly.

 

[avro707]

Not hopeful on Sequia - installed the beta to an internal sata drive and after the last reboot my NVME wasn't there.

Not good news. I have only done boot up and shutdown- no restarts.

I haven’t needed yet to go into windows.

 

[sfalatko]

Not good news. I have only done boot up and shutdown- no restarts.

I haven’t needed yet to go into windows.

My restart was part of the installation process .....

 

[sfalatko]

Hi everyone,

do you guys know if that mounting problem also affects SATA drives via PCIe ?

I'm thinking about upgrading from Monterey but I have a Crucial MX500 2TB SSD via an OWC Accelsior card in my 7,1 which I absoluteley need everyday and cannot work when this is not mounting correctly.

I haven't had problems with a Samsung 850 EVO on an Accelsior card like the NVME. I did have to turn off letting the drives sleep as it would unmount and be lost. After disabling that I have not had any problems with it.

 

[avro707]

My restart was part of the installation process .....

Oh of course yes - I haven't had them unmount yet after that restart.

 

[benmuetsch]

I haven't had problems with a Samsung 850 EVO on an Accelsior card like the NVME. I did have to turn off letting the drives sleep as it would unmount and be lost. After disabling that I have not had any problems with it.

Thanks, that sounds promising!