Mac Pro 6,1 (Late 2013) Thunderbolt ports

[michael_aos]

I struggled with a 512GB Buffalo DriveStation Mini Thunderbolt Dual-SSD Drive Raid-Enabled Solution aka SSD-WA512T from OWC.

Talked to Buffalo tech-support. Buffalo's tech-support is terrible, so I returned the device the OWC.

I purchased an OWC ThunderBay 4 mini RAID and 2x Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD's (MZ-7KE512BW).

Wound up having similar issues with the new configuration, which prompted me to experiment with using different Thunderbolt ports on my Late 2013 Mac Pro.

Turns out I see very different behavior, depending on what's plugged-in where.

I've been poking around in Google, but so-far I haven't seen anything that explains these differences.

Is the way the Thunderbolt bus is initially scanned to determine boot-devices documented anywhere?

 

[fuchsdh]

What sorts of issues are you seeing? There are three sets of TB busses, and for optimal speeds you want to spread usage across them.

 

[SuperMatt]

Is the way the Thunderbolt bus is initially scanned to determine boot-devices documented anywhere?

It's not clear what your struggles are. Are you unable to boot from a thunderbolt RAID?

 

[michael_aos]

When I power-on the Late 2013 Mac Pro and hold-down the "option" key, several of the boot-devices don't show up.

Once the machine is booted, they're all visible from System Preferences --> Startup Disk, but I can't actually boot from them.

I haven't divined all the possible combinations, but -- for example:

If I have a Thunderbolt device plugged-in to port-5 (bottom-left, bus 0, port 1), any boot-devices in port-6 (bottom-right, bus 0, port 2) are ignored during the boot sequence.

Along the same lines, if I plug something into port-1 (top-left, bus 1, port 1), the boot-devices on port-3 (middle-left, bus1, port 2) are ignored on power-on.

And in the same vein, if I have a boot-device in port-2 (upper right, bus 2, port 1), the boot-devices on port 4 (middle-right, bus 2, port 2) are ignored.

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Thunderbolt Device Tree:

Thunderbolt Bus 0

ThunderBay 4 mini​

ThunderBay 4​

Thunderbolt Bus 1

LG 34UM95​

Thunderbolt Bus 2

GoFlex Desk Adapter Thunderbolt​

Thunderbolt Display​