Thiis card could actually slow you down. It’s a PCIe 2.0 by 1-2 lanes. The spec sheet you provided said 5Gb/s. So you are sucking data off multiple 6Gb/s SSDs through a 5Gb/s interface. If I read it correctly.
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MP All Models macOS PCIe SATA SSD Adapters (MP5,1 & MP7,1)
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Looks like Sonnet will be releasing the Fusion Dual U2 PCIe SSD FUS-U2-2X4-E3 adapter soon. Compatibility with MP5,1 & MP7,1. Priced at $200 with BYOD.
Fusion Dual U.2 SSD PCIe Card - SONNETTECH
Two U.2 NVMe SSD slots on a PCIe 3.0 x16 card. Add your own U.2 SSDs for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
Fusion Dual U.2 SSD PCIe Card (Two U.2 NVMe SSD connectors on a PCIe 3.0 x16 card • Add your own U.2 SSDs)
U.2 SSD adapter card with two U.2 NVMe SSD connectors on a PCIe 3.0 x16 card for Mac, Window, and Linux. Add your own U.2 SSDs.
Will add this to the WIKI later for anyone that comes across this. It is U2 (not SATA) but the storage capacities are more in-line with what people who are seeking SATA solutions are generally after and worth considering.
That looks very interesting. It also includes a USB-C connector, which saves space and lowers the cost of getting that connection. Hmmm it looks like a good answer. Annoying in Australia, the retailer for Sonnet has a very high margin.
Is it possible to support bootcamp?View attachment 951794
Looks like Sonnet will be releasing the Fusion Dual U2 PCIe SSD FUS-U2-2X4-E3 adapter soon. Compatibility with MP5,1 & MP7,1. Priced at $200 with BYOD.
Fusion Dual U.2 SSD PCIe Card - SONNETTECH
Two U.2 NVMe SSD slots on a PCIe 3.0 x16 card. Add your own U.2 SSDs for Mac, Windows, and Linux.www.sonnettech.com
Fusion Dual U.2 SSD PCIe Card (Two U.2 NVMe SSD connectors on a PCIe 3.0 x16 card • Add your own U.2 SSDs)
U.2 SSD adapter card with two U.2 NVMe SSD connectors on a PCIe 3.0 x16 card for Mac, Window, and Linux. Add your own U.2 SSDs.www.sonnetstore.com
Will add this to the WIKI later for anyone that comes across this. It is U2 (not SATA) but the storage capacities are more in-line with what people who are seeking SATA solutions are generally after and worth considering.
How about this low cost card? EZDIY-FAB Dual M.2 Adapter, M.2 PCIe NVMe and PCIe AHCI SSD to PCIe 3.0 x4 and M.2 SATA SSD to SATA III Adapter Card.
For a spare 4 lane 5,1 PCI-E (version 2) slot? The 4 slot is one quarter of the speed of the 16 but at least it still allows 2 GB/sec.
Its very cheap, has what looks like a poor heart sink but it does have one, and it takes two cards (of different types). I presume its cheap because it only utilises a 4 lane PCI-E slot. However, such a slot still provides throughput of 2GB/sec. I don't know about raiding the two cards either, but if so I guess the bottleneck would then be the cards own PCI-E 4 lane capacity ie double the speed of the version 2 PCI-E slot in the mac pro 5,1, so in theory and knowing software Raid won't be bootable in later Mac OSs, it would still give maybe close to 3800 in theory.
Or have I got this all wrong? The card says its Mac compatible. I'm still cautious about spending a lot on a PCI-E interface card, and considering I am thinking about two GPUs, perhaps one of the 16 lane slots won't be available if I go for two GPUs in both 16 lane slots.
For a spare 4 lane 5,1 PCI-E (version 2) slot? The 4 slot is one quarter of the speed of the 16 but at least it still allows 2 GB/sec.
Its very cheap, has what looks like a poor heart sink but it does have one, and it takes two cards (of different types). I presume its cheap because it only utilises a 4 lane PCI-E slot. However, such a slot still provides throughput of 2GB/sec. I don't know about raiding the two cards either, but if so I guess the bottleneck would then be the cards own PCI-E 4 lane capacity ie double the speed of the version 2 PCI-E slot in the mac pro 5,1, so in theory and knowing software Raid won't be bootable in later Mac OSs, it would still give maybe close to 3800 in theory.
Or have I got this all wrong? The card says its Mac compatible. I'm still cautious about spending a lot on a PCI-E interface card, and considering I am thinking about two GPUs, perhaps one of the 16 lane slots won't be available if I go for two GPUs in both 16 lane slots.
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? What do you mean knowing software Raid won't be bootable in later Mac OS. Big Sur you mean?
I have read that the last mac OS that supported software raid was High Sierra. And that Big Sur also does not support it.
The highert end solution digital disk solution that works for a mac pro 5,1 seems to be a SSD7101A-1 Highpoint card, placed preferably in one of the two 16 lane PCI-E(type 2) slots (intended for GPUs). In theory each "lane" data path inside each PCI-E (type 2) slot supports 500MB/sec. The 5,1 has four such PCI-E slots, the first (bottom) two ( the first one is separated by a gap to allow a fat GPU) are 16 lane slots, the top two are 4 lane slots. So a card which can handle Mac OS will take pass data through a 16 lane slot at up to 16 x 500MB = 8GB/sec. The 4 lane ones 2 GB/sec. There is a Sonnet card which works too, but it will not boot Windows, some want that ability. I don't understand why, but a card which supports 16 lanes, evidently will run even a single card quicker than a 4 lane card will.
A card like the one mentioned above, will have its own bus to allow higher speed communication. Since the card will take 4 solid state cards (which have to be compatible), the often used it seems configuration is one card as the boot drive, and the other raid in raid. That card operates the raid (most use ) for highest speed). There are also card cards that support 8 NVME cards, although their success in a Mac 5,1 hasn't been shown at this site to actually work.
NVME digital disks are very popular, being prolific in notebook computers, and also they are edit cxaxrexless=> don't have a metal casing and cable connections, and hence it's not surprising they cost less than an SSD in a case, (if the card technology is the same). So despite the cost of a 16 lane 4 NVME capacity card, there's an economy of scale in using such a technology.
For me it seems I can buy a single 4 lane card that may work and would run two NVME "disks", for around 1/8th to 1/4 the price of a that 16 lane 4 NVME card which has its own raid capability. If one includes the space saving and the fact the 5,1 has only two 16 lanes PCI-E slots, the costlier alternative does make sense. Plus it will work in later Mac Pros, at an even faster speed.
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You may need third party tools for appropriate RAID configurations. SoftRAID is what many use and Version 6 has been delayed for several years. I've personally run into issues with SoftRAID 5 at client offices involving data corruption, missing data, and suddenly crawling slow speeds that were unexplained. I cannot recommend its use. Others here will disagree and report positive experiences.
I had no problem using Disk Utility's RAID Assistant under File to create this -
That's with 4x250GB drives in all 4 bays.
Last macOS release to support bootable RAID arrays was High Sierra. Since then you have to hack macOS to boot from an RAID array and you will have to clone the array to a single disk to do software/security updates.
Data RAID arrays are no problem at all, to create or use it, just have to boot from another single disk.
I'm able to boot off it no problem. On boot menu i see all 4 arrays and selecting either works.
Yes that is true no auto updates because i'm on HFS+ instead of APFS.
Going to perform the 005 update manually this evening.
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Received the Sonnet Dual U2 offering yesterday and installed 2x Micron 9300 3.84TB drives. The build quality of the kit is extremely nice, slots in perfectly and looks at home in the Mac Pro. Performance tests so far are absurdly good, as to be expected for a RAID 1 config of U2 NVMe drives.
Worth noting that there isn't any hardware raid on this board, it just shows both U2 drives to macOS at full throughput. I used Disk Utility to make a RAID 1 config in a matter of seconds. Very easy. SoftRAID does not run on Catalina without disabling SIP and Disk Protection, which I would rather not do.
Worth noting that there isn't any hardware raid on this board, it just shows both U2 drives to macOS at full throughput. I used Disk Utility to make a RAID 1 config in a matter of seconds. Very easy. SoftRAID does not run on Catalina without disabling SIP and Disk Protection, which I would rather not do.
I can also confirm the Angelbird Wings X2 works in the 7,1 without issue. Easy to create a hardware raid directly on the board with jumper positions. Performance was not what I needed, around 800MB in either direction (more a fault of SATA3 drives than the card), so I returned it and opted for the Sonnet U2 offering as detailed above
Back on the topic of U2 drives: the stable low price of the Micron 9300 Pro series is $150/TB, with 4% lost to under-provisioning. The 9300 Max series under-provisions a massive 20%, and likely isn't useful for any Mac Pro users; it's designed for data centers, also at a higher cost.
I'd try to avoid paying more than $150/TB. This is already 10x the cost of the stable low HDD price of $15/TB.
Under/over provisioning (relative to how you look at it which word to use) is done to allow for some percentage failure within the NAND chips. 4% is fine for most users. Some consumer drives over-provision above the advertised amount (say 104% total capacity, 4% left waiting to replace failure), but these Micron drives provision under the 100% amount.
I'd try to avoid paying more than $150/TB. This is already 10x the cost of the stable low HDD price of $15/TB.
Under/over provisioning (relative to how you look at it which word to use) is done to allow for some percentage failure within the NAND chips. 4% is fine for most users. Some consumer drives over-provision above the advertised amount (say 104% total capacity, 4% left waiting to replace failure), but these Micron drives provision under the 100% amount.
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I’ve been running the 9300 with a high point setup for near a year now. It’s fantastic. See here:
forums.macrumors.com
the high point 7120 doesn’t have a fan and let’s you connect up to 4 u.2 drives instead of the sonnet’s only 2 drives. You can set one up as a boot drive and then raid 3 together for some absurd ssd capacity and speed.
Mac Pro support for NVMe U2 Micron 9300 Pro 15.36TB U.2 Drive SSD?
Ok so I got the drive. I got a bracket and it all seems to fit in decently tidy. Some pics: So I have the Pegasus J2i in there. Swapped the useless 8TB for a 16TB spinner. I got a 3.5" to 2.5" bracket. One note, the screws in the J2i that hold larger drives, are too big for both the 2.5"/3.5"...
forums.macrumors.com
the high point 7120 doesn’t have a fan and let’s you connect up to 4 u.2 drives instead of the sonnet’s only 2 drives. You can set one up as a boot drive and then raid 3 together for some absurd ssd capacity and speed.
I thought about that, but you then need to use the 3.5" bay to physically mount the u2 drives. You could probably fit 4 into the Inateck bay with the right adapters, but I wanted those for actual 3.5" drives
Has anyone tried the Sonnet Fusion Dual SSD card? I'm wanting to buy it but I've read it stops the PCIE fan from locking/doesn't fit? Not many reviews out for use in a 5,1
www.sonnettech.com
Cheers.
Fusion Dual 2.5-inch SSD RAID - SONNETTECH
Dual 2.5-inch SSD PCIe 3.0 card with hardware RAID controller, plus 10Gbps USB-C port. Add your own choice of SSDs.
Cheers.
I've got a SEDNA dual and it boots macOS fine.
Edit: booted mojave and big sur, not sure about high Sierra as I got it after i updated to mojave
I got the dual slot because I had spare SSDs. I had macOS booting from slot 1 and had carbon copy cloner clone that SSD to another SSD in slot 2.
I've since took the backup SSD, moved it to an enclosure and plugged it into the USB 2.0 port as it got annoying trying to figure out which was my boot disc with opencore as since they're both clones they'll have the same name (with my set up anyway). This way the boot menu icon is different for the two.
You're welcome
Good observation on that air flow, as one of the spinners I now have on the SEDNA card is always slightly higher temperature than the other one. It's the one towards the back of the mac and since the slot cover does not have holes I guess air flow around that particular drive is poor. I've gotten around that by having the PCIE fan spin higher.
Hello guys,
I need help, bought Sedna PCI Express SATA III card and mounted crucial ssd mx 1tb which I removed from mac pro bay # 1, but can't see boot disk!
When I turn on part in recovey, I look for the boot disk and it doesn't see ssd .. bho this thing is a bit strange ..
I have tried both in pcie 1 and in pcie 2, in pcie 4 there is the gpu
There is no driver for mac only windows on the disk connected to the card
Ideas?
I do not understand see me the card but does not see me ssd .. as possible!
Boot Rom Version: MP51.0089.B00
Thank you very much
I need help, bought Sedna PCI Express SATA III card and mounted crucial ssd mx 1tb which I removed from mac pro bay # 1, but can't see boot disk!
When I turn on part in recovey, I look for the boot disk and it doesn't see ssd .. bho this thing is a bit strange ..
I have tried both in pcie 1 and in pcie 2, in pcie 4 there is the gpu
There is no driver for mac only windows on the disk connected to the card
Ideas?
I do not understand see me the card but does not see me ssd .. as possible!
Boot Rom Version: MP51.0089.B00
Thank you very much
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