MP All Models PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI

[Ludacrisvp]

I checked the page linked and I don't remember showing ASM2824 when I checked, thx for noticing it.

Anyway, cards that have PCIe switches don't do bifurcation, PCIe switches share the lanes. Bifurcation is a Z299 and newer chipsets feature and work splitting the lanes.

I see. I was wording this based on what syba says about that chip.

https://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=992

 

[Woof Woof]

I tried two different MVMe blades, first an Adata SX8200 Pro 1TB and then a Samsung 970 Pro 1TB in the SYBA I/O Crest SI-PEX4012 controller. Both showed up and were bootable in a cMP 5,1 10.14.3. However, shortly after I would do a read or write to the I/O Crest my computer freezes and then reboots. This happened with BMD Speedtest and when copying or writing to/from the I/O Crest from other drives.

I first tried the Adata, which is the newest version with the updated Silicon Motion controller. It is very fast and runs cooler than the earlier version. I rechecked again by removing the other cards in the PCIe slots leaving the new two bios Pulse 580 in slot 1 and the controller in slot 2. I did the SMC reset and pram zap and the new TTPro shows everything is O.K. for what thats worth.

I thought it might be compatibility with the Adata and tried the Samsung 970 Pro, but the same thing
happens with it. I then cloned a High Sierra partition from my work machine for that A/B and the same thing still happened. It runs fine from an OWC Excelsior PCIe SSD adapter. I was looping a large Pro Tools session for extended times today and it runs great.

I’m wondering of anyone else is running the I/O Crest SI-PEX4012 with the 2 bios Pulse 580. I’m trying to figure it out and thats one more variable. Any tips will be greatly appreciated.

I bit the bullet and got the I/O CREST SI-PEX40129 and dropped in a Samsung 970 Pro 1TB that I already had. I have the same symptoms that you do. This is a 2009 Mac Pro flashed to 5,1 and boot rom 141.0.0.0 with that card in slot 2, and an MVC flashed GTX Titan in slot 1. Copying a number of large files, it eventually hangs. Tested in both High Sierra and Mojave. After it freezes, a few seconds later it appears that a watchdog timer in the machine recognizes it has frozen and reboots the machine.

I could always make it hang by running Black Magic Speed test for maybe 5 minutes. When it was working, it was giving 2600+ MB/sec writes and 2900+ MB/sec reads.

I wasn't real happy with the build quality on the card. It uses thermal pads above the blades, but the heatsink is a little too close to the blade and was pushing down hard enough to bend it a bit.

That, and the included screws for the NVME standoff were the wrong size. Luckily I took a couple of screws out of an old Macbook, and they fit the standoff. They were also very sloppy in attaching the thermal pads to the heatsink.

As another person mentioned, fan noise was... meh. Nothing you would want to add into a sound studio though.

I am beginning to wonder if this card should be removed from the compatible list in the top post.

 

[flowrider]

^^^^Hmm, I had no issues at all with my I/O Crest Card. Build quality was good, all the screws were the right size and the fan noise is imperceptible to me. Also no issues copying my old StartUp SM951 AHCI SSD to my new 970 Pro SSD using SD.

Lou

 

[Woof Woof]

^^^^Hmm, I had no issues at all with my I/O Crest Card. Build quality was good, all the screws were the right size and the fan noise is imperceptible to me. Also no issues copying my old StartUp SM951 AHCI SSD to my new 970 Pro SSD using SD.

Lou

Are you on a 2009 or later cMP? Single or Dual CPU? I wonder what the difference is. Do you have 2 blades on the card? Wonder if there is a bus termination issue. I used CCC to dupe from a SSUBX Apple blade on another card to the 970 Pro on the I/O Crest, and it did fine on the small files, but cratered when it hit the big files (VirtualBox VM containers.)

 

[flowrider]

^^^^2010 5,1 cMP, DP with X5677s. Dual 970 Pros.

Lou

 

[Ludacrisvp]

@Woof Woof
Perhaps you got a bad card? Like someone used it (damaged it) returned it?

 

[Woof Woof]

@Woof Woof
Perhaps you got a bad card? Like someone used it (damaged it) returned it?

It's possible. It was sealed up as new, with all the tape in place. Maybe a Chinese knockoff of a Tiawanese card ;-) I just find it odd to have the same symptoms as mesaken.

I'd like to hear from someone that only uses a single blade in it... preferably a 970 Pro, but that is asking a lot. If it did come down to being only stable with 2 blades in it, I'd still return it.

I don't really need 3000MB/sec. I just needed a way to use the 970 Pro I already had, and thought double speed and 2 slots would be a nice bonus.

Funny how having a Mac Pro can make you chase numbers and freatures... even if you don't need them all.
[doublepost=1556403012][/doublepost]

^^^^2010 5,1 cMP, DP with X5677s. Dual 970 Pros.

Lou

Maybe a cMP 2009 issue?

 

[tsialex]

Maybe a cMP 2009 issue?

You already have a reconstructed BootROM with mid-2012 standard, so you don't have any MP4,1 adverse problems.

I know that it's a different setup from yours, but never had problems with one SSD + SSD7101-A + MP4,1>5,1, you probably have a bad card.

 

[Woof Woof]

You already have a reconstructed BootROM with mid-2012 standard, so you don't have any MP4,1 adverse problems.

I know that it's a different setup from yours, but never had problems with one SSD + SSD7101-A + MP4,1>5,1, you probably have a bad card.

I have two 2009's at home, this is for my personal cMP. Yes, the reconstructed boot rom was for the 2012 at the office.

 

[Pval]

2010 5.1 cMP, W3690, dual 970 EVO’s
Never had any issue, daily use for 6+ months, used as data & system drives.

 

[Mac_User 0101]

Question for the thread: I'm considering upgrading my gen 2 Squid carrier with a 7101A for my cMP. I ordered the Squid with x16 adapter but would like to demote it to a x4 slot. Can I move it to a x4 slot without ordering the x4 adapter from Amfletec? I'm just not sure if the alternate adapters serve any other propose other than making the card fit into different computers PCIe slots.

 

[Woof Woof]

Question for the thread: I'm considering upgrading my gen 2 Squid carrier with a 7101A for my cMP. I ordered the Squid with x16 adapter but would like to demote it to a x4 slot. Can I move it to a x4 slot without ordering the x4 adapter from Amfletec? I'm just not sure if the alternate adapters serve any other propose other than making the card fit into different computers PCIe slots.

I would put money on it being just a physical thing... but Amfeltec tech support was fast last time I had a question.
[doublepost=1556546422][/doublepost]

2010 5.1 cMP, W3690, dual 970 EVO’s
Never had any issue, daily use for 6+ months, used as data & system drives.

Hmm... again in a 2010 or later Mac Pro, and with dual NVME blades. Did you operate it long term on a single blade without issues?

 

[zedex]

FWIW - I can vouch for the syba/iocrest card. I would still be using it today if I hadn't found a reasonably priced Highpoint 7101A on eBay..

 

[Woof Woof]

FWIW - I can vouch for the syba/iocrest card. I would still be using it today if I hadn't found a reasonably priced Highpoint 7101A on eBay..

Were you using a single blade or had two blades in it? I'm still trying to narrow down why 2 of us can't use the card.

 

[mesaken]

I bit the bullet and got the I/O CREST SI-PEX40129 and dropped in a Samsung 970 Pro 1TB that I already had. I have the same symptoms that you do. This is a 2009 Mac Pro flashed to 5,1 and boot rom 141.0.0.0 with that card in slot 2, and an MVC flashed GTX Titan in slot 1. Copying a number of large files, it eventually hangs. Tested in both High Sierra and Mojave. After it freezes, a few seconds later it appears that a watchdog timer in the machine recognizes it has frozen and reboots the machine.

I could always make it hang by running Black Magic Speed test for maybe 5 minutes. When it was working, it was giving 2600+ MB/sec writes and 2900+ MB/sec reads.

I wasn't real happy with the build quality on the card. It uses thermal pads above the blades, but the heatsink is a little too close to the blade and was pushing down hard enough to bend it a bit.

That, and the included screws for the NVME standoff were the wrong size. Luckily I took a couple of screws out of an old Macbook, and they fit the standoff. They were also very sloppy in attaching the thermal pads to the heatsink.

As another person mentioned, fan noise was... meh. Nothing you would want to add into a sound studio though.

I am beginning to wonder if this card should be removed from the compatible list in the top post.

Just to let you know I never ran the Crest I/O card with both blades and each would stop then my 2010 5,1 would
reboot. It was disconcerting (maybe it was a bad one too) For pro audio work the kryoM.2 evo with the 970 Pro is rock solid and plenty fast. I'll look at the I/O Crest again in the future after more info comes in.

 

[Woof Woof]

Just to let you know I never ran the Crest I/O card with both blades and each would stop then my 2010 5,1 would
reboot. It was disconcerting (maybe it was a bad one too) For pro audio work the kryoM.2 evo with the 970 Pro is rock solid and plenty fast. I'll look at the I/O Crest again in the future after more info comes in.

I guess it is possible we both had bad cards, but I am skeptical of that. Mine was a Mac Pro 2009, yours was 2010, so I don't think it depends on the year model of the Mac. I'm leaning to a PCIe bus termination issue that only crops up when there is one blade on the card instead of 2. Is yours a single CPU 2010?

In any case, I ordered the KryoM.2 as well. It looks really well designed to keep the blade cool.

Edit: Card arrived, no freezes with the KryoM.2 card.

 

[AlexMaximus]

2010 5.1 cMP, W3690, dual 970 EVO’s
Never had any issue, daily use for 6+ months, used as data & system drives.

I have read so many accounts with ssd problems, - all of them having either the 970 Pro or the 970 Pro Plus. There is NO account with problems reported that uses the 970 EVO SSD.
It looks to me that this issue is ssd related in combination with certain controller chips on certain PCIe Adapter cards. Your replay confirms my suspicion again, Pval.
I use the crest card with two older ahci cards (941 & 951) and there is absolutely no problem with it.

 

[flowrider]

^^^^First off there is no such thing as a Samsung 970 Pro Plus. Second, the 970 Evo Plus is known not to be compatible with the Macintosh. It's been detailed here, on Amazon, in 970 Evo Plus reviews and by Samung distributors.

The Samsung 970 Evo and the 970 Pro SSDs are known to work in the Macintosh environment. I have two 970 Pros humming along just fine in my I/O Crest card.

Lou

 

[mesaken]

I guess it is possible we both had bad cards, but I am skeptical of that. Mine was a Mac Pro 2009, yours was 2010, so I don't think it depends on the year model of the Mac. I'm leaning to a PCIe bus termination issue that only crops up when there is one blade on the card instead of 2. Is yours a single CPU 2010?

In any case, I ordered the KyroM.2 as well. It looks really well designed to keep the blade cool.

[doublepost=1556726231][/doublepost]Its a 3.46 dually.
[doublepost=1556726474][/doublepost]

[doublepost=1556726231][/doublepost]Its a 3.46 dually.

I never tried both blades unfortunately. Has anyone run the I/O Crest card with one blade successfully? If so, we
could eliminate that as the problem.

 

[Mac_User 0101]

Hey guys, Sonnet has a new PCIe quad m.2 carrier on their site. I just noticed this. It's simply called Sonnet m.2 4x4 PCIe card. It's a PCIe 3.0 x16 card capable of 12,000 MB/s. I'm guessing it has a PCIe switch because the are targeting classic Mac Pro 5,1 along with PC desktops and Thunderbolt Chassis Mac/PC. They are saying it's compatible with 10.14.4+ only but I'm not sure if that's really BootRom related more than OS related. I'm hoping that if someone took the 140.0.0.0.0 update that it should work with High Sierra too. We won't know until someone can confirm that. I'm actually in the market for a new carrier and was set on the 7101A but I may step back and wait for someone on the forum to test the Sonnet card for performance and compatibly. If I can purchase it from somewhere with a return policy I'd be willing to test it and share the results, unless someone beats me to it.

 

[tsialex]

Hey guys, Sonnet has a new PCIe quad m.2 carrier on their site. I just noticed this. It's simply called Sonnet m.2 4x4 PCIe card. It's a PCIe 3.0 x16 card capable of 12,000 MB/s. I'm guessing it has a PCIe switch because the are targeting classic Mac Pro 5,1 along with PC desktops and Thunderbolt Chassis Mac/PC. They are saying it's compatible with 10.14.4+ only but I'm not sure if that's really BootRom related more than OS related. I'm hoping that if someone took the 140.0.0.0.0 update that it should work with High Sierra too. We won't know until someone can confirm that. I'm actually in the market for a new carrier and was set on the 7101A but I may step back and wait for someone on the forum to test the Sonnet card for performance and compatibly. If I can purchase it from somewhere with a return policy I'd be willing to test it and share the results, unless someone beats me to it.

Seems weird that they don't support dual side M.2 blades. My SM951-AHCI are dual sided, for example.

 

[Mac_User 0101]

Seems weird that they don't support dual side M.2 blades. My SM951-AHCI are dual sided, for example.

I didn't even notice that. I also have a few SM951-AHCI. If I get my hands on the card I can test if it's just "unsupported" or if it really doesn't work.

 

[joevt]

Hey guys, Sonnet has a new PCIe quad m.2 carrier on their site. I just noticed this. It's simply called Sonnet m.2 4x4 PCIe card. It's a PCIe 3.0 x16 card capable of 12,000 MB/s. I'm guessing it has a PCIe switch because the are targeting classic Mac Pro 5,1 along with PC desktops and Thunderbolt Chassis Mac/PC. They are saying it's compatible with 10.14.4+ only but I'm not sure if that's really BootRom related more than OS related. I'm hoping that if someone took the 140.0.0.0.0 update that it should work with High Sierra too. We won't know until someone can confirm that. I'm actually in the market for a new carrier and was set on the 7101A but I may step back and wait for someone on the forum to test the Sonnet card for performance and compatibly. If I can purchase it from somewhere with a return policy I'd be willing to test it and share the results, unless someone beats me to it.

Can someone explain this line:
"When installed in a Windows PC’s PCIe 3.0 slot with four SSDs formatted in a RAID 0 configuration, the card is capable of 8,500 MB/s transfers. Aggregate transfer speeds from four non-RAIDed SSDs of up to 12,000 MB/s are possible!"
Shouldn't RAID 0 and Aggregate be the same?

I think it only uses software raid? Doesn't the Highpoint 1701A have hardware raid (only useable in Windows)?

They made the card full length (longer than the Amfeltec gen 3 carrier and the HighPoint 1701A) - probably longer than it needs to be - makes it slightly more difficult to install, takes more room, but gets extra support from some PCIe slots that have the full length support slots (like in the Mac Pro, or in the Sonnet Echo Express III-D).

They haven't posted a manual so I don't know what the inside looks like.

I think the card should work as well as any other M.2 carrier with a PCIe 3.0 switch chip. So the MacOS version shouldn't matter and it should work in the MacPro3,1 (with the work around to enable PCIe 2.0 speed as discussed in the amfeltec and Highpoint threads).

 

[bsbeamer]

B&H has preorder at $400:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1449881-REG/sonnet_fus_ssd_4x4_e3_fusion_ssd_m_2_4x4.html

Hard to tell without more info, but from photos/renders it does seems they tried to keep this as "slim" as possible. Wonder if that was for any particular reason. Most PCIe TB enclosures have plenty of room, so do PC desktop towers.

https://www.sonnettech.com/product/m2-4x4-pcie-card.html

 

[tsialex]

B&H has preorder at $400:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1449881-REG/sonnet_fus_ssd_4x4_e3_fusion_ssd_m_2_4x4.html

Hard to tell without more info, but from photos/renders it does seems they tried to keep this as "slim" as possible. Wonder if that was for any particular reason. Most PCIe TB enclosures have plenty of room, so do PC desktop towers.

https://www.sonnettech.com/product/m2-4x4-pcie-card.html

Sonnet made some very weird design choices here, starting with no support for dual side M.2 blades and the length of the card.

Seems that the blades don't have a heatsink, with only the PCIe switch having one. If so, the fan will have to move much more air, with more noise and less durability. I don't like it. Manual shows that the blades have a heatsink, but it's not integrated with the cover, like High Point cards.