MP All Models PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI

[AidenShaw]

Do I need to 'enable trim' on these drives?

Definitely make sure that TRIM is enabled for the single drives.

Does SoftRAID even support TRIM on RAID-5? TRIM applies to unused space - there is no unused space on a parity RAID volume. It would be a good idea to force a TRIM (fsck or Magician) before creating the RAID volume - and then create a 5TB volume, leaving 1 TB untouched.

 

[bsbeamer]

Does SoftRAID even support TRIM on RAID-5?

It sort of does with version 5 in Mojave, assume the same for Catalina. Will note the major performance drops with RAID-5 and SoftRAID in Mojave is one of the major reasons I've 100% stopped using the product. Many suspect this is related to TRIM, but SoftRAID support blames Samsung for "poorly manufactured SSDs" as the reason why. Same drives do not report errors with SMART or DriveDx or when in hardware RAID setups.

OWC SoftRAID for Mac and Windows

The powerful software RAID utility for macOS and Windows offering max volume capacity, optimal drive performance, and data protection.

www.softraid.com

 

[AidenShaw]

major performance drops with RAID-5 and SoftRAID

Actually, slow performance in software RAID-5 is a good thing. If it's fast, it's probably risky.

Edit: 900 MB/s for read, write or both?

 

[bsbeamer]

Speed drops from ~900MB/s+ in High Sierra to less than 100MB/s in Mojave is not normal. It's a software bug or issue with Mojave/Catalina and likely because of APFS drivers being used with this software. SoftRAID 6 was supposed to "fix" these issues and it has not been released months after announcement.

 

[theatwar]

Thanks all for your tips and advice! I really appreciate it, this forum is awesome.

It sounds like using SoftRAID to combine the drives is a bad idea for my case, especially if it slows things down and/or the software is buggy/outdated. I plan on using these drives to store large project files for AfterEffects, large Photoshop files, and also large 2K and 4K stock footage movie elements for my AE projects, so I want them as speedy as possible.

I was looking at the SoftRAID option because of I was concerned about losing data in case one of the SSDs fails, and it would be easier to manage my data on one or two large volumes rather than having a bunch of different drives. But I do back up all my files to the cloud and also to external drives on a daily basis, so perhaps there's no real need to do this.

Unless there's an alternate utility I should be looking at other than SoftRAID?

Regarding TRIM -- when I go into my "System Information" app and click on NVMExpress/Apple SSD Controller/APPLE SSD AP4096N, I see "Trim Support: Yes" in the information.

I see the same thing when I click on NVMExpress//Generic SSD Controller/Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 2TB -- I see "Trim Support: Yes" in the information for all the SSD blades I've mounted using the Sonnet.

Does this mean I need to enable TRIM Support on my Samsung SSDs mounted on the Sonnets, or is it already enabled?

 

[flowrider]

^^^^Already enabled

Lou

 

[moab1]

I just ordered a Sonnet M2 4x4 PCIe card and 4 x 2TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus for my Mac Pro 7,1.
But I am debating getting this 4 x 4TB Sabrent instead as I could use the extra space - https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Rock...la-838585227790&ref=&adgrpid=80571461181&th=1

Will this combination work/supported? Any downsides to the Sabrent? I'm' sure the Samsung are better, but would prefer the 4TB size.

 

[jasonmvp]

Will this combination work/supported? Any downsides to the Sabrent? I'm' sure the Samsung are better, but would prefer the 4TB size.

The Sabrent 4TB drives are dual-sided and too thick to fit into the Sonnet. If you want to use the Sabrents you'll have to use the HighPoint card.

WRT the Sabrents, I was looking at those too. After a lot of reading, I punted. It's a "too good to be true" sort of thing. When Samsung, et al start producing 4TB NVMe drives for consumers, then reconsider. But right now, Sabrent is the only company doing it, and their quality isn't... top notch.

 

[moab1]

Thx for this!

 

[bsbeamer]

If you “NEED” more than 2TB SSD per blade/drive, the only options are that Sabrent, U.2, SATA, or an NF1.

Samsung NF1 has 15.36TB PM983 models. I have not seen a “cheap” or even economically easy way to adapt these in a consumer/prosumer fashion. Cheapest would probably be to adapt NF1 to U.2 form factor and use U.2 bays that do not require front lock to mount.

 

[bsbeamer]

I wanted to let the forum know what I found out from Amfletec about the new Squid PCIe gen 3 carrier board for up to 6 m.2 modules (SKU-086-36). This one is using a PEX8748 (48 Lane, 12 port PCIe gen 3 [8GT/s] switch). Aside from that, I found out it's expensive... I was quoted $768.45 USD not including shipping. As an owner of the Squid gen 2 (quad m.2 carrier), I can tell you that they are well built and dependable performing cards. I forgot to ask them about the "Real-Time performance and temperature monitoring via USB connection" feature. I analyzed the photos but don't see the USB port anywhere. It must be on the board somewhere. I'm also curious about what software will be used for this monitoring and how the fans speeds are controlled. They don't really explain it in detail but I'm thinking they may have developed some software for this. I highly doubt it will be as feature rich as the Highpoint NVMe Manager webGUI, but it's a step in the right direction for Amfletec.

Any experience using this with NF1's?

 

[moab1]

Sonnet Technologies

Mac Pro 7,1 (2019) – Use x16 PCIe slot (slot 3, 4, or 5) for full performance

Does anyone have a recommendation for how to RAID 0 for the Sonnet m4 and 4 x Samsung 2TB NVME drives? Is SoftRaid the only option? Is this a good solution? I plan to do a RAID 0 configuration.
Thanks!

 

[tommy chen]

you can use apple disk utility for raid 0

 

[moab1]

you can use apple disk utility for raid 0

Thanks! Are there any limitations using Apple Raid?

 

[bsbeamer]

RAID cannot he used for boot drive successfully for the majority of people and scenarios. There are ways to trick, but it’s unreliable long term.

RAID has on occasion been tied to poor write speeds in macOS after High Sierra with SSDs. This is usually sudden and unexplained. Sometimes appears to be TRIM stuck, other times appears to just be the OS not “liking” the RAID setup.

RAID and APFS might “work” but has been tied to data loss that I’ve witnessed from firsthand tests on MP5,1 and with externals connected to iMac and Mini.

RAID transferred to another machine does not work well with APFS under many scenarios. It can be salvaged but for some reason seems to perform better when setup directly. Clone data and repopulate if needing to move.

Avoid APFS if at all possible.

 

[Grumply]

My OWC 8TB Accelsior just arrived. I've installed it into Slot 2 (x16) of my 5,1 but it's topping out at about 1400MB/s Read/Write. It hits those speeds for the each of the four M.2 NVMEs individually, and remains the same even with all four striped into a RAID 0.

Is there's something I need to do, a switch I need to hit, or a setting I need to change to gets the RAID 0 speeds up closer to the 2900MB/s that was mentioned earlier?

 

[haralds]

My OWC 8TB Accelsior just arrived. I've installed it into Slot 2 (x16) of my 5,1 but it's topping out at about 1400MB/s Read/Write. It hits those speeds for the each of the four M.2 NVMEs individually, and remains the same even with all four striped into a RAID 0.

Is there's something I need to do, a switch I need to hit, or a setting I need to change to gets the RAID 0 speeds up closer to the 2900MB/s that was mentioned earlier?

I think the PCIE 2.0 bus tops out at 1500MB/s. That's all she does.

 

[tsialex]

My OWC 8TB Accelsior just arrived. I've installed it into Slot 2 (x16) of my 5,1 but it's topping out at about 1400MB/s Read/Write. It hits those speeds for the each of the four M.2 NVMEs individually, and remains the same even with all four striped into a RAID 0.

Is there's something I need to do, a switch I need to hit, or a setting I need to change to gets the RAID 0 speeds up closer to the 2900MB/s that was mentioned earlier?

Post a screenshot of SystemReport/PCIExpress and a ioreg, something is wrong since the card is similar, same PCIe switch, as IOCREST/SYBA.
[automerge]1577227916[/automerge]

I think the PCIE 2.0 bus tops out at 1500MB/s. That's all she does.

No, a 8x switched card with the ASMedia 2824 tops at around 2900MB/s.

 

[joevt]

My OWC 8TB Accelsior just arrived. I've installed it into Slot 2 (x16) of my 5,1 but it's topping out at about 1400MB/s Read/Write. It hits those speeds for the each of the four M.2 NVMEs individually, and remains the same even with all four striped into a RAID 0.

Is there's something I need to do, a switch I need to hit, or a setting I need to change to gets the RAID 0 speeds up closer to the 2900MB/s that was mentioned earlier?

Sounds like your slot 2 is running at PCIe 1.0 speed or you inserted the card in slot 3 or 4. Do you have the new MacPro5,1 firmware that came with Mojave installer?

You can try installing pciutils then use my pcitree.sh script to check the current link width and link speed, then use the fast.sh script to try to change the speed to PCIe 2.0.
#474
#482

 

[moab1]

I just installed the Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCIe card and 4 x 2TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 into my new Mac Pro 2019.
Installed into Slot 5
Configured as APFS (Case Sensitive) each drive.
Then RAID 0 all 4 drives together to create a single volume (non boot drive)
APFS (Case Senstive), 64kb chunks, GUID.

Here's my first speed test (attached).
Does this speed look correct? A single drive was about half that, but thought I'd get faster than 6300 write speeds with 4 in a RAID 0.

The Sonnet card makes a little bit of noise. nothing major, but compared to the completely silent Pro, it is evident.
Is the fan necessary given the Pro's fans? Could it be removed easily or would that not be advised?

 

[joevt]

Here's my first speed test (attached).
Does this speed look correct? A single drive was about half that, but thought I'd get faster than 6300 write speeds with 4 in a RAID 0.

Disk Utility RAID is bad compared to SoftRAID. #301

 

[Grumply]

Post a screenshot of SystemReport/PCIExpress and a ioreg, something is wrong since the card is similar, same PCIe switch, as IOCREST/SYBA.

Here's the system report:

 

[joevt]

Here's the system report:

System Information.app is not sufficient for diagnosing PCI problems. It only lists endpoint devices (the NVMe drives for example). It does not list PCIe bridge devices (the PCIe switch that lets you connect 4 NVMe drives to a slot).

ioreg would be more useful since it lists everything. The following will list information only about PCI devices:

ioreg -iw0 -p IODeviceTree -c IOPCIDevice > ioregdevIOPCIDevice.txt

 

[Grumply]

System Information.app is not sufficient for diagnosing PCI problems. It only lists endpoint devices (the NVMe drives for example). It does not list PCIe bridge devices (the PCIe switch that lets you connect 4 NVMe drives to a slot).

ioreg would be more useful since it lists everything. The following will list information only about PCI devices:

Thanks. If I PM you the text file, is the status of the PCI ports something you can check without wasting too much of your time? (it's beyond my powers of comprehension)

 

[joevt]

Thanks. If I PM you the text file, is the status of the PCI ports something you can check without wasting too much of your time? (it's beyond my powers of comprehension)

I can have a look.