There are 75 posts in macrumors.com that mention the chip. I'm sure all cards that use that chip will behave mostly the same.
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MP All Models PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI
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I have looked at that too. Also Cresta, High Point, Syba, and a few others.
I can see that Startech on Amazon for $Au247.
The often recommended here is the High Point SSD7101A-1, which costs just under $Au600 ($Au594). So, 2.4 times as much money. It features a good cooling system built in and the fan is controllable from its downloadable MacOS software. It features 4 card capability. It was first introduced in April 2018.
I am more interested for my 2010 5,1, something less expensive. For instance, this High Point interests me most of all: SSD7103, which was introduced in June, 2019. I don't recall reading about it here. Strangely, it looks identical to the SSD7101A-1, but it appears to be much heavier - which sounds like a typographical error. its cost is $457. So, it costs 85% more than the Startech. But ... I'd get all the cooling technology, plus it takes 4 m.2 cards. The Startech says it used the OS for its RAID too. But it does seem to be 16 PCIe channels wide.
What the SSD7103 has a RAID chip and also it has a 16 wide bus with 4 cards. But it does NOT link directly to another SSD7103 - High Point call this cross linking. Which would be very fast and useful, in a Mac Pro ... errrhhh .... 7,1 version!!! Not in an old 5,1 though unless the graphics card was of little use ...
Of all the cards for me, this seems the best deal. High Point say it works on MacOS. I am very tempted. Unfortunately though, I don't recall it being mentioned here. I am concerned about that because I would not have thought cross linking would increase its cost to the SSD7101A-1 card by 30% of the cards cost. It also seems to me to be safer to have a slot or two spare. Hey maybe that is a waste of money though. But if one is determined to have a certain capacity - then IMO it's cheaper to fill up four slots to get 2TB, than fill just 2 slots as bigger cards cost more per capacity, mostly ... Plus of course, the striping 4 cards is quicker than striping two cards. And it would be twice as fast when striped as an 8 width card like the Star Tech.
Worth the extra? From a cooling and longevity point of view, I reckon if one adds cooling issues, that can cost not only a lot of time, but for me, maybe $80 or more. Say $100. These cards do get hot ... surely we should buy a product with the heat issues worked out? What is the cost of a failed card? In time, and maybe heartbreak. That means that low cost card, is really $Au350. That's 30% more money, and not worth it for me.
As far as low cost goes, I like the only 4 PCIe channel Sonnic made Tempo (some seemed to be called Fusion but seem the same card to me) $304.99 twin card. This card will not boot mac OS - from reviews, Sonnet at first thought it would!!
OK its slower, and runs at 1,000 which its hardware Raid stripe is used - which for me, is not that slow. It costs about the same as the Startech. I think though it has cooling tech. Or maybe the SSDs do? It uses SSD disks which are claimed to be cheaper. Evidently though, it's a very tight fit and some have had to carve near their outward fan casing as the card is quite long. Not positive about that though ... But it has another advantage for us guys not wanting to spend a fortune on 10 year old machines. Namely, it has a second gen USB type C port, and those cost for me, around $100. With external drive bays getting cheaper than an internal disk in our Mac Pros, that means not only do we take some heat out of your machines, and reduce some power loads - but we can save some back up money and USB gen 2 is 10 GB/Sec, which is not so slow. Much better too than USB-2 ...
Edit: I should note that tsialex (who is assisting me in upgrading my ROM without filling it up with too much redundant memory) differs from me here, and he knows 1 million times what I do, about the HighPoint SSD7103 card, when he said a couple of months ago:
'SSD7103 wasn't updated like SSD7101A-1 PCB v2.0. It's not a replacement, SSD7103 it's older than the current revision of SSD7101A-1.
It's a different product for a different market. It's a card for PCs."
I also checked their website, and one page said the SSD7103 was designed for PCs. However, when clicking the "for MacPro" menu, I got this page, saying the SSD7103 was suitable for MacPros:
NVMe RAID For Mac
NVMe RAID Controllers, Includes Bootable NVMe RAID Controller, Supports M.2 and U.2 NVMe SSD
highpoint-tech.com
From the chart too, it may even be able to do a RAID boot ...???
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OK, thanks for the feedback.
So it seems worth a try with one: I'll buy it.
I also see the price varies a bit froom place to place.
I'm upgrading a MacPro 2010, and I'm going to look at the cooling quite hard.
I've got an anemometer (air flow meter), and am going to get an infrad red camera of some sort: either a cheap one based on the Melexis chip (769 pixels), or else if I get enthusiastic, Santa says he might buy me the Seek Thermal Compact Pro: at 76,800 pixels.....
I'll document it, and post results.
Going off thread a bit maybe, but I have ideas on a better thermal paste formulation: so I'll post that too.
But if you have two CPU's, two GPU's and several M.2 SSD's all packed into a fairly small aluminium box, it behooves one to see where the cooling bottlenecks are.
A bit further off topic.....but I think that Apple with the Uber $$$ 2019 MacPro might have done something a bit more interesting with cooling.
As in why not have liquid cooling???
Anyways, I'll post this on a separate thread.
So it seems worth a try with one: I'll buy it.
I also see the price varies a bit froom place to place.
I'm upgrading a MacPro 2010, and I'm going to look at the cooling quite hard.
I've got an anemometer (air flow meter), and am going to get an infrad red camera of some sort: either a cheap one based on the Melexis chip (769 pixels), or else if I get enthusiastic, Santa says he might buy me the Seek Thermal Compact Pro: at 76,800 pixels.....
I'll document it, and post results.
Going off thread a bit maybe, but I have ideas on a better thermal paste formulation: so I'll post that too.
But if you have two CPU's, two GPU's and several M.2 SSD's all packed into a fairly small aluminium box, it behooves one to see where the cooling bottlenecks are.
A bit further off topic.....but I think that Apple with the Uber $$$ 2019 MacPro might have done something a bit more interesting with cooling.
As in why not have liquid cooling???
Anyways, I'll post this on a separate thread.
An alternative way: Use a Dual SATA Card (2 x SATA SSD drives)
I understand this thread is about PCIe NVMe SSD's, but seeing as it's not a guaranteed headache/free process, and not cheap, perhaps pointing out the alternative is to use a card that lets you mount 2 x SATA SSD's.
After all, if you don't actually NEED the speed etc of a PCIe NVMe, and the PCIe bifurcation cards are quite pricey, at the end of the day you might be better off getting 2 x SATA SSD'sa of good quality and size.
As opposed to blowing the piggy bank on the card, and then having to use El Cheapo NVME SSD's of small capacity so you can afford champagne for the Mistress...(or Toyboy, for the Lady MacPro owners: not trying to be chauvinist, here).
If so, perhaps the Apricorn Velocity Duo x2 Dual SSD PCIE RAID card is an option.
There's a thread that discusses these cards a bit: at least could add a link to it on Post #1, perhaps.
Best cheap PCIe Adapter for 2.5" SATA III SSD drive
I understand this thread is about PCIe NVMe SSD's, but seeing as it's not a guaranteed headache/free process, and not cheap, perhaps pointing out the alternative is to use a card that lets you mount 2 x SATA SSD's.
After all, if you don't actually NEED the speed etc of a PCIe NVMe, and the PCIe bifurcation cards are quite pricey, at the end of the day you might be better off getting 2 x SATA SSD'sa of good quality and size.
As opposed to blowing the piggy bank on the card, and then having to use El Cheapo NVME SSD's of small capacity so you can afford champagne for the Mistress...(or Toyboy, for the Lady MacPro owners: not trying to be chauvinist, here).
If so, perhaps the Apricorn Velocity Duo x2 Dual SSD PCIE RAID card is an option.
There's a thread that discusses these cards a bit: at least could add a link to it on Post #1, perhaps.
Best cheap PCIe Adapter for 2.5" SATA III SSD drive
I looked at that thread, and someone was using the Sonnet single card version, which costs now, $US99. But for I think $US139, you can have a twin SSD version from Sonnet, that includes a raid chip on the card, and also includes a type C gen 2 10 Gbps (not the gen 1 5 Gbps), which is usefull IMO since it does save a slot. Its only 4 times, but then, one could therefor leave the 16x slot for something else ... it has a type of button thingo that on boot up you have to hold to configure the RAID, so obviously you'd use the RAID 0 and get the 1,000 (or would it be 960) speed. OK, that is a lot slower than 3,000 plus for the multi card systems which have their own Raid chip and use 16x wide bus on their card (Hightech and Sonnet). But then, it's a fair bit cheaper especially if one hasn't already got a USB 3.2 slot.
I also spoke with tsialex and he advised the Highpoint 7103 card was really for PCs. I checked the Highpoint page and it said that the SSD7101-A card was suitable for Windows, Mac and Linux ... so he's right. He said 7103 is an older card by over a year (they revised both). Its a shame as the 7103 had $100 off it at B&H for a Black Monday special.
For me, the choice is one of three now with a stupid keep it cheap option:
In Australia pricing:
1 - $Au595 delivered: Spend big and get the Highpoint SSD7101-A. Lots of room for extra space too with that choice. Lots of speed too.
2 - $Au251.94 delivered: => $Au380 (with cooling added). StarTech.com Dual M.2 PCIe SSD Adapter Card - x8 / x16 Dual NVMe or AHCI M.2 SSD to PCI Express 3.0 - M.2 NGFF PCIe (M-Key) Compatible - Supports 2242, 2260, 2280 - RAID & JBOD - Mac & PC (PEX8M2E2) I'd have to add some cooling kits for the two NVME cards which would cost $100 to $130 for me.
3 - $Au300: Sonnet Tempo Fusion duel - Delivered from Australian distributor but they say its in stock but they say it takes 5 weeks to get to me! Dual 2.5-inch SSD PCIe 3.0 card with hardware RAID controller, plus 10Gbps USB-C port Issue - the card is very long and can fowl the exit fan ... some filing is likely necessary ... for an Apple specialist, that design flaw is frustrating. Benefit is it only takes one slot for two SSD with a hardware raid, plus the USB-C 10 Gbps, so it saves three slots on cheaper solutions.
4 a - 2 x $59 - $118, Startech x4 PCI Express to M.2 NVMe (M key) PCIe SSD Adapter Card PEX4M2E1 - fill two 4x slots and software Raid them ... a lot cheaper than the Sonnet, but putting in a USB 3.2 will be difficult to do ... I guess add some cooling. There are better options too out there, some have cooling fins supplied and have worked well. Someone please post the best single solution for an m.2 solution for a classic mac pro, thanks.
4 b - 2 x $67 = $134 (Cyber Monday) OWC Accelsior S PCIe Adapter for 2.5 Sata III SSD drives. For the SSD, maybe no need to add cooling. Add the USB 3.2, that's 3 slots. The Sonnet Duel Tempo Fusion takes just one slot to accomplish the same thing.
4c - $US29 (normally $US49) - OWC Accelsior 1M2 M.s SSD to PCIe 4 Adapter card. Works in Mac Pro, macOS 10.13 High Sierra macOS 10.14 Mojave macOS 10.15 Catalina
Claims 3000MB per second, but that would be for a type 4 4xPCI-e slot, so for a 5,1, it would be around 480 Mbs. But - it has cooling fins included with its kit.
Not being nvme it would work on olde Mac OS like High Sierra - well, I think nvme might work too, if the ROM is the latest one, thanks tsialex for doing my ROM work and finding some Malware evidence in my Mac Pro.
OK that OWC cooled one so cheap is tempting. But hey it's not quick.
5 - Sonnet 4 x slot card - I've not included that, as it costs over $Au800 in Australia. Thanks but no thanks dumb Australian distributor. Or maybe I am being unfair - the direct imports do by pass the middle man, who does give advise, fix stuff and does pay people wages and needs to make a profit.
With four slots, a good cooling solution manageable from the 5,1 itself, the expensive Highpoint option makes most sense. Who wants to spend half as much for two cards that do not have cooling management? Downside - it seems silly to spend a heap on an 8 year old machine.
Note: for Australia, we cannot easily buy Sonnet for international prices, as there is an Australian supplier, and their price is higher than international prices. But Highpoint, Startech etc. can be bought for international pricing. We then have to ad shipping, a sales tax is added by Amazon etc. too, and we have to wait several weeks for delivery unless you pay more for a higher speed delivery.
There are other choices but it seems some seem to be having some recent compatibility issues, due to suspected changes in a hardware item that is disagreeing with Mac Pros (classics as I think no 7,1 owner would put in a very cheap and slow solution).
I also spoke with tsialex and he advised the Highpoint 7103 card was really for PCs. I checked the Highpoint page and it said that the SSD7101-A card was suitable for Windows, Mac and Linux ... so he's right. He said 7103 is an older card by over a year (they revised both). Its a shame as the 7103 had $100 off it at B&H for a Black Monday special.
For me, the choice is one of three now with a stupid keep it cheap option:
In Australia pricing:
1 - $Au595 delivered: Spend big and get the Highpoint SSD7101-A. Lots of room for extra space too with that choice. Lots of speed too.
2 - $Au251.94 delivered: => $Au380 (with cooling added). StarTech.com Dual M.2 PCIe SSD Adapter Card - x8 / x16 Dual NVMe or AHCI M.2 SSD to PCI Express 3.0 - M.2 NGFF PCIe (M-Key) Compatible - Supports 2242, 2260, 2280 - RAID & JBOD - Mac & PC (PEX8M2E2) I'd have to add some cooling kits for the two NVME cards which would cost $100 to $130 for me.
3 - $Au300: Sonnet Tempo Fusion duel - Delivered from Australian distributor but they say its in stock but they say it takes 5 weeks to get to me! Dual 2.5-inch SSD PCIe 3.0 card with hardware RAID controller, plus 10Gbps USB-C port Issue - the card is very long and can fowl the exit fan ... some filing is likely necessary ... for an Apple specialist, that design flaw is frustrating. Benefit is it only takes one slot for two SSD with a hardware raid, plus the USB-C 10 Gbps, so it saves three slots on cheaper solutions.
4 a - 2 x $59 - $118, Startech x4 PCI Express to M.2 NVMe (M key) PCIe SSD Adapter Card PEX4M2E1 - fill two 4x slots and software Raid them ... a lot cheaper than the Sonnet, but putting in a USB 3.2 will be difficult to do ... I guess add some cooling. There are better options too out there, some have cooling fins supplied and have worked well. Someone please post the best single solution for an m.2 solution for a classic mac pro, thanks.
4 b - 2 x $67 = $134 (Cyber Monday) OWC Accelsior S PCIe Adapter for 2.5 Sata III SSD drives. For the SSD, maybe no need to add cooling. Add the USB 3.2, that's 3 slots. The Sonnet Duel Tempo Fusion takes just one slot to accomplish the same thing.
4c - $US29 (normally $US49) - OWC Accelsior 1M2 M.s SSD to PCIe 4 Adapter card. Works in Mac Pro, macOS 10.13 High Sierra macOS 10.14 Mojave macOS 10.15 Catalina
Claims 3000MB per second, but that would be for a type 4 4xPCI-e slot, so for a 5,1, it would be around 480 Mbs. But - it has cooling fins included with its kit.
Not being nvme it would work on olde Mac OS like High Sierra - well, I think nvme might work too, if the ROM is the latest one, thanks tsialex for doing my ROM work and finding some Malware evidence in my Mac Pro.
OK that OWC cooled one so cheap is tempting. But hey it's not quick.
5 - Sonnet 4 x slot card - I've not included that, as it costs over $Au800 in Australia. Thanks but no thanks dumb Australian distributor. Or maybe I am being unfair - the direct imports do by pass the middle man, who does give advise, fix stuff and does pay people wages and needs to make a profit.
With four slots, a good cooling solution manageable from the 5,1 itself, the expensive Highpoint option makes most sense. Who wants to spend half as much for two cards that do not have cooling management? Downside - it seems silly to spend a heap on an 8 year old machine.
Note: for Australia, we cannot easily buy Sonnet for international prices, as there is an Australian supplier, and their price is higher than international prices. But Highpoint, Startech etc. can be bought for international pricing. We then have to ad shipping, a sales tax is added by Amazon etc. too, and we have to wait several weeks for delivery unless you pay more for a higher speed delivery.
There are other choices but it seems some seem to be having some recent compatibility issues, due to suspected changes in a hardware item that is disagreeing with Mac Pros (classics as I think no 7,1 owner would put in a very cheap and slow solution).
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I've now decided to wait ... I won't be needing the performance until January / February anyway, so hopefully hardware will still be available. Hopefully NVME prices will continue to fall ...
Hi Melbourne Park,
Very useful info in your replies: I'll add them to my summary and check a few things.
A few points:
(1) Prices: For the purposes of discussion amongst a multi-national collection of MacPro owners, it makes it hard to relate the various items when you start having to take in the (unfortunate) realities of local pricing and availability.
I'm in UK now, and was in South Africa for a long time: both places tend to have inflated prices.
But a lot of these items for computers are small, and not expensive to send by courier type shipping.
There are various ways to optimise the charges for this, including Customs and VAT.
(2) Price versus Capability: The Startech is for two SSD's, and a number of the others are for four.
If you really need four, then that's an issue, but I'm not sure I see the need.
In general, the cost of SSD's has changed from where there used to be a premium to get a bigger SS, but now in many cases, the price for a given SSD model is proportional to its size.
Therefore, from my analyses it was better to buy a less expensive PCIe Card that takes only 2 x SSD, and then use bigger SSD's: I'm using 2 x 2TB SSD's (see next for transfer speed discussion).
(3) Transfer Speed: I have not analysed this properly yet, but I've read that the sequential transfer speeds improve more than the random ones do when you do this sort of thing.
But I'm sure it's very dependent on type of SSD you used: the controllers and way that the SSD Flash is laid out on them.
Perhaps we can ask people if they could do some specific benchmark tests on what they are using, and we could compile that. I shall raise a separate thread
(4) Brother (and Sister) Mac Pro Users:
I'll raise this in another thread, but maybe we could raise a group buy of a good card?
As in, if there is enough interest, why not decide on a specific card, and ask the Manufacturer directly to give us a good price.
That's done on GroupGets, as an example.
GroupGets
- You initiate a "Campaign" (in this case, it would be saying you want an advance confirmation of interest in a givven card: and you can set a target, of say 10, 20 or more cards, at a given cost)
- GroupGets handles the admin, including collecting payment and shipping (and charges 20%, which is OK if your bulk discount is reasonable)
And perhaps there are creative ways to have the shipping and import charges optimised: can discuss on another thread.
The overall point here is that as a group, we are stronger if we do things together.
Very useful info in your replies: I'll add them to my summary and check a few things.
A few points:
(1) Prices: For the purposes of discussion amongst a multi-national collection of MacPro owners, it makes it hard to relate the various items when you start having to take in the (unfortunate) realities of local pricing and availability.
I'm in UK now, and was in South Africa for a long time: both places tend to have inflated prices.
But a lot of these items for computers are small, and not expensive to send by courier type shipping.
There are various ways to optimise the charges for this, including Customs and VAT.
(2) Price versus Capability: The Startech is for two SSD's, and a number of the others are for four.
If you really need four, then that's an issue, but I'm not sure I see the need.
In general, the cost of SSD's has changed from where there used to be a premium to get a bigger SS, but now in many cases, the price for a given SSD model is proportional to its size.
Therefore, from my analyses it was better to buy a less expensive PCIe Card that takes only 2 x SSD, and then use bigger SSD's: I'm using 2 x 2TB SSD's (see next for transfer speed discussion).
(3) Transfer Speed: I have not analysed this properly yet, but I've read that the sequential transfer speeds improve more than the random ones do when you do this sort of thing.
But I'm sure it's very dependent on type of SSD you used: the controllers and way that the SSD Flash is laid out on them.
Perhaps we can ask people if they could do some specific benchmark tests on what they are using, and we could compile that. I shall raise a separate thread
(4) Brother (and Sister) Mac Pro Users:
I'll raise this in another thread, but maybe we could raise a group buy of a good card?
As in, if there is enough interest, why not decide on a specific card, and ask the Manufacturer directly to give us a good price.
That's done on GroupGets, as an example.
GroupGets
- You initiate a "Campaign" (in this case, it would be saying you want an advance confirmation of interest in a givven card: and you can set a target, of say 10, 20 or more cards, at a given cost)
- GroupGets handles the admin, including collecting payment and shipping (and charges 20%, which is OK if your bulk discount is reasonable)
And perhaps there are creative ways to have the shipping and import charges optimised: can discuss on another thread.
The overall point here is that as a group, we are stronger if we do things together.
Good point WarthogARJ ... a group buy is a great idea.
I checked with Amazon Australia to see how much the Highpoint SSD7101-A had gone up in cost. I worked out that its buy price in the USA was $US356. Well now, its actually gone downwards - to $US323 dollars. It showed me that Black Friday is not what it used to be ... with Amazon, at least!
As far as speed goes, way back I computerised some newspapers (in the early 1990s, I recall the Nikon lense based Kodak DSLR was the first DSLR introduced, with a 4MP 256 grey scale image processor, the base version cost $Au50,000! I used to put in the new Windows software called NT, it was brand new ... with a DEC tower, and fault tolerant drives with RAID 5 I think (or was it 3, I forget), and with a hardware raid card that cost a few thousand dollars. The more drives, the quicker the raid went. There was no bottleneck back then on the bus ... but somewhere, there has to be a bottleneck.
Nowadays this stuff is actually cheap, but with a raid chip on a wide 16x bus on the card, I reckon the more drives, the quicker. Also, there is some insurance with 4 slots, as if you decide to grow your storage, its relatively cheap to do, and when you go form two cards to three, you gain a lot in performance as well. My plan is to just boot off a SATA SSD drive, which is quick enough it seems to me. And keep the Raid card's slots open for upgrades if I need them, I'd start with two cards. I've always seemed to want more capacity ... I doubt that will change.
I'll also put a card in for USB 3.2, as external cheap storage has some appeal to me. I should bite the bullet and get a fault tolerant NAS. And that backup setup might last for a long time. Funny thing is too, that Mac Pros are dirt cheap now - especially the gutted ones. With a single GPU and a single hard drive. So cheap to make them into a fault tolerant NAS I reckon ... bung six cheap drives into a Mac Pro and off you go ... correct me if I'm wrong.
I wonder about my G4 mirror PowerPC - I still have a Snow Leopard OS X disk for it ... could it run a decent sized array? Sorry - way off topic ...
I checked with Amazon Australia to see how much the Highpoint SSD7101-A had gone up in cost. I worked out that its buy price in the USA was $US356. Well now, its actually gone downwards - to $US323 dollars. It showed me that Black Friday is not what it used to be ... with Amazon, at least!
As far as speed goes, way back I computerised some newspapers (in the early 1990s, I recall the Nikon lense based Kodak DSLR was the first DSLR introduced, with a 4MP 256 grey scale image processor, the base version cost $Au50,000! I used to put in the new Windows software called NT, it was brand new ... with a DEC tower, and fault tolerant drives with RAID 5 I think (or was it 3, I forget), and with a hardware raid card that cost a few thousand dollars. The more drives, the quicker the raid went. There was no bottleneck back then on the bus ... but somewhere, there has to be a bottleneck.
Nowadays this stuff is actually cheap, but with a raid chip on a wide 16x bus on the card, I reckon the more drives, the quicker. Also, there is some insurance with 4 slots, as if you decide to grow your storage, its relatively cheap to do, and when you go form two cards to three, you gain a lot in performance as well. My plan is to just boot off a SATA SSD drive, which is quick enough it seems to me. And keep the Raid card's slots open for upgrades if I need them, I'd start with two cards. I've always seemed to want more capacity ... I doubt that will change.
I'll also put a card in for USB 3.2, as external cheap storage has some appeal to me. I should bite the bullet and get a fault tolerant NAS. And that backup setup might last for a long time. Funny thing is too, that Mac Pros are dirt cheap now - especially the gutted ones. With a single GPU and a single hard drive. So cheap to make them into a fault tolerant NAS I reckon ... bung six cheap drives into a Mac Pro and off you go ... correct me if I'm wrong.
I wonder about my G4 mirror PowerPC - I still have a Snow Leopard OS X disk for it ... could it run a decent sized array? Sorry - way off topic ...
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If you need in the next 6-8 weeks, would suggest you purchase now or very soon. Product supplies from many retailers are constrained with the pandemic and they do not expect a regular “on time” restocking. Even some simple USB external HDDs are 2-4+ weeks on back order, especially larger capacities.
Products announced in early 2021 (larger capacities) will likely not be available until end Q1 or Q2 unless they are churning their own product lines. New Mac-specific products are in limbo with M1.
Products announced in early 2021 (larger capacities) will likely not be available until end Q1 or Q2 unless they are churning their own product lines. New Mac-specific products are in limbo with M1.
My mirror door "Wind Tunnel" twin CPU grey PowerPC's G4 processors had I think 10.5 million - million switches. That's huge ... just imagine with the first valve computers, how much space such a beast would take. But ... the M1 chip has uhhmm ... 16 billion ... jeeez ... does someone count them just to check if everything is as it should be?
I'd like to get these 3000 MBs write speeds like everyone else. What could be going wrong?
PCIe Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus in kryoM.2 evo PCIe 3.0/4.0 x4 adapter for M.2 NGFF PCIe SSD, M-Key with passive heatsink
By just the 3d write cycle, 45 seconds, my speeds are only this. This stuff is only a few months old.
Further, I've heard this helps: write ahead caching. How is that done?
thank you anyone !
PCIe Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus in kryoM.2 evo PCIe 3.0/4.0 x4 adapter for M.2 NGFF PCIe SSD, M-Key with passive heatsink
By just the 3d write cycle, 45 seconds, my speeds are only this. This stuff is only a few months old.
Further, I've heard this helps: write ahead caching. How is that done?
thank you anyone !
Last month KIOXIA announced new PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs called XG7 and XG7-P. These may be the first high-end NVMe SSDs available in the 4 TB capacity. They will be available to OEMs next year.
They are claimed to have 2x the read performance and 1.6x the write performance of the previous XG6 SSDs, which would be about 6,360 MB/s read and 4,736 MB/s write.
business.kioxia.com
They are claimed to have 2x the read performance and 1.6x the write performance of the previous XG6 SSDs, which would be about 6,360 MB/s read and 4,736 MB/s write.
KIOXIA Unleashes Next Generation PCIe 4.0 SSDs for High-end Client Applications | KIOXIA - United States (English)
KIOXIA Unleashes Next Generation PCIe 4.0 SSDs for High-end Client Applications
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Just in case you’ve missed it the 2TB 970 EVO Plus is $249.99 from a few different retailers for Cyber week.
www.neweggbusiness.com
NeweggBusiness - SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2 2280 2TB PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3 V-NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-V7S2T0B/AM
Buy SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2 2280 2TB PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3 V-NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-V7S2T0B/AM with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!
It seems no experts are replying to you.
There are two bottlenecks in your configuration.
Firstly, being a single card, there is no RAID being operated on that card. If the card had two drives on it, then your speed would almost double, especially if the card had its own RAID/ chip on it. If such a twin twin disk card used the computer to run the raid (software RAID therefor) the disk speed would not be as quick, but still a lot faster than a single card.
Secondly, there is a limit on the card's throughput in the PCIe slot. The card is a "4x" card. The Mac Pro 5,1 (4,1) has 4 PCIe slots, which are generation "2" slots (half the speed of Generation "3"). The Mac Pro 5,1 has 4 PCIe slots - 1 and two are distanced further apart, while 3 & 4 are closer together. 3 & 4 have "4" lanes of data. 1 & 2 PCIe slots have "16" lanes of data each. So, slots 1 & @ can be 4 times faster than slots 3 & 4. But since your card is designed for 4 data channels, it would run just as fast in slots 3 & 4, as it in slots 1 or 2.
Unlike your card, there are cards fully handle "8" lanes of data, and there are cards which have "16" lanes of data throughput. So if you put 4 cards on a single card, run RAID 0, and the card has a 16 lane capacity, its going to be up a lot quicker than a single drive card with a 4 lane capacity.
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SteveZee's screenshots show he's using a MacPro7,1 instead of a MacPro5,1. Also, his other screen shot showed a read speed of 2880 MB/s.
In AJA System Test Lite, I use 5120x2700 5K RED, 4GB, 16bit RGB but I don't think that changes the write speed much.
What's the write speed during the first cycle?
I don't know of anything like that on macOS.
"being a single card, there is no RAID being operated on that card."
Well, these blades have a native speed plugged in anywhere, as
advertised, see below. I'm not getting even that:
"The card is a "4x" card."
A 4x card is inadequate on a MacPro 2019 to deliver
the native blade speed? I've never heard of this?
Wish I knew THAT before! Even researching all this
from THIS thread, page 1, I dont recall ever seeing
such background info, which would seem fundamental.
"What's the write speed during the first cycle?"
At the end of the first cycle it is 2000 MBs.
I changed to your configuration and got
2600MBs, first cycle, 1600 MBs 3d cycle.
Thank you folks for your support!
Steve z
Well, these blades have a native speed plugged in anywhere, as
advertised, see below. I'm not getting even that:
"The card is a "4x" card."
A 4x card is inadequate on a MacPro 2019 to deliver
the native blade speed? I've never heard of this?
Wish I knew THAT before! Even researching all this
from THIS thread, page 1, I dont recall ever seeing
such background info, which would seem fundamental.
"What's the write speed during the first cycle?"
At the end of the first cycle it is 2000 MBs.
I changed to your configuration and got
2600MBs, first cycle, 1600 MBs 3d cycle.
Thank you folks for your support!
Steve z
Some wrong info here, please don't mix MP5,1 limitations with your MP7,1.
All M.2 devices are 4 lanes or less, there are PCIe v2.0/v3.0/v4.0 blades, but most are PCIe v3.0 with 4 lanes. M.2 connector is just a miniaturised version of a PCIe x4 slot. Since MP7,1 is PCIe v3.0 Mac Pro, a 4 lanes M.2 blade can transfer up to ~3200MB/s. I've, and others, written about this numerous times.
The write speeds you are noticing are probably the speeds after the SLC cache is full, probably the real write speeds to the TLC NAND. This is normal, only 970PRO and other very high end MLC blades can benchmark constantly without dropping throughput when the SLC cache is full.
Another thing that can be happening is thermal throttling, if your blades are over heating. This can happen even with heatsinks when you are benchmarking constantly. You can check this with DriveDx.
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Ok the blade went from 104°F to 110°F during the sustained test, about 1 minute.
Hello everybody,
I have one issue with two cMPs (4.1 -> 5.1 and 5.1, Dual CPUs), both on 144.0.0.0.0.
Every time I insert NVMe in any PCIe slot via ORICO PSM2 adapter, MP cannot shutdown properly.
NVMe: Samsung 970 EVO Plus (with updated firmware).
MP boots fine from it and it works fine, but when you want to power it off, it just reboots.
Any fix/reason for this behavior ?
Thanks!
I have one issue with two cMPs (4.1 -> 5.1 and 5.1, Dual CPUs), both on 144.0.0.0.0.
Every time I insert NVMe in any PCIe slot via ORICO PSM2 adapter, MP cannot shutdown properly.
NVMe: Samsung 970 EVO Plus (with updated firmware).
MP boots fine from it and it works fine, but when you want to power it off, it just reboots.
Any fix/reason for this behavior ?
Thanks!
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Really odd. Never had this problem in the 3 Mac Pros i have had. If I understood right, you send the Switch Off, but makes a Restart. Right?