Real world experiences with the Sonnet Tempo Pro and 2 SSDs

[pullman]

I'm seriously considering the Sonnet Tempo Pro card and two Intel 520 SSDs for my Mac Pro 2008 (3,1). I understand the limitations of this setup are:

1) that OS X can only be installed on the RAID 0 array when the drives are attached to the Mac Pro's backplane,

and

2) that boot camp won't work.

Neither will be a problem for me.

I'm interested in real-world experiences with this setup so if anyone's willing to share I'm all ears. I'm specifically thinking in terms of any sleep issues, reliability etc.

Cheers
Philip

 

[hfg]

I am using the Tempo Pro in RAID-0 and it works great.
2012 Mac Pro 5,1

I have had both a pair of Crucial M4 SSDs and a pair of Samsung 840 Pro SSDs on it at different times and they both worked fine. I keep my photo library (large sequential files) on the RAID-0 which really makes a difference.

Although I have also put OS X boot and files on the RAID-0, I really don't notice any performance difference between that and a single 840 Pro on the Mac Pro disk backplane (SATA-II) due to the random small files involved ... they are both really fast!

I also ran this in a 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 with no troubles. You will want to install it in the lowest card slot just above your video card since the upper 2 slots are not PCI_ver2 on a 2008 Mac Pro.


Here are some DiskSpeedTest results (large sequential test files) for:

1) 840 Pro RAID-0 on Sonnet Tempo Pro PCIe
2) M4 RAID-0 on Sonnet Tempo Pro PCIe
3) 840 Pro RAID-0 in Mac Pro disk trays (SATA-II)
4) M4 single drive in Mac Pro disk tray (SATA-II)

-howard

 

[scottrichardson]

I too run this card with 2 x Samsung SSD 840 Pro 512GB disks in RAID 0 and I a super happy with the performance. Everything is lightning quick and working with sequential files, or large files, is super fast.

You're already aware of the caveats of this type of setup, but aside from those, I think this is a really great setup.

Highly recommended!

Still - won't be as fast as the STANDARD storage on the 2013 Mac Pro when it ships!

 

[pullman]

Thanks very much for sharing your experiences.

Howard, those are some pretty amazing numbers. And Scott, yea, the trash can will certainly have faster storage but I guess this is as fast as an old 3,1 can get.

Like you Howard, I'll be keeping the active part of my image library on the array (with backups elsewhere of course). I'll also direct Photoshop to use the array as scratch - or is that a bad idea? I would have thought not, given the pretty amazing speeds.

Plus as SSDs drop in price I can upgrade - I guess there's no GB/TB limit to the Tempo card?? I sure hope not.

cheers
philip

 

[saifulmazloum]

Here are some DiskSpeedTest results (large sequential test files) for:

1) 840 Pro RAID-0 on Sonnet Tempo Pro PCIe
2) M4 RAID-0 on Sonnet Tempo Pro PCIe
3) 840 Pro RAID-0 in Mac Pro disk trays (SATA-II)
4) M4 single drive in Mac Pro disk tray (SATA-II)

-howard

I raided my 840s on the Sonnet SSD Pro and only got write speeds of 426 and read speeds about 830?

Any advice?

 

[RoastingPig]

I raided my 840s on the Sonnet SSD Pro and only got write speeds of 426 and read speeds about 830?

Any advice?

are they 840 pro's or just regular ol 840's? the 400-800 seems about rite for regular 840's

 

[analog guy]

are they 840 pro's or just regular ol 840's? the 400-800 seems about rite for regular 840's

on my MP3,1 i got 850 write & 943 read with 2x1TB 840 EVOs (PCI x16 slot).

on my iMac 2013 27" i got 655 write & 801 read (in a Sonnet Echo Express III-D enclosure over TB (not yet upgraded to TB2)).

 

[LongSticks]

on my MP3,1 i got 850 write & 943 read with 2x1TB 840 EVOs (PCI x16 slot).

on my iMac 2013 27" i got 655 write & 801 read (in a Sonnet Echo Express III-D enclosure over TB (not yet upgraded to TB2)).

Would you be able to boot to OSX from the IMac/TB combo? Need to speed up my 2011 i5 and really don't like the idea of removing the screen to do it internally!

 

[analog guy]

Would you be able to boot to OSX from the IMac/TB combo? Need to speed up my 2011 i5 and really don't like the idea of removing the screen to do it internally!

i haven't done it but believe it is possible. the tempo pro is bootable.

shoot me a PM...i may be able to help you out.

 

[saifulmazloum]

They are 840 pros. 256gb. Do I need to raid them while they are not attached to the Sonnet SSD Pro? Or does it not make a difference?

 

[analog guy]

They are 840 pros. 256gb. Do I need to raid them while they are not attached to the Sonnet SSD Pro? Or does it not make a difference?

i recall when i attached two bare drives to the tempo pro it defaulted to setting them up as a software RAID.

one can change that, of course.

you can configure it to direct access, too.

if you have drives that are already formatted, i do not believe they will be overwritten, but if one has any worry about it i recommend a quick call to sonnet tech support. they are friendly and answer the phone promptly.

 

[hfg]

They are 840 pros. 256gb. Do I need to raid them while they are not attached to the Sonnet SSD Pro? Or does it not make a difference?

Mine are Samsung 840 Pro 256GB in a 5,1 Mac Pro.

You can RAID them either on the card, or on the backplane, it shouldn't matter. That is one advantage of Apple software RAID, you can move the drive-pair to any interface and the RAID data will still be readable.

Do you have the "A" or "B" revision of the card ("B" added boot capability)? Which slot of what model MP are you using for the card?

Here are the results for a single drive and the RAID-0 pair on the Sonnet Tempo Pro SSD PCIe card:
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB

-howard
.

 

[analog guy]

for reference....2 x 840 EVO (1TB) on a Tempo Pro...in a Sonnet Echo Express III-D (TB1) box. the 2nd pic (higher #s) is a Tempo Pro an x16 slot in my MP3,1.

i'm going to pop those same drives in a Pegasus2 tonight and report back.

 

[echoout]

for reference....2 x 840 EVO (1TB) on a Tempo Pro...in a Sonnet Echo Express III-D (TB1) box. the 2nd pic (higher #s) is a Tempo Pro an x16 slot in my MP3,1.

i'm going to pop those same drives in a Pegasus2 tonight and report back.

This is really similar to what I was getting with 2 480GB OWC 6G SSDs and the Sonnet card in my Magma TB chassis. IT was my After Effects scratch drive for many months with no issue. Really fast.

 

[analog guy]

I posted a comparison of three TB enclosures (speed & noise) here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=18688000

It might be of interest to some.

 

[saifulmazloum]

Mine are Samsung 840 Pro 256GB in a 5,1 Mac Pro.

You can RAID them either on the card, or on the backplane, it shouldn't matter. That is one advantage of Apple software RAID, you can move the drive-pair to any interface and the RAID data will still be readable.

Do you have the "A" or "B" revision of the card ("B" added boot capability)? Which slot of what model MP are you using for the card?

Here are the results for a single drive and the RAID-0 pair on the Sonnet Tempo Pro SSD PCIe card:
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB

-howard
.

I have them in the slot right above the video card. It is a Bootable version of the card. I have a 2009 mac pro 4 1 upgraded to 5 1 firmware.

 

[hfg]

I have them in the slot right above the video card. It is a Bootable version of the card. I have a 2009 mac pro 4 1 upgraded to 5 1 firmware.

With a 2009 it shouldn't matter which slot, earlier models (i.e. 2008) had different version PCI slots ... You are OK there.
You have the latest version of the card ... good.
Have you checked that your SSD firmware is up-to-date on their website?
Do you have TRIM enabled?
How full are your SSDs?
If a new install, has Spotlight finished indexing when you ran DiskSpeedTest?
Which test file size did you have DiskSpeedTest set for (I use 4GB).

That is all I can think of at this time ... perhaps others can suggest other potential problem/solution areas. I wouldn't think that DiskSpeedTest would be influenced by CPU types, speeds, or RAM sizes.

-howard

 

[saifulmazloum]

With a 2009 it shouldn't matter which slot, earlier models (i.e. 2008) had different version PCI slots ... You are OK there.
You have the latest version of the card ... good.
Have you checked that your SSD firmware is up-to-date on their website?
Do you have TRIM enabled?
How full are your SSDs?
If a new install, has Spotlight finished indexing when you ran DiskSpeedTest?
Which test file size did you have DiskSpeedTest set for (I use 4GB).

That is all I can think of at this time ... perhaps others can suggest other potential problem/solution areas. I wouldn't think that DiskSpeedTest would be influenced by CPU types, speeds, or RAM sizes.

-howard

I re-raided the two drives after trying another pci slot. It worked fine this time. Getting speeds of 840/950. The ssds were brand new. I was using 5gb on diskspeedtest. Just trying to figure out if I should use the drives as a boot drive or a scratch drive.

I really appreciate the help howard. You the man.

 

[hfg]

I re-raided the two drives after trying another pci slot. It worked fine this time. Getting speeds of 840/950. The ssds were brand new. I was using 5gb on diskspeedtest. Just trying to figure out if I should use the drives as a boot drive or a scratch drive.

I really appreciate the help howard. You the man.

Wow ... re-RAIDing them fixed the problem? But looks like you're cookin' now!

I originally had mine as a photo library only drive, with OS X loaded from another SSD on the backplane disk tray, but needed to add another drive there, so moved the OS X boot to the PCIe RAID system as well and it is working great.

I keep having thoughts of going back to a single OS X boot SSD on a Solo x2 PCIe card for better random small file performance, but in the past I have had issues with probably too many SATA controllers which didn't seem to get along with each other. So I hesitate to open the Mac Pro again when it is working so well at this time.

Great that you got yours working properly...


-howard

 

[saifulmazloum]

Wow ... re-RAIDing them fixed the problem? But looks like you're cookin' now!

I originally had mine as a photo library only drive, with OS X loaded from another SSD on the backplane disk tray, but needed to add another drive there, so moved the OS X boot to the PCIe RAID system as well and it is working great.

I keep having thoughts of going back to a single OS X boot SSD on a Solo x2 PCIe card for better random small file performance, but in the past I have had issues with probably too many SATA controllers which didn't seem to get along with each other. So I hesitate to open the Mac Pro again when it is working so well at this time.

Great that you got yours working properly...


-howard

Appreciate all the help, Howard. I set up another ssd on the back plane as a boot for now. Probably going to use the raided drives as a scratch drive for now. Thanks again.

 

[pullman]

Hi guys

I thought I should post back now that I have my Tempo Pro and two SSDs, in my case 2x 120GB Intel 520s.

I get the below speeds and am a bit surprised about the write speed. I would have thought it would be a bit higher.

I raided them while attached to the logic board's two extra ports (I have one of those OWC CD-drive kits installed).

Is this because of the SSDs I have or?

Many TIA
Philip

 

[pullman]

Just a little bump - any ideas about the write speed?

 

[666sheep]

Just a little bump - any ideas about the write speed?

Sandforce and incompressible data.

 

[pullman]

Sandforce and incompressible data.

Thanks for the quick reply. But is that really the reason? I am thinking of re-raiding as the user above did but am a bit unsure if it really was that which helped him.

Is there perhaps another testing software that uses a different method than incompressible data?

 

[666sheep]

AJA System Test, Xbench.