MP 7,1 Received my Promise 2Ji today

[bxs]

Just some caution about SoftRAID. New version may be different, but transferring from one machine to another by physically moving the RAID'd device(s) has, on numerous times, "broken" the RAID resulted in data loss.

I've never seen a device that relies on SoftRAID be described in a way to make it seem like it's a hardware RAID by default. In my experience, SoftRAID need to be used to setup that way.

SoftRAID is wonky with Mojave at times and the last time I've used it stably was with High Sierra. Have completely stopped using at this point. SoftRAID 6 was supposed to be released nearly a year ago and has been delayed for months. It's in BETA and not exactly public either.

This is the SoftRAID software site. Can be used with almost any devices, not just this OWC one. At least that used to be the case. OWC has since purchased them...

https://www.softraid.com
https://software.owcdigital.com

See some of the forum posts:
https://www.softraid.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=1051
https://www.softraid.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=871

I agree about your opinions about SoftRAID. I've had been using SoftRAID for a number of years, but I found out over time it could be troublesome at times and would block me from undoing the SoftRAID disk management in favor of using Apple's Disk Utility (it adds software to the macOS that can be problematic working with the rest of Apple's software). I stopped using it over a year ago and now use the Apple's Disk Utility (DU) as best I can. DU in Catalina is an improvement IMO and handles APFS much better than in earlier macOSes. The best feature for SoftRAID is that it can manage RAID set beyond what Apple provides with it Disk Utility. DU can manage/setup RAID-0 and RAID-1 only, whereas SoftRAID manages RAID septs up to 10.

If I buy the Accelsior 4M2 I believe I have a 30-day period to check it out, and if I'm not satisfied I can return it for a full refund.

 

[bxs]

I agree about your opinions about SoftRAID. I've had been using SoftRAID for a number of years, but I found out over time it could be troublesome at times and would block me from undoing the SoftRAID disk management in favor of using Apple's Disk Utility (it adds software to the macOS that can be problematic working with the rest of Apple's software). I stopped using it over a year ago and now use the Apple's Disk Utility (DU) as best I can. DU in Catalina is an improvement IMO and handles APFS much better than in earlier macOSes. The best feature for SoftRAID is that it can manage RAID set beyond what Apple provides with it Disk Utility. DU can manage/setup RAID-0 and RAID-1 only, whereas SoftRAID manages RAID septs up to 10.

If I buy the Accelsior 4M2 I believe I have a 30-day period to check it out, and if I'm not satisfied I can return it for a full refund.

Has anyone with the MP7,1 used this OWC Accelsior 4M2 successfully? Were there any serious issues encountered, and was its stock configuration redone ? Thanks.

 

[mac65]

About APFS vs. HFS+:

In spinning disks, APFS is noticably slower, especially if you work with many (100,000s) files across all your shared volumes in a partition. That's because APFS spreads its catalog (directory) for all the volumes into TWO "files", causing a lot more seek operations than HFS+ does.

If you want to have project-specific volumes, you could, instead of using APFS vols, store them in sparse disk image files (in HFS+ format) that you then mount as needed. Would also make it easier to create full backups because you can simply copy the entire image file.

Regarding encryption, the APFS format provides for separate encryption keys per volume, so that should work (and if not, then again using individually encrypted img files may be the solution).

APFS has a few advantages over HFS+, but speed is not one of them.

About using USB 3 with SDDs:

Be aware that SSDs connected via USB do not get TRIM calls from macOS - only direct SATA and Thunderbolt connections can do TRIM. This may reduce the performance of your SSD over time, especially if the SSD is rather full all all the time, and you delete and replace a lot of data on it. Whether this has a significant impact is hard to say, though. Yet, TRIM has a reason, and I don't believe it's become obsolete as an SSD can't figure out on its own which blocks can be recycled, at least not with APFS formatted disks.

 

[bob_stan]

Just received my J2i, the my Mac Pro will arrive later today. In reviewing the documentation, it says it includes 2 screws for installing the bracket in the Mac Pro. I have searched all the packing materials carefully and there are no screws. Are they really supplied with the unit?

 

[bxs]

About APFS vs. HFS+:

In spinning disks, APFS is noticably slower, especially if you work with many (100,000s) files across all your shared volumes in a partition. That's because APFS spreads its catalog (directory) for all the volumes into TWO "files", causing a lot more seek operations than HFS+ does.

If you want to have project-specific volumes, you could, instead of using APFS vols, store them in sparse disk image files (in HFS+ format) that you then mount as needed. Would also make it easier to create full backups because you can simply copy the entire image file.

Regarding encryption, the APFS format provides for separate encryption keys per volume, so that should work (and if not, then again using individually encrypted img files may be the solution).

APFS has a few advantages over HFS+, but speed is not one of them.

About using USB 3 with SDDs:

Be aware that SSDs connected via USB do not get TRIM calls from macOS - only direct SATA and Thunderbolt connections can do TRIM. This may reduce the performance of your SSD over time, especially if the SSD is rather full all all the time, and you delete and replace a lot of data on it. Whether this has a significant impact is hard to say, though. Yet, TRIM has a reason, and I don't believe it's become obsolete as an SSD can't figure out on its own which blocks can be recycled, at least not with APFS formatted disks.

Thanks for your information...

I disagree about APFS being noticeably slower than HFS+. There are some cases that do show this, but for the typical data access use this is negligible - see evidence here -> https://bombich.com/blog/2019/09/12/analysis-apfs-enumeration-performance-on-rotational-hard-drives

Quote from this blog
"
How does this performance affect me directly?
Typically when you're using a filesystem, you're not attempting to enumerate the whole thing. Enumeration occurs when you're looking for something (not via Spotlight, but browsing through folders), and it occurs with gusto when you open up the Get Info panel on a folder. So when you're trying to see how large a folder is or browsing through several folders, that's going to take a lot longer on an APFS volume atop rotational media than it is on an HFS+ volume on the same hardware.

The other time that the performance difference will be starkly noticeable is when you're booting macOS from a rotational HDD. macOS seeks and stats thousands of files during the startup process, and if that's taking 15 times longer on a rotational disk, then your 30-second startup process is going to turn into 8 minutes. When the system does finally boot, the system and apps will still feel sluggish as all of your applications load, and those applications each stat hundreds of files. The system is still usable, especially as a rescue backup device, but it's not the kind of experience you'd want for a production startup disk nor for a high-stress restore scenario.

The bottom line is this — If Apple doesn't make some concessions in the APFS filesystem to accommodate the slower seek performance of HDD devices, then a rotational device will never be able to provide acceptable performance as a production macOS startup disk. If performance of your rescue backup is of paramount importance, then you should consider replacing your HDD backup disk with an SSD. We offer some suggestions here.

Does this mean I should avoid using APFS on my HDDs?
No, let's not throw out the baby with the bath water. APFS has loads of really nice features, like snapshots and volume space sharing. Managing volumes within an APFS container is a dream compared to the older method of preallocating space to specific partitions. It's important to understand why we might expect to see performance differences between the two filesystems and when that might impact your use of the filesystem, but this one performance aspect on its own isn't enough reason to avoid it."

I've been using APFS for some time now, and like its features above what HFS+ provides. The APFS feature set trumps whatever reduction in performance might result. If I want i/o performance I'll use the MP7,1's internal SSD or a PCIe card with SSD and of course data to/from RAM (kernel buffer cache).

My use of APFS on my Promise Pegasus J2i's disk(s) is for bulk data. When I need data from this device it will be staged to a faster i/o device such as PCIe SSD, Internal SSD or Kernel buffer cache in RAM and then accessed from there.

 

[mac65]

The bombich article is not evidence, it's a use case

I've done my own tests, here: http://blog.tempel.org/2019/04/dir-read-performance.html - APFS directory scanning is several times slower than on HFS+, which you will mostly notice when searching for files. Though, with Spotlight fully enabled, this may indeed not be an issue.

And if you use APFS for bulk data, and not for having millions of files across all shared volumes on the HDD, you're right, then it is probably also not a big issue.

There are others who have complained that booting from a APFS formatted HDD, e.g. on Catalina, has made their computer feel very slow, though. That's because of the reasons I explained - lots of seeking for lots of files, all the time.

 

[bxs]

Just received my J2i, the my Mac Pro will arrive later today. In reviewing the documentation, it says it includes 2 screws for installing the bracket in the Mac Pro. I have searched all the packing materials carefully and there are no screws. Are they really supplied with the unit?

They are already inserted into the

The bombich article is not evidence, it's a use case

I've done my own tests, here: http://blog.tempel.org/2019/04/dir-read-performance.html - APFS directory scanning is several times slower than on HFS+, which you will mostly notice when searching for files. Though, with Spotlight fully enabled, this may indeed not be an issue.

And if you use APFS for bulk data, and not for having millions of files across all shared volumes on the HDD, you're right, then it is probably also not a big issue.

Fair enough.... 👍

As I stated, the small amount of performance lost using APFS (as your blog states) is trumped by the APFS feature set compared to what HFS+ offers.

The amount of time I process data is after it's been read from disks/SSDs and sits in RAM. RAM and processor cache provides the best i/o performance and is not tied to any file system structure. In my case, data from the disk(s)/SSD(s) is read once and then when its been transferred to RAM or processor cache it's churned on for very long times. I do Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) computations, that are cpu, core, and memory intensive, although the CFD code will periodically spit out checkpoint files permanent storage to protect against hardware crashes or system misbehavior in some weird way.

 

[bxs]

Just received my J2i, the my Mac Pro will arrive later today. In reviewing the documentation, it says it includes 2 screws for installing the bracket in the Mac Pro. I have searched all the packing materials carefully and there are no screws. Are they really supplied with the unit?

I agree. When receiving my J2i the other day I tried to find those screws as well, and of course like you, didn't find them. Upon reviewing the J2i installation documentation I've decided the screws that are referred to are ones already sitting in the MP7,1's upper horizontal frame.

I grabbed a screen shot from the iFixit MP7,1 tear down and added red arrows. One arrow shows one of the screws you're wanting to find, and the other 3 arrows point to the studs the J2i slides onto and then needs to be slid to the right for securing the J2i bracket. The two upper screws presumably need to be removed and then reinserted once the J2i bracket has been installed.

 

[bob_stan]

Thanks that clears it up. Meanwhile watching the UPS truck with my Mac Pro via their tracking app wander to and from across my area, carefully avoiding my street. 😃😃

 

[bxs]

Thanks that clears it up. Meanwhile watching the UPS truck with my Mac Pro via their tracking app wander to and from across my area, carefully avoiding my street. 😃😃

When you get over your excitement and install your J2i please run a few i/o tests to measure the J2i's 8TB Toshiba's read/write rates.

 

[Onelifenofear]

So Am i the only one that doesn’t understand why this doesn’t have like 6 M2 slots. I understand the boot ssd needs to be linked to the T2 chip but lack of direct connection for drives seems to be a weird chink in the Mac Pro. Even the 2012 had 4!?!

My PC mobo has 6 SATA connectors and 3 m.2 ( though you do lose 2 SATA ports if you use them all )

how can I create a decent SSD speed data pool?

 

[bxs]

So Am i the only one that doesn’t understand why this doesn’t have like 6 M2 slots. I understand the boot ssd needs to be linked to the T2 chip but lack of direct connection for drives seems to be a weird chink in the Mac Pro. Even the 2012 had 4!?!

My PC mobo has 6 SATA connectors and 3 m.2 ( though you do lose 2 SATA ports if you use them all )

how can I create a decent SSD speed data pool?

If you're referring to the Promise 2Ji component, then Apple only provides two SATA data ports and one power point for the cable that is included with the 2Ji. This cable can then connect to two SATA drives in the 2Ji. These disk devices will be discovered by the system and once formatted will show up in the Finder sidebar's "Locations" list or by the Disk Utility. The disk devices that can be placed in the 2Ji can either be spinning disks, SATA SSDs (such OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G) or a combination of one spinning disk and one SATA SSD. If using 2.5" SSDs then a 3.5"-to-2.5" sled/tray will be required and installed along with its 2.5" SSD into the 2Ji. There are sleds/trays that can hold 2x 2.5" SATA SSDs. I've purchased one for $7 and it works perfectly installed in the 2Ji. See https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016498CK0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07P7FP488/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1. You just have to make sure the 2.5" SSD power/data pin-outs protrude out of the sled/tray far enough so that the cable that comes with the 2Ji can connect securely to the pin-outs.

There should be no issue booting from a 2Ji spinning disk or an SSD formatted as APFS, so long as the MP7,1 has been configured to allow booting from external devices. I use "external" even though the 2Ji is internal in the sense it's inside the casing and attached internally... and it could be that if the system does treat the 2Ji's disks as internal it should allow booting from the 2Ji without going the path for configuring the system to allow booting from an external device. I say this as I cannot test this until I receive my MP7,1, which is a month away.

Alternatively, you could create an "SSD speed data pool" using a TB3 equipped casing that holds SSDs and have them striped. Also consider using something like the OWC Accelsior 4M2 PCIe M.2 NVMe SSD card that is available in 1, 2, 4 and 8TB sizes. Mind you, the 8TB model will set you back some 1,250 for the privilege of having 8TB that can deliver (OWC claims) some 6GB/sec with RAID-0for your "SSD speed data pool". Using SoftRAID the Accelsior can be reconfigured to allow booting from one of its blades and formatted as APFS, leaving the other blades setup as RAID-0 or even RAID-5.

Good luck.

 

[joevt]

So Am i the only one that doesn’t understand why this doesn’t have like 6 M2 slots. I understand the boot ssd needs to be linked to the T2 chip but lack of direct connection for drives seems to be a weird chink in the Mac Pro. Even the 2012 had 4!?!

My PC mobo has 6 SATA connectors and 3 m.2 ( though you do lose 2 SATA ports if you use them all )

how can I create a decent SSD speed data pool?

M.2 slots require PCIe lanes (4 each). SATA ports also take PCIe lanes (1 each). Apple gives you a choice of what to do with the PCIe lanes. If you want M.2 slots or SATA ports, add a M.2 PCIe card or a SATA card. If you don't, add a different PCIe card. Everyone wins (and everyone pays).

 

[AidenShaw]

Now have to await my MP7,1 delivery Jan 30 - Feb 5, 2020, and find another 8 TB Toshiba.

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[bwinter88]

Can someone tell me...

What the heck is this thing?

 

[bxs]

Can someone tell me...

What the heck is this thing?
View attachment 884583

Read the instructions.... It's for holding the unused disk cable's end if you only have one HDD. If you add a 2nd HDD then this holder needs to be removed. The side screw holds it in position, so unscrew it before adding the 2nd HDD.

 

[davidec]

Im surprised no one mentioned you need a torx screwdriver to remove the little cover on the Mac Pro housing to fit and secure the j2I in place. Maybe in the states it’s assumed everyone has a torx..?

 

[bxs]

Im surprised no one mentioned you need a torx screwdriver to remove the little cover on the Mac Pro housing to fit and secure the j2I in place. Maybe in the states it’s assumed everyone has a torx..?

Yes I agree. I've not seen anywhere where this is mentioned, and have wondered about this aspect. I'm assuming the screws for securing the J2i's upper lip to the casing are long enough for this purpose.

 

[bwinter88]

Read the instructions.... It's for holding the unused disk cable's end if you only have one HDD. If you add a 2nd HDD then this holder needs to be removed. The side screw holds it in position, so unscrew it before adding the 2nd HDD.

I don’t have one myself so I don’t have the manual. I just saw the image from the original post and was curious. Thanks for the answer.

 

[Rico]

Greetings OP, any chance you could take and post a really good, clear image of the 10-pin power connector of the J2i's included power/SATA cable set? Super interested to see if I can find a standard part to grab that power for a homemade SSD bracket I'm planning for use with my RR840A and/or 7710; I'm hoping to avoid installing a 12v/5v adapter. Good news, though, for everyone: the 1/2, 3/4, and 5-8 power headers use mini-8 and mini-6 Molex connectors, so easy access to 150 watts/header, and no need to get gouged by paying $67 to Belkin for extra cables you might not need for whatever PCIe adapters require more power.

 

[bwinter88]

Greetings OP, any chance you could take and post a really good, clear image of the 10-pin power connector of the J2i's included power/SATA cable set? Super interested to see if I can find a standard part to grab that power for a homemade SSD bracket I'm planning for use with my RR840A and/or 7710; I'm hoping to avoid installing a 12v/5v adapter. Good news, though, for everyone: the 1/2, 3/4, and 5-8 power headers use mini-8 and mini-6 Molex connectors, so easy access to 150 watts/header, and no need to get gouged by paying $67 to Belkin for extra cables you might not need for whatever PCIe adapters require more power.

It’s a 10-pin micro-fit Molex connector. I’ve already built a few of these cables. PM me if you want one.

 

[Rico]

It’s a 10-pin micro-fit Molex connector. I’ve already built a few of these cables. PM me if you want one.

Awesome. If you're doing nice braided packages, you could save me some trouble. I'm going to need more SATA power points, though, for multiple 2.5" SSD hooked on my RR840A (thinking about maybe going with a 7710, instead); not really invested in the onboard SATA ports, save for maybe a single HDD. Is it Molex 206832-1001? Also, has anyone clocked the max watts on that port yet?

 

[bxs]

Images

 

[Rico]

Images

Thanks so much! Somewhat intriguing they chose a 10-pin connector for only eight active pins. Makes one wonder if there were plans scrapped, or plans for future options. I can’t wait to find out if the board supplies the remaining two pins with anything useful.

 

[bwinter88]

Awesome. If you're doing nice braided packages, you could save me some trouble. I'm going to need more SATA power points, though, for multiple 2.5" SSD hooked on my RR840A (thinking about maybe going with a 7710, instead); not really invested in the onboard SATA ports, save for maybe a single HDD. Is it Molex 206832-1001? Also, has anyone clocked the max watts on that port yet?

This is what I've made, just the 10-pin wired to a single SATA output so you can buy your own splitters to get what you need. The receptacle is Molex 043025-1000 No way to tell max watts other than overloading until you trip the polyfuse.

I posted this on another thread, but the pinout is essentially two rows of (GND)(12V)(GND)(5V)(GND) so the unused pins are just an extra set of ground pins. It could be that they planned to implement power sleep mode, but I've checked the voltages on these pins when the computer is asleep, and they aren't the requisite 3V to enable it, so I think they've just gone and ignored those pins.