Sonnet has J3i and can mount 3 drives, but Promise J2i only has 2 drives. Sonnet told me Mac Pro has 3 connectors. So why did Promise only make a 2 drive capable unit? Curious.
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MP 7,1 What are Mac Pro 2019 owners using for storage?
- Thread starter Keith Rondinelli
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Because Sonnet isn't being completely true. The Mac only has 2 SATA connections internally, along with a USB type A. Promise stuck with the SATA connections, while Sonnet decided to add a USB<-->SATA connection to theirs. It's a hack.
Interesting. So technically it's a workaround. So would USB to SATA connection lower transfer speed or anything, or is it because USB connection is faster nowadays than SATA3 it's doable?
Gotcha, but I do agree that 2.5" SSD's can reach that amount easily, so maybe it's better to put it under SATA on Sonnet J3i.
get a promise vtrak 16 or 24 bay sas enclosure for 1000€ of ebay, buy an areca 1882 also on ebay for 300€ setup a raid 60 array and enjoy more than 40Tb of pure and true entreprise grade sas raid reliability at 1800mb/s R/W all day long for 1300$... and call it a day. SSD is super cool, but yet nothing can come even close to decomisioned entreprise grade SAS storage price/performance ratio.
it just use more electricity and make more noise. Other than that it is fast , large and very reliable.
it just use more electricity and make more noise. Other than that it is fast , large and very reliable.
The vtrak is similar in size to the Millennium Falcon console - all of the consoles in the cockpit.
true, I have the rack version of the 7.1 so I have bought a deep 10u fly-case on wheel with 19 » rackmount.
so the mac is on top and the promise on the botom.
all my pcie card have 2m extension cable that goes in the back panel of the flycase with molex connector.
I slide everything under my desk and call it a day. When the macpro run 24/24 it at full throttle it is noisy anyhow because of all the pci card fans. so having it in a flycase dampen the high pitch noise of the fans and ad a layer of filtration. And when i dont use the machine, I rent it.
to my knowledge there is no such thing as a silent « true redundant hotswap everything entreprise grade SAS storage » that is available.
We are getting very very close with anfeltec 6 ssd card, but it is still not redundant, not hotswapable.
This is why I still make money in the movie industry here with XSERVE : this is the only apple machine that can handle power outage on set with full redundancy and zero downtime.
sure you can have a macbook with usbc ssd, but at the end of the day having a true server is a peace of mind when you need to ingest 2-4 camera live and replay them thru sdi monitors on set.
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This guy is making MacPro SATA power cables. I haven't tried them, so I can't vouch for the work......
At the moment I have my external Promise tb3 RAID which is ok performance-wise and gives me 9TB of usable stoage. However the fans are quite loud and it also randomly wakes up and beeps - negating how silent the Mac Pro is.
I've been considering:
Sonnet Fusion Dual U.2 card + Micron 9300 Pro 7.68TB U.2 drive (eventually adding a second to run them in RAID 0)
and / or
Promise J2i (removing the stock HDD) + 2 X Samsung 2.5" 8TB SSD with adapters to fit the 3.5" bays.
Obviously the U.2 drives will be much faster, but if the Samsungs are fast enough for my needs, then I basically get double the storage for the same price.
I've been considering:
Sonnet Fusion Dual U.2 card + Micron 9300 Pro 7.68TB U.2 drive (eventually adding a second to run them in RAID 0)
and / or
Promise J2i (removing the stock HDD) + 2 X Samsung 2.5" 8TB SSD with adapters to fit the 3.5" bays.
Obviously the U.2 drives will be much faster, but if the Samsungs are fast enough for my needs, then I basically get double the storage for the same price.
i got the highpoint card with a 16tb u.2 here:
Mac Pro support for NVMe U2 Micron 9300 Pro 15.36TB U.2 Drive SSD?
So micron has come out with some really much more affordable high capacity SSDs recently. For example, if you are in the market for a 7.68 TB SATA based Drive, I’ve seen this drive for under $1000: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JQ2F2WG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1...
forums.macrumors.com
it’s been working great. The sonnet card looks like a tidier solution unless you need 4 u.2 drives.