MP 7,1 Will Apple cave on the 7,1 release?

[JayKay514]

There are no SSD slots on the Mac Pro. There are some Flash NAND daughter cards but those are NOT SSDs. There are no standard SSD slots on this Mac Pro.

Uh, the website shows two slots located towards the front of the chassis, next to the intake fans, and mentions that these are SSDs in at least two places. Where else is the storage going to be, without other visible internal mounting points? (Screengrabs below). It is a bit odd that the drawing shows them floating vertically and the other seems, more logically, to show them as SD-card-like slots where they would simply slot in without tools, but maybe that's just an art error.

Are they industry-standard M.2 SSDs? Probably not. But if it works like a disk and quacks like a disk, it's probably a disk.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Uh, the website shows two slots located towards the front of the chassis, next to the intake fans, and mentions that these are SSDs in at least two places. Where else is the storage going to be, without other visible internal mounting points? (Screengrabs below). It is a bit odd that the drawing shows them floating vertically and the other seems, more logically, to show them as SD-card-like slots where they would simply slot in without tools, but maybe that's just an art error.

Are they industry-standard M.2 SSDs? Probably not. But if it works like a disk and quacks like a disk, it's probably a disk.

View attachment 854790 View attachment 854791

Those are proprietry slots that are not M.2 slots. They are likely identitical to the proprieatry slots used in the iMac Pro and are tied down by the T2 chip. So far, no 3rd party has offered an option to plug into those slots. And I would suspect the way that apple ties into the T2 there, they will not encourage that, but I would love to be wrong. But the iMac pro is 2 years old and so far, you can only use apple original sticks.

There is room for 2 3.5" drives or how many 2.5" drives you could fit in that spot (likely at least 3 2.5" drives) using the Pegasus bracket that apple has left space for in the upper right hand portion of the motherboard. There are I think at least 2 sata connectors there into which you can plug.

The pegasus J2i bracket here:
https://www.promise.com/us/Promotion/PegasusStorage

That J2i bracket would mount on those mounting pegs on the motherboard I highlighed in red. The 2 sata ports and what I assume is a custom power connector are circled in purple.

Realistically, anyone that gets this machine will likely use a PCI SSD board that will provide far more speed and capacity than the sata ports or apple's dogey T2 hamstrung custom garbage SSD slots.

See here for a thread on some PCI options:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-nvme-card-for-2019-ncmp-7-1-mac-pro.2189591/

 

[deconstruct60]

Uh, the website shows two slots located towards the front of the chassis, ...
Are they industry-standard M.2 SSDs? Probably not. But if it works like a disk and quacks like a disk, it's probably a disk.

If looks like an iMac Pro NAND daughter card and quacks like an iMac Pro daughter card ( also hooked to the T2 chip with the SSD controller 'brains' in it.) , it is probably a NAND daughter card.

If you look carefully at the page you did a screen shot of, Apple specifically calls these 'modules' not 'drives' , 'storage', or 'SSDs'.


iMac Pro 2017 teardown step 8 [ OK not exact twins. The picture on Mac Pro page looks like these have slicker 'black' heat sinks , but essentially the same thing. More pictures on teardown site.] .

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+Pro+Teardown/101807

There is another picture with the heat sinks off and there isn't a chip large enough to be a top end SSD controller on the card. So it is a 'brainless' card. There is a chip that is probably a buffer communications chip between the modified PCI-e standard connection and the NAND chips. The T2 is more than an inch or so away so the T2 signal probably needs a slight tweak and some of the NAND overhead handled.


The T2 has a SSD controller logic inside of it. All it needs is NAND chips to 'talk' to complete the implementation of a full SSD. Apple probably has lifted the exact same design as the iMac Pro. Same upper cap of 4TB. The daughter cards don't have an SSD controller chip on them so they are not an SSD.

Third party solutions are not likely because SSD controllers are typically quite picky which NAND chips they are coupled do for a specific SSD controller firmware they are coupled to. There aren't many 3rd party solutions for sticking different NAND chipset inside of a Samsung SSD. Pragmatically same issue here.

The two cards allows Apple to get to 8 NAND chips and to 4TB capacity target without bleeding edge NAND chips ( that didn't particularly exist in 2017 anyway).

If there is a NAND failure then you won't need a whole new motherboard ( like most other Apple T2 implementations.). Also can decommission these discrete NAND systems at end of life (or end of life with some company) by just destroying the storage chips and not the whole logic board.

The quirky Mac Pro part is that the iMac Pro minimally comes with two 512GB NAND cards. The Mac Pro tosses in a "discount" 256GB card (and doesn't offer a 512GB pairing of that card). It would not be too surprising if next iMac Pro comes with a 512GB entry disk option if Apple gets large enough takers on this entry Mac Pro configuration.

The regular iMac may also eventually get this set up. Where not pressed for most minimal logic board space due to the enclosing container this has substantive upsides to soldering the whole SSD down while still effectively the same security profile bound to the specific T2 chip of the system.


P.S.
"... Uh, the website shows two slots located towards the front of the chassis, next to the intake fans, and mentions that these are SSDs in at least two places. ..."

The these NAND modules are not behind or 'next to' the fans. They are on the other side of the logic board from the fans (there is whole logic board between these and the fans) . These NAND modules are actually in front of the blower on the "back"/"bottom" side of the logic board with the RAM ( and reverse side under CPU). The blower actually pulls air through the system and blows out the back. There is an animation here https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/design/ about "fan side" and "blower side".

Splitting up the up to eight NAND chips incrementally helps with cooling too.

 

[JayKay514]

If you look carefully at the page you did a screen shot of, Apple specifically calls these 'modules' not 'drives' , 'storage', or 'SSDs'.

Uh, what is the bold ‘SSD’ text doing there in the title, then?

But thanks for clarifying what was different about these modules. They look very like the ones from the cylinder Mac Pro, but I wasn’t aware they were missing controller chips.

It is unfortunate that there is no standards body to regulate the use of the term, because it may mislead people into thinking they could use an off-the-shelf M.2 style unit.

The these NAND modules are not behind or 'next to' the fans.

When you take the case off and look at it from the front, there are three big fans stacked top to bottom, and these “NAND slots” are accessible immediately to their left. Most humans would call that “next to.” I was also referring to the side view grey diagram from the Apple site that I attached earlier, which seems to show the cards oriented vertically and out of position, which seems like an art error.

But this photo seems to clearly suggest these two slots on the front are for the cards, given the layout, how they align, and how they’re sized.

 

[sirio76]

In the spare time I'm building a 3D model of the 7.1 including internal and PCB components(where possible). It's fairly accurate and during my research for references I've seen the position of the two SSD on the motherboard and it match exactly the first image in your post #126.
The image above shows wrong size and position, here is where they are(I've put them out of the case):

As a side note, during the building of the model I understand many thing about the 7.1 design, and while it will be very good for both airflow, noise and accessibility in general, I do not think that the two Flash module are conceived to be easily replaceable by user, I mean you can definitely do that but it's not plug and play like RAM, PCIe cards and CPU. The two holes next to the front fans are just for cooling, no way you will be able to insert the drives from there.
I guess Apple is just providing a basic option for a secure boot drive but they know that most people will just go for a standard PCIe storage that can provide far better performance for less cost.
I've almost finished so if you have any question about the internal layout just ask.

 

[theluggage]

The rack version probably won't be weaved into "big video render" farms at all. A bigger use case than that is being put on a cart with storage and other boxes in about 1/4 or 1/2 rack size. The "lights out" isn't a huge deal most of the time there. Dual power. Not really. Alot o the 'holy priest' can only enter the inner sanctum data center stuff doesn't really fly quite so high.

That was really my point when I first raised the "rackmount" issue (which was in response to someone mentioning 'farms' as a justification for some feature or other) - the option is going to be great if you want your Mac Pro workstation to live in rack alongside your video/audio hardware, but its not going to turn a workstation into a high-density computing module, where features like "lights out" may be an issue.

In any case, "single Xeon-W + lots of slots" is not necessarily what you'd choose for every possible job - as several people have pointed out, AMD is better for some things, Xeon for other, then there are multiple models of each, with server- and workstation- optimised AMDs, plus the 'scalable' Xeon range if you want multiple Xeons, blade servers, GPU farms... Going with a Mac involves a huge loss of choice and a price premium for the sake of being able to run MacOS - an OS mainly loved for its graphical user interface.

Lots of people here have defended the price of the MP with arguments along the lines of "this is for pro users who need the highest possible performance and will pay whatever it takes for the right tool for the job" - which is fine except the job for which the MP is the best tool is running FCPx, Logic Pro and a few other "pro" applications that don't have viable Windows or Linux versions (..."yet" in the case of the third-party ones). Certainly, for any job that can be accelerated or farmed off to a server/render farm , 'whatever it takes' will buy a lot more power in the form of generic hardware, and there's a danger that users will transition to software suites that run on that hardware.

There's certainly a role for a "Swiss army knife" Mac, that is flexible enough to take on everything, but it will always be 'jack of all trades - master of none' and I fear that Apple have priced themselves out of a large part of that market.

 

[JayKay514]

In the spare time I'm building a 3D model of the 7.1 including internal and PCB components(where possible). It's fairly accurate and during my research for references I've seen the position of the two SSD on the motherboard and it match exactly the first image in your post #126.
The image above shows wrong size and position, here is where they are(I've put them out of the case):
...
I've almost finished so if you have any question about the internal layout just ask.
View attachment 854868

Ah! Well, there is Apple's marketing materials making things clear as mud. From a design perspective, it's very misleading to show things grouped in a way that suggests they work / fit together in a way they don't - it's the grouping principle in gestalt theory. Thank you for the clarification, and apologies to @deconstruct60 for not understanding what they were trying to communicate.

May I ask, what source are you using for this information? Do you have access to an actual unit or repair guides? I believe you're correct, but I haven't seen anything that would provide clarity on where the "SSDs" actually go and if they're easily user-replaceable.

I do have one question, on the 'blower' side of the motherboard, what's under that panel with the two slide latches? Is that for threading SATA cables or something?

 

[sirio76]

I've used mostly photographic reference founded online. On the Apple site there are many high res pictures, there are still a few parts missing like the SSD position, the only source where I've seen them is a single frame from a video.
The two slide latches are most likely for releasing the RAM covers(I'm still modeling some details for the RAM slots).

 

[goMac]

That was really my point when I first raised the "rackmount" issue (which was in response to someone mentioning 'farms' as a justification for some feature or other) - the option is going to be great if you want your Mac Pro workstation to live in rack alongside your video/audio hardware, but its not going to turn a workstation into a high-density computing module, where features like "lights out" may be an issue.

I could see the rack mount option being popular in developer network server or Mac virtualization circles. Minis are fine, but they have a power ceiling. Especially if you have the money, a rack of Mac Pros could be a more efficient solution than Minis.

Apple will probably use a lot of rack mount Pros internally.

I've heard ESX won't run on T2 hardware though, so that might be a problem.

 

[AidenShaw]

I could see the rack mount option being popular in developer network server or Mac virtualization circles. Minis are fine, but they have a power ceiling. Especially if you have the money, a rack of Mac Pros could be a more efficient solution than Minis.

Apple will probably use a lot of rack mount Pros internally.

I've heard ESX won't run on T2 hardware though, so that might be a problem.

Our corporate IT runs OSX virtualized systems for dev and QA of OSX products.

We've recently ordered a bunch (high 6 figures) of trash cans and the Sonnet rackmount kits. http://www.sonnettech.com/product/rackmacpro.html

This large order was driven by concerns over the T2 chip not working with VMware.

 

[deconstruct60]

I could see the rack mount option being popular in developer network server or Mac virtualization circles. Minis are fine, but they have a power ceiling. Especially if you have the money, a rack of Mac Pros could be a more efficient solution than Minis.

Apple will probably use a lot of rack mount Pros internally.

Macstadium/minicoloc has had lots of Mac Pro running also for diverse dev groups . They have two virtualization solutions


https://www.macstadium.com/virtualization-options ( VMware and Anka )


Apple will prick use mini and MPs in various sized farms but collective of iOS and macOS developers have similar scale build and QA regression needs .

I've heard ESX won't run on T2 hardware though, so that might be a problem.

It would need some customization and help from Apple . It is hobbled a bit . Anka side steps this but running more of a paravirtualized ‘containers’ on top of macOS .

https://veertu.com/t2-in-new-mac-ha...n-virtualizing-and-running-macos-role-of-smc/

“...T2 chip in new Mac hardware not only acts as a gatekeeper during the boot process, but also prevents unauthorized access to internal SSD and Thunderbolt ports. ... ... The workaround would be to use USB or network attached storage which is slow, not scalable and unreliable. More on this in our next blog. .. “

If the new Mac Pro’s doesn’t gatekeeper a PCIe SSD card there is another workaround without a big performance hit . If it does then in same ‘hole’ as mini. If almost entirely bypassing the T2 SSD then that one module , 256 GB option makes more sense . Install macOS for non hypervisor maintence mode . The rest of time boot off of 3rd party drive running ESXi .

Similarly, if just using a minimal macOS instance to run Anka and load VM images from other drives then 256 GB is probably plenty . This “host” OS only has to primarily run just one small app . And that app does the big work.

p.s. poking around it appears ESXi early on doesn’t ‘like’ the 10GbE controllers Apple likes ( Aquantia ) . So VMware box would need some other classic data center cards for 10GbE . But over time the ddruvers came .
http://francisaugusto.com/2019/ESXi-on-the-2018-Mac-Mini-networking/

 

[Flint Ironstag]

Our corporate IT runs OSX virtualized systems for dev and QA of OSX products.

We've recently ordered a bunch (high 6 figures) of trash cans and the Sonnet rackmount kits. http://www.sonnettech.com/product/rackmacpro.html

This large order was driven by concerns over the T2 chip not working with VMware.

And no delays in filling the order? I understand they're still cranking them out at a brisk pace.

 

[deconstruct60]

If folks have an iPhone or iPad , there are two 3D , Augmented Reality, interactive models on the Mac Pro's design page. Those are worth going through and the text and images on the design page. Those links show up better on that page when viewing with Safari on an iPad or iPhone. ( there is a note about this at the bottom of the design page. ). One has the cover on. The other the cover off.

...
When you take the case off and look at it from the front, there are three big fans stacked top to bottom, and these “NAND slots” are accessible immediately to their left.

Those aren't "slots" as much as they are air intake vents ( admittedly layered under the aluminum intake vents of the case). The air flow inside the Mac Pro is channeled in several ways. Those SSD cooling intake vents are one of those ways (paths) of air flow. There is nothing you insert into those two holes other than Air. No modules go "in" through those holes at all.

Most humans would call that “next to.” I was also referring to the side view grey diagram from the Apple site that I attached earlier, which seems to show the cards oriented vertically and out of position, which seems like an art error.

I all you look at is the elephant's trunk some make think it is a snake.

The whole system is a 3D object. One needs to put all the dimensions into context. One of the major features here is that the two sides of the logic board are in two major thermal zones and have different air flow. Without taking that into context, overlaying generic 80's style cooling aproaches on what "seeing" is going to be way off.

But this photo seems to clearly suggest these two slots on the front are for the cards, given the layout, how they align, and how they’re sized.

View attachment 854856

Those drive modules on the left are not at the same scale as the coverless systems on the right. It is only trying to show the SSD itself is modularized. Some folks were grumbling and rumormongering for years that Apple was going to completely solder down the SSD inside the next Mac Pro. That picture is primarily to bust that bubble. The "brains" of the SSD is soldered down but that is the classic solid state part (just plain circuits ). The NAND part (that wears with write usage) is not. It is module; just not a commodity module. ( more than a few folks wanted commodities not really modularization. )



With an iPhone/iPad in the AR mode, If you dzoom in then you'll see that these are air intakes and not "insertion" slots. The socket for the module is tangent to the intake ( so no insertion involved. ) Can't remove the airlflow covers, but I suspect the T2 is mounted to the logic board within several inches of those sockets holding the NAND modules. That airflow is probably for iit to.

The two banks of RAM DIMMs get their own channeled air flow. And those two are pulled over the "underside" of the CPU mount point too (that too will probably run warmer. ).
[doublepost=1566999375][/doublepost]

I've used mostly photographic reference founded online. On the Apple site there are many high res pictures, there are still a few parts missing like the SSD position, the only source where I've seen them is a single frame from a video.

Apple has built a 3D, Augmented Reality (AR) model of the Mac Pro. It is right on the Mac Pro's design page. You need an iPhone or iPad ( or modern iPod Touch) to see it, but it is already there.