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MP 7,1 Will Apple upgrade the 256 GB boot drive?
- Thread starter Moof1904
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As a prospective buyer I would never consider such a system unless it had the original internal drive with it. I can't replace it and Apple won't replace it. So such a system without the internal SSD is essentially parts. That's BS.
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That appears to be the case.
Apple is required by warrantee law to fix failed parts within a certain timeframe after initial sale. Their own warranty coverage is minimum 1 year window. It isn't really a question of whether they'd fix a fail drive only several weeks after they first started shipping the product. Every single Mac Pro 2019 out there right now is covered under initial sale warranty. So not providing the "replace and fix" service isn't even an option.
Apple also already has an "ooops I made a mistake when I ordered " policy and mechanisms in place in general for all of there products. It is a like taking a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, but if Apple wants to eat those shipping costs overages at Mac Pro weights they do have money to throw away just so they can adhere to rigid dogma. [ This is a another inattention to detail incidence for Apple. Or yet another reason they have padded the margin on this product more than usual. ]
So an SSD with 4-5 years of modest to heavy wear on this is worth more than a new SSD with no wear. That those two are likely going to end up with the longer operational service lifetime being the drive that starts out with 4-5 in than the brand new one? Yeah, there is some BS here.
I can guess at where this dogma from the myopic rule of thumb comes from. Having an Apple labeled drive just removes the blame game factor on from the drive as being a potential source of the problem in an Apple Care coverage context. But for Mac Pro the only drive present is an Apple drive.
Similar scenario where someone slides in a even older drive as a substitute in a used system sale. (buying a 2015 system so the drive can't be older than 2015 if came with the original). The core issue there is some shady middleman doing the update.
If Apple audits all of the disk change ( disk XXX was changed by authorized agent Y into system ZZZ ) then the whole update chain is far more secure. If the audited swaps are always to new , non refurbished drives than would always be moving forward.
That would actually address the real root cause elements of that general avoidance dogma.
Apple could aid in alleviating that if they would attach extended warrantee to each audited pairing they (or certified agents) did. If it is basically a new factory install then providing new factory warrantee coverage shouldn't be a problem for them. And the extended coverage would be a visible value add for the buyer.
When the NAND chips are swapped the metadata about wear of the new module can't be passed to the T2's SSD controller. It is highly likely that will lead to a flawed wear heuristics for the NAND blame because the data is incomplete and inaccurate. Folks trying to stuff worn NAND blades/modules into systems are going to generate more bad outcomes. No way going to throw away metadata and get better outcomes than using accurate data.
All the data on the NAND modules is encrypted. How do you read the UUID when it is already encrypted? The systems that have unencrypted data onto subsections of the drive all expose an additional attack vector. If there is no way to coherently write to the drive from an extern system then have basically eliminated a significant chunk of man-in-the-middle attack vectors. Thereby end up more secure.
The randomly try keys from data read from a fixed location of a just big enough for a UUID data to reside in section of the drive. Errr, that isn't particularly secure. If the UUID ever gets discovered then the key's security is diminished.
I don't recall ever stating (or even implying) that's the case. The problem is one cannot get a new internal SSD for the 2019 Mac Pro. That's what's BS.
It simply doesn't work like that. Having the UUID on the drive does not affect the security of the encryption scheme or key at all. The UUID is just a reference for the T2 chip to know which key it has stored within itself to use for decrypting that drives data.
The T2 could even use the serial numbers of the drive as a UUID if it wanted, it won't diminish security because the T2 is never giving up its key, it's only reading data from the drive and decrypting it before handing it to the CPU in the system. The UUID is just a randomly generated ID for tracking, it reveals zero about the encryption key or the encryption method.
The key itself is thus never given and never in danger.
I know it may be hard to accept but I work in this stuff. I spent years working on platform security for network attached storage systems where we delivered secure encrypted drive support, secure booting with firmware signing, encrypted virtual machine support, expansion bays with key pairing for security (to stop counterfeit units working with our base systems etc).
I can tell you without doubt the way Apple has done it does not increase security, it increases their ease of porting iPhone security methods (secure enclave, secure booting etc) to the Mac with minimal effort. And in a way you could argue this makes it less secure because you'll likely end up having to add your own storage (PCIe card or SATA drives) to gain more internal storage space and you will not benefit from the encryption offered by the T2 when you do so instead relying on File Vault.
Nope. Most companies put their computers on a 3 year cycle, and thus they have usable value at the end of the life which is significant and recovered. Many companies lease these computers and the lessor takes into account this residual value. Government organizations, like schools, are mandated by law to recover as much value as possible. They do not scrap them, or write them down to zero.
If you want to know where corporate PCs end up, go check Woot and TigerDirect. As mentioned by @defjam those are in 100% working condition.
I just wonder: can the Apple ssd be formatted by the user and/or separated into partitions? Or are there any kind of restrictions?
Exactly!! This security need is total BS. There should be the option on the SSD/NAND purchased with the $8K+ computer to replace/mirror/configure...and if one is not capable they can take to Apple Service.
Exactly!! This security need is total BS. There should be the option on the SSD/NAND purchased with the $8K+ computer to replace/mirror/configure...and if one is not capable they can take to Apple Service.
I agree but I’ve decided to look at the Apple t2 drive as glorified PRam and an emergency kick disk.
It’s whyi got a pci card that can drive 4 u.2 nvme drives. I attached a 15.36tb micron 9300 pro sdd (about $2500) to the $400 high point 7120. Its faster than the Apple drive. Wayyyyyyyyy more storage for way less money and none of the problems associated with the t2.
Samsung gives a 10 years warranty on their SSDs. So it's reasonable to expect that the internal SSD need to be changed after about 8 years. At least when Apple stopps support for them or the T2 chip.
Kind of stupid to use a proprietary SSD as firmaware and bootdrive. Or do I miss here anything? Any additional information would be appreciated.
What kind of SSD is Apple using? (https://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/storage-hardware/nand-flash-memory.html)
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On their website they only say if you need to replace them. I'd say you can just upgrade them. But it would be interesting to know if the old SSD still could be used afterwards, as backup drive for example.
Kind of stupid to use a proprietary SSD as firmaware and bootdrive. Or do I miss here anything? Any additional information would be appreciated.
What kind of SSD is Apple using? (https://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/storage-hardware/nand-flash-memory.html)
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On their website they only say if you need to replace them. I'd say you can just upgrade them. But it would be interesting to know if the old SSD still could be used afterwards, as backup drive for example.
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Apple has essentially designed their own SSD by breaking it out into 3 separate components instead of as one stick. The two cards that are present in the Mac Pro and iMac Pro are just banks of NAND flash memory chips (Likely from SK Hynix, Samsung, Toshiba or Micron).
Usually the SSD contains the controller that manages this NAND and interacts with the computer over a bus like SATA or PCIe. It would appear instead these two NAND banks talk directly to the T2 chip over some custom interconnect. The T2 of course is on the motherboard and not on either of the "flash cards" in the Mac Pro.
The flash memory Apple is using is likely MLC based (2 bits per cell) for high reliability and performance. They've used that on all their prior Mac systems so I doubt they would change it now.
Yes. The T2 will present to macOS a normal looking drive abstracting away all the necessary stuff it's doing with the drive like storing firmware, encrypting and decrypting of data and so forth.
For the user, is a normal drive. You can't access it directly as a T2 storage and mess with the internal/private volumes. T2 presents it to you as a drive and abstracts everything, like the bank splits for Mac Pros with 512GB or more and the management of the internal volumes.
If you used a 2017 iMac Pro, 2018 MacBook Pro/Air/Mac mini, you already used T2 storage.
Thanks a lot for clarifying this.
The 1TB drive is said to be a 2x512GB Raid. Is that some kind of fusion drive to gain speed and drive space?
The 1TB drive is said to be a 2x512GB Raid. Is that some kind of fusion drive to gain speed and drive space?
Fusion is the marketing name for CoreStorage, T2 storage when you have two NAND banks is lower level than that, more like a RAID-0. See the difference of write speeds between the 256GB and the bigger ones.
So there is some kind of read/write raid-cacheing on T2 level with these two drives?
There is cache on the controller itself, but works the same if you have 256 or 512GB+, buffers on the NAND modules. AFAIK, Apple never explained how the split for dual modules is organised, but since the write speeds are greater with Mac Pros that have dual NAND modules, the controller probably use both NAND banks simultaneously. Someone with access to a NAND bank probably could check how many data lines are available easily from the pinout.
With a iMac Pro it was very complicated to take a look at that, now with the easy of access that the Mac Pro have, probably someone curious enough will document that.
You can boot the new mac pro off almost any drive you want, say a 2tb 970 evo in a slot, or even a spinner like a 4tb seagate barracuda if you like Just not a raid array....
Just not a raid array....
It's more subtle and complicated than that. You can boot from a RAID array that presents itself as just one disk and don't depend on drivers, like a hardware RAID controller that abstracts the drives and present just one disk to macOS. Some SATA3 RAID controllers work like that. T2 does the same abstraction too.You can boot the new mac pro off almost any drive you want, say a 2tb 970 evo in a slot, or even a spinner like a 4tb seagate barracuda if you like
Other than that, since Apple did not yet implemented APFS for RAID volumes, if you really want boot from RAID, you can hack it. It's a complicated process to do and a headache to apply macOS updates, but people are doing it. I did it when I got the SSD7101A-1, but it's not something I'd do today, I don't want the software updates headache.
thats pretty much in line with how i feel, its not worth it ... boot speeds from a single pcie ssd, even in a 5,1 are fine, and i imagine with a 7,1 they are better.
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