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MP 7,1 Mac Pro 2019 NVME Raid drives failing to mount
- Thread starter LukeMacPro
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Since I was literally about to pull the trigger on a Sonnet dual M.2 card, and a pair of Samsung SSDs to be my boot drive*, this is of course concerning.
(*It should be noted that Apple isn't selling the 1TB SSD replacements any more - it's perpetually Sold Out, and 2TB, at almost double the price is the entrypoint.)
Could we get a clearer picture of the specific combinations that cause this issue?
(*It should be noted that Apple isn't selling the 1TB SSD replacements any more - it's perpetually Sold Out, and 2TB, at almost double the price is the entrypoint.)
Could we get a clearer picture of the specific combinations that cause this issue?
- Which OS Versions?
- Which PCI Cards?
- Which SSDs (Brand, Model)?
- RAID or JBOD?
- Are you booting off the PCI Card SSDs if JBOD?
- If you are booting from PCI Card, what happens in a fail situation - does it boot from a backup OS on the internal storage?
- *edit* Are you using FileVault?
- *edit* Which slot is it installed in?
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Seems not to be OS dependent; has happened for me intermittently on every OS version since Monterey (which is what the machine came with).
I am using a couple of simple PCI passthrough cards to mount mine. I have not tried the fancier cards, but from the sounds of it in this thread, the card doesn't seem to be a relevant factor.
I have tried Samsung, WD, and Kingston drives. A couple of different models of each of those, and various capacities from 512GB to 2TB. There doesn't seem to be a pattern there.
Happens both in RAID configuration, and with drives not in a RAID; when in RAID what will normally happen is that one of the drives will not mount, and so the entire RAID will fail to mount.
I have had this happen while I was booting off of a PCI drive. What happens in that case is that the machine takes a substantially longer time to start, and then boots to the internal drive. This is the reason I stopped trying to use the PCI drives as boot drives.
There's no in-place recovery from this. Once you're booted in this state, you're staying in this state. The drive is invisible, and does not appear in disk utility, so there's no way to get it mounted. The only way to recover is restart the machine. But, once the machine is started properly, the drives never randomly dismount either.
So the invisible PCI SSD is still in the pram as the startup volume, and when you reboot the system goes back to it?
So this is really weird, because I know we have folks on here with 7,1s booting from PCI NVME drives thst don't have these problems...
Anyone who isn't having problems, please chime in.
Luckily I'm not having this problem, but I do not have a RAID.
I have 4 drives each connected into separate channels.
(1) I have a U.2 NVME 15TB Micron 9300 Pro that boots, and (thankfully) never has not booted, off my 7,1 Mac Pro since I got it in 2019. It's also booted with 2 different controller cards (highpoint 7120 and 1580 cards).
(2) Furthermore, it can boot into a separate SATA connected SSD into windows.
(3) I barely use the throwaway built in SSD (only 256GB) for utility/recovery things).
(4) Lastly, there is also a spinner plugged into a SATA port that I use for time machine backups.
All drives seem to mount, knock wood, without issue.
That said, I have never used either of the Highpoint cards to create and mount a RAID, so perhaps that would change behaviors.
So folks with Sonnet cards... which slot is it installed in... I'm wondering the x8 slots are behind a PCI switch, and Sonnet's cards have a PCI bridge chip to allocate lanes between the SSDs... could that doubling up of lane negotiating infrastructure be the problem?
Is there anyone with a single SSD (as in only hosts 1) card exhibiting this behaviour?
I wonder if the Sonnet dual U.2 card has the same issues people are having their the M.2 cards now under Ventura+
Or, if the issues are specific to Sonnet, or just that Sonnet are over-subscribed in 7,1 users, by virtue of being Apple-centric.
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I recently purchased a new 2023 Mac Pro and I purchased 3 OWC 1M2 single NVMe PCIe adapters for it. Upon receiving the computer none of my 4TB WD 8500XT NVMe’s would show in Disk Utility in any of the 3 OWC PCIe adapters I had purchased in Slots 1 or 2.
The same drives showed up immediately when installed in an Insignia extended USB-C adapter so I formatted them that way and they still didn’t show up on the OWC card. I called OWC and they had no idea what the issue could be but interestingly enough the cards wouldn’t show up in the PCIe section of the system report but would show up as installed in the PCIe allocation section graphic (where you can adjust which pools each drive draws from)
So I just assumed the OWC adapters didn’t work and purchased two Sonnet 4X4 Silent cards. To be clear, I haven’t done anything with RAID and was just trying to get each drive to appear individually. Upon installing the Sonnet with 3 NVMe’s in it, it STILL didn’t show up in the 16X Slot 1 or Slot 2. So I called Apple support and they had me remove and reseat the HDMI/USB card in the tower and when I rebooted only one of the 3 NVMe’s showed up. So we reseated the Sonnet and it no longer showed anything. We tried various versions of re-seating the HDMI card and Sonnet and nothing worked so Apple made me an appt at the Apple Store with a technician.
They had the computer for 3 days and were able to get the Sonnet to mount in Slot6 (which is apparently some kind of “compatibility slot?) but couldn’t get it to mount in Slots 1 or 2. When they moved one of my older UAD2 cards to Slot1 it worked fine as well. The LESS than competent techs at this particular Apple Store advised me to come get the computer and call Tier2 tech support…who of course couldn’t figure out why the Apple Store employee had me take the computer back if it wasn’t fixed.
So I messed around with the M2 Tower some more and I was able to get Slot1 to recognize the OWC 1M2 card this time, as WELL as a Sonnet Card with only one NVMe in it. HOWEVER, when I installed the 3 NVMe’s back into the Sonnet…it no longer showed up in Slot1. I have taken the computer back to an Apple Certified Mac Technician that was recommended to me by a Senior Advisor (which only made sense to do because I can afford the downtime because I’m out of town for the holidays) but after FINALLY stumbling upon this thread, I’m pretty much convinced that my computer is functioning “normally” and that I will not be receiving a solution from Apple.
I still find it curious that the OWC 1M2 didn’t work initially upon receiving the computer, but I’m guessing the re-seating the HDMI/USB fixed whatever that issue was and those are reading correctly now.
All of this has been a VERY disappointing introduction to the newer Apple Computer technology and I never once experienced an issue with PCIe compatibility in my over 20 years as a Mac Tower user. The whole reason I PURCHASED the tower was to take advantage of the PCIe ports, so to be dealing with this has been a real bummer.
I guess the best I can hope for is to install multiple Sonnet 4X4 cards in the 8X ports in Slots 5/6 and wastefully move my 2 UAD Octo cards to the 16X Slots 1/2. Does anyone know if putting the Sonnet on the 8X lanes has any negative impact on performance? They seemed quite fast on the Sonnet 4X4 card (read/write speeds of 3600 mbps) and were about 4400 mbps on the OWC 1M2. Which I don’t think would make much of a difference in real world performance, but the WD black 8500NX says it can do up to 7300 mbps so I’m curious how I could possibly achieve those speeds.
Does anyone have a different brand of PCIe 4.0 card that is working in a 16x Slot that would hold 4 NVMe’s? I’m on Ventura 13.5 and my Pro Tools HDX card is in the recommended Slot 4, and I don’t intend to upgrade my OS anytime soon.
The same drives showed up immediately when installed in an Insignia extended USB-C adapter so I formatted them that way and they still didn’t show up on the OWC card. I called OWC and they had no idea what the issue could be but interestingly enough the cards wouldn’t show up in the PCIe section of the system report but would show up as installed in the PCIe allocation section graphic (where you can adjust which pools each drive draws from)
So I just assumed the OWC adapters didn’t work and purchased two Sonnet 4X4 Silent cards. To be clear, I haven’t done anything with RAID and was just trying to get each drive to appear individually. Upon installing the Sonnet with 3 NVMe’s in it, it STILL didn’t show up in the 16X Slot 1 or Slot 2. So I called Apple support and they had me remove and reseat the HDMI/USB card in the tower and when I rebooted only one of the 3 NVMe’s showed up. So we reseated the Sonnet and it no longer showed anything. We tried various versions of re-seating the HDMI card and Sonnet and nothing worked so Apple made me an appt at the Apple Store with a technician.
They had the computer for 3 days and were able to get the Sonnet to mount in Slot6 (which is apparently some kind of “compatibility slot?) but couldn’t get it to mount in Slots 1 or 2. When they moved one of my older UAD2 cards to Slot1 it worked fine as well. The LESS than competent techs at this particular Apple Store advised me to come get the computer and call Tier2 tech support…who of course couldn’t figure out why the Apple Store employee had me take the computer back if it wasn’t fixed.
So I messed around with the M2 Tower some more and I was able to get Slot1 to recognize the OWC 1M2 card this time, as WELL as a Sonnet Card with only one NVMe in it. HOWEVER, when I installed the 3 NVMe’s back into the Sonnet…it no longer showed up in Slot1. I have taken the computer back to an Apple Certified Mac Technician that was recommended to me by a Senior Advisor (which only made sense to do because I can afford the downtime because I’m out of town for the holidays) but after FINALLY stumbling upon this thread, I’m pretty much convinced that my computer is functioning “normally” and that I will not be receiving a solution from Apple.
I still find it curious that the OWC 1M2 didn’t work initially upon receiving the computer, but I’m guessing the re-seating the HDMI/USB fixed whatever that issue was and those are reading correctly now.
All of this has been a VERY disappointing introduction to the newer Apple Computer technology and I never once experienced an issue with PCIe compatibility in my over 20 years as a Mac Tower user. The whole reason I PURCHASED the tower was to take advantage of the PCIe ports, so to be dealing with this has been a real bummer.
I guess the best I can hope for is to install multiple Sonnet 4X4 cards in the 8X ports in Slots 5/6 and wastefully move my 2 UAD Octo cards to the 16X Slots 1/2. Does anyone know if putting the Sonnet on the 8X lanes has any negative impact on performance? They seemed quite fast on the Sonnet 4X4 card (read/write speeds of 3600 mbps) and were about 4400 mbps on the OWC 1M2. Which I don’t think would make much of a difference in real world performance, but the WD black 8500NX says it can do up to 7300 mbps so I’m curious how I could possibly achieve those speeds.
Does anyone have a different brand of PCIe 4.0 card that is working in a 16x Slot that would hold 4 NVMe’s? I’m on Ventura 13.5 and my Pro Tools HDX card is in the recommended Slot 4, and I don’t intend to upgrade my OS anytime soon.
My high point 1580 is nvme 4 but uses u.2 format. I believe they make a variant for m.2 sticks.
I forget, but think my card has always been plugged into slot 6, which is a 16 lane slot on the 2019 Mac Pro. I wonder if some of the problems experienced here might be based on slot selection for the drive controller card?
What's the fan noise like?
I was wondering if it's the slots behind the PCI switch that are having issues.
Anyone having problems with a card mounted in the non-switched / MPX bays, please chime in.
For what it concerns my configuration:
- Mac Pro 2019, Sonoma, latest release (but it occurred in Ventura too). Sonoma was installed with the Ventura upgrade.
- Mounted a Sonnet card (this one, bought in 2022)
- Samsung SSD 2TB 980 Pro M2, Samsung 1TB same model
- RAID, done by Disk Utility
- Booting from standard built-in Mac Pro SSD, the Raid disk I’m using with the Sonnet card is for archive stuff.
- FileVault off, other slots are empty on the machine
To Respond to this PM:
I actually have two PCIe cards:
An IOCrest Model IO-PCE2824TM2 with a Samsung SM951 & Samsung 970 Evo. A HighPoint Model SSD7103 with 2 Samsung 970 Evo and 2 Samsung 970 Pro.
I also have 1 Samsung 840 Pro mounted in an internal cage along with 2 Samsung 840 Evo.
And of course the OEM Apple SSD, that I don't use.
The two PCIe Cards are mounted in slots 4 and 5.
I boot from one of the 970 Pros.
Lou
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I'm not in an audio studio, so if you are, you may be more sensitive than I am, but essentially, I do not hear it at all. It's maybe 3' away from me under my desk. That said, when I push my 6900xt its fans kick up and I DO hear those. Honestly, I'm not sure I've ever heard the fans on the 1580, or if there is even a "kick up" level.
That said, it's a u.2 based system, and if you get one for m.2 sticks it might be different.
TLDR Dont hear any fans noise on the HiPo 1580.
Hmm, so someone correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC slots 5-8 (counting up from the bottom) are the PCI Switched slots?
@flowrider has stable booting / mounting in slot 5, @ZombiePhysicist in 5 or 6 (6 being the x8 slot, 5 the x16)...
Might rule out the PCI switch as being inherently the problem... Maybe Highpoint does something different - Broadcom chipsets (they make a big deal about them in their marketing material) - that doesn't suffer whatever this problem is?
@flowrider has stable booting / mounting in slot 5, @ZombiePhysicist in 5 or 6 (6 being the x8 slot, 5 the x16)...
Might rule out the PCI switch as being inherently the problem... Maybe Highpoint does something different - Broadcom chipsets (they make a big deal about them in their marketing material) - that doesn't suffer whatever this problem is?
Mine is definitely in a 16 lane slot. Sorry I cannot confirm the slot number as I’m away for the holiday. Will do when I get back, but it is definitely the 16 lane slot further up as slots 1-4 are covered with my 2 graphics cards, 9100wx and 6900xt.
I've two Sonnet Silent cards, each with 4 x 2TB Samsung SSDs, all used JBOD. One is in slot 5, the other in slot 7.
The disappearance of each card seems random. Sometimes one, sometimes the other and sometimes one or more of the SSDs on one card will appear only to disappear later.
Pool A shows 100%, Pool B 125%.
The other cards in the system are the I/O card in slot 8 and two Radeon Pro W5700X MPX cards in the MPX slots.
Everything seemed to behave until about 6 months or so ago...
The disappearance of each card seems random. Sometimes one, sometimes the other and sometimes one or more of the SSDs on one card will appear only to disappear later.
Pool A shows 100%, Pool B 125%.
The other cards in the system are the I/O card in slot 8 and two Radeon Pro W5700X MPX cards in the MPX slots.
Everything seemed to behave until about 6 months or so ago...
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Maybe we should post what we have in our slots and report from the Expansion Slot Utility, to try and suss out some pattern?
System
Mac Pro 7,1, 28 core, 96GB of RAM
Sonata 14.2.1
Slots
Slot 1 - ATI 6900XT
Slot 3 - ATI WX 9100
Slot 5 - Highpoint 1580 NVMe/U.2 PCIe4.0 card
![1703709918980.png]( "1703709918980.png")
![1703710084090.png]( "1703710084090.png")
Storage
Built in: 256GB SSD
SATA 1: 8TB 2.5" SSD
SATA 2: 20TB HD
NVMe port 1 on Highpoint: 15TB Micron 9300 Pro
Status
No disconnections. System sleeps and wakes fine.
System
Mac Pro 7,1, 28 core, 96GB of RAM
Sonata 14.2.1
Slots
Slot 1 - ATI 6900XT
Slot 3 - ATI WX 9100
Slot 5 - Highpoint 1580 NVMe/U.2 PCIe4.0 card
Storage
Built in: 256GB SSD
SATA 1: 8TB 2.5" SSD
SATA 2: 20TB HD
NVMe port 1 on Highpoint: 15TB Micron 9300 Pro
Status
No disconnections. System sleeps and wakes fine.
Here is my story:
I have two OWC Accelsior 4M2 cards in my 2019 MP. One Accelsior is filled with 4 original OWC 2TB M.2 units (RAID0), and the other includes 4 2 TB Sabrent Rocket 2280 SSDs (RAID0). Presently running Sonoma.
Cards were installed in 2021, and have never mounted reliably. I have tried all tips that have been mentioned above, to no avail. I hoped that OWC Softraid would help, but it does not.
To only solution that works a bit is: using Apple's PCIe expansion slot utility to redistribute slot designations and rebooting the system. About 50% of the time, both Accelsior will then mount. Else, I have to try again.
Also, I observe that a first booting sequence of the MP appears to stall for about a minute when one or both of the PCIe Accelsior cards fail to mount. One would fear that the MP has a hardware bug regarding its PCIe slots.
In the past, I also included a Promise Pagasus J2i, including two 4 TB ssds. I have removed it to reduced system load, and I think it had the same mounting issues. It appears that having the additional J2I installed made matters worse. I will investigate this further now, hoping to make some contribution in finding answers.
In any case, I strongly hope that Apple (and OWC) can provide a solution to our problems. We paid for expensive machines (which are absolutely awesome) and these mounting issues are just annoying to say the least.
I have two OWC Accelsior 4M2 cards in my 2019 MP. One Accelsior is filled with 4 original OWC 2TB M.2 units (RAID0), and the other includes 4 2 TB Sabrent Rocket 2280 SSDs (RAID0). Presently running Sonoma.
Cards were installed in 2021, and have never mounted reliably. I have tried all tips that have been mentioned above, to no avail. I hoped that OWC Softraid would help, but it does not.
To only solution that works a bit is: using Apple's PCIe expansion slot utility to redistribute slot designations and rebooting the system. About 50% of the time, both Accelsior will then mount. Else, I have to try again.
Also, I observe that a first booting sequence of the MP appears to stall for about a minute when one or both of the PCIe Accelsior cards fail to mount. One would fear that the MP has a hardware bug regarding its PCIe slots.
In the past, I also included a Promise Pagasus J2i, including two 4 TB ssds. I have removed it to reduced system load, and I think it had the same mounting issues. It appears that having the additional J2I installed made matters worse. I will investigate this further now, hoping to make some contribution in finding answers.
In any case, I strongly hope that Apple (and OWC) can provide a solution to our problems. We paid for expensive machines (which are absolutely awesome) and these mounting issues are just annoying to say the least.
I also have a MP 2019 with 1 OWC Accelsior 4M2 4TB as RAID 0. I've tried every available slot thats 8x and 16x with same result. I only use the drive for storage and NOT for OS boot. I've always had issues with the card not loading on cold start since I got the OWC card in November 2020 but less frequently not loading. The past year the issue has happened every week a few time a week. A simple restart does not work, it requires a shutdown then a cold start...sometimes a few tries is needed.
It's been very frustrating as the problem seems to be getting worst and I'm constantly worried the drive will fail. Strangely, I've use SMART Utility and DriveDX to check the SSD sticks and no issues were found. I've used the latest SoftRAID 7.6.1 and is showing I/o errors as a Volume but the SSD sticks are showing no issues and appear to be fine. This leads me to think it's the PCI card not the SSD sticks or could be the driver.
I had to find another solution so I just installed a Sonnet J3i SATA carrier for 3 Samsung 870 SSDs. Which seem to be working without issues.
I'm currently going back and forth with OWC tech via email but have not gotten any solutions only more questions. I truly hope there's a solution!