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Vidboy

macrumors newbie
Dec 15, 2019
6
0
Is there any reason to not buy WD Black SN750 1TB M.2 for a Sonnet M.2 4x4 card in a 7,1? They seem a fair bit cheaper than the Samsung 970 PRO.

Thanks for all the great information in this thread!
 

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,064
13,274
Is there any reason to not buy WD Black SN750 1TB M.2 for a Sonnet M.2 4x4 card in a 7,1? They seem a fair bit cheaper than the Samsung 970 PRO.

Thanks for all the great information in this thread!
WD Black SN750 is a product in the same class of Samsung 970 EVO/970 EVO Plus, not 970 PRO. Samsung 970 PRO NAND is MLC while WD Black SN750 is TLC.

MLC NAND is faster and have much bigger endurance, but if you don't need the sustained write speeds after the cache is fully used and the bigger erase/write cycles endurance, buy the cheaper option.

Personal note, between a SN750 and a 970 EVO Plus, I'd buy the 970 EVO Plus since Samsung firmware updates are relatively frequent while WD/SanDisk only updates the firmware when a show-stopper problem is found.
 
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Vidboy

macrumors newbie
Dec 15, 2019
6
0
Great- thanks! 970 pro it is, then. Looking forward to getting this all running- looks like I have an ArriRaw edit project the week the machine arrives.
 

RampantTycho

macrumors newbie
Dec 22, 2019
2
0
I just got the Highpoint 7101a with a single 970 Evo Plus NVME.

Is this controller meant to mount NVME as external drives?

I'm trying to install Windows 10 on a single NVME with plans to fill out the other slots later.
 

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,064
13,274
I just got the Highpoint 7101a with a single 970 Evo Plus NVME.

Is this controller meant to mount NVME as external drives?

I'm trying to install Windows 10 on a single NVME with plans to fill out the other slots later.

What are internal storage for the Mac Pro firmware:

Mac Pro year model:Model Identifier:What Mac Pro firmware recognise as internal drives:
Mac Pro (2006)MP1,1SATA drives connected to the 6 southbridge SATA ports plus the two PATA drives connected to the PATA cable inside the ODD bay.
8-Core Mac Pro (2007)MP2,1SATA drives connected to the 6 southbridge SATA ports plus the two PATA drives connected to the PATA cable inside the ODD bay.
early-2008 Mac ProMP3,1SATA drives connected to the 6 southbridge SATA ports plus the two PATA drives connected to the PATA cable inside the ODD bay.
early-2009 Mac ProMP4,1SATA/SAS drives connected to the 4 southbridge SATA/SAS bays plus the two SATA drives connected to the SATA cable inside the ODD bay.
mid-2010 Mac ProMP5,1SATA/SAS drives connected to the 4 southbridge SATA/SAS bays plus the two SATA drives connected to the SATA cable inside the ODD bay.
mid-2012 Mac ProMP5,1SATA/SAS drives connected to the 4 southbridge SATA/SAS bays plus the two SATA drives connected to the SATA cable inside the ODD bay.
late-2013 Mac ProMP6,1Only the PCIe SSD is a internal drive.
2019 Mac ProMP7,1Only the T2 storage is a internal drive. The two SATA ports of the logic board and any PCIe connected storage are external for the firmware.
 
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avatar1349

macrumors member
Feb 25, 2009
59
14
Netherlands
Bom Dia tsialex
I'm planning to buy this card from the Belgium OWC Reseller shop, which will arrive there the end of January. By that time I know if they sell the "bare" card as is or if I have to buy it with NVMe's (which I already have) Btw, got the doc (pdf) for the PEX8796. Might be some interesting reading.
 

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tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,064
13,274
Bom Dia tsialex
I'm planning to buy this card from the Belgium OWC Reseller shop, which will arrive there the end of January. By that time I know if they sell the "bare" card as is or if I have to buy it with NVMe's (which I already have) Btw, got the doc (pdf) for the PEX8796. Might be some interesting reading.
Bom dia!

It's the same PDF I posted back December 17, no?

iFixit says 2019 Mac Pro have a PEX8798, but inspecting ioreg, the pci-bridge is "pci10b5,8796" (ping @joevt)
[automerge]1577882024[/automerge]
Screen Shot 2020-01-01 at 09.32.56.png
 
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Grumply

macrumors 6502
Feb 24, 2017
285
193
Melbourne, Australia
Outside of Samsung's "Pro" line, are there any other M.2 (or SATA) SSDs that offer 2-bit MLC Nand in capacities of 2TB or higher?

If there are, they're VERY hard to track down.

So many cheekily listed as 3-bit MLC (TLC), or that don't list the specific nand type at all.
 

Moof1904

macrumors 65816
May 20, 2004
1,053
87
I've poured over this superb thread but still have one question. I apologize if it has been asked and answered already and I've overlooked it.

I have a 2019 MacPro 7,1 arriving in a couple of days. I was able to upgrade to 12 cores but I elected to get the default 256 GB of storage. Does anyone know if Apple is or will be selling the modules separately so that I can add another module later or, say, remove the 256 GB and add two larger ones? Obviously, I can add something like a Sonnet or OWC Accelsior if I want, but I'm curious to know what options I have with what's seen by the firmware as onboard storage.
 

majus

Contributor
Mar 25, 2004
480
427
Oklahoma City, OK
Does anyone know if Apple is or will be selling the modules separately so that I can add another module later or, say, remove the 256 GB and add two larger ones? Obviously, I can add something like a Sonnet or OWC Accelsior if I want, but I'm curious to know what options I have with what's seen by the firmware as onboard storage.
Your ONLY* option is to take the machine to your nearest Apple store and have them upgrade it. Users cannot in any way replace the internal SSD.

*If you can still do a change order before it ships you can get it upgraded that way.
 
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tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,064
13,274
I've poured over this superb thread but still have one question. I apologize if it has been asked and answered already and I've overlooked it.

I have a 2019 MacPro 7,1 arriving in a couple of days. I was able to upgrade to 12 cores but I elected to get the default 256 GB of storage. Does anyone know if Apple is or will be selling the modules separately so that I can add another module later or, say, remove the 256 GB and add two larger ones? Obviously, I can add something like a Sonnet or OWC Accelsior if I want, but I'm curious to know what options I have with what's seen by the firmware as onboard storage.
I have a SSD7101A-1 card and when I'm gonna get a 2019 Mac Pro, I'm not going to get the 256GB SSD even having fast PCIe storage already.

Change your order for at least the 512GB version, it's the first one that have dual NAND modules and have double throughput compared with the 256GB. Use the native T2 storage for your apps/documents, use PCIe storage for scratch disks and temporary files and long term internal storage with SATA hard drives installed with the Promise 2Ji cage.

Doesn't make economical sense to buy the 4TB/8TB T2 storage at exorbitant prices from Apple, but getting the basic storage option makes no sense either.
 
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joevt

Contributor
Jun 21, 2012
6,689
4,086
I have a SSD7101A-1 card and when I'm gonna get a 2019 Mac Pro, I'm not going to get the 256GB SSD even having fast PCIe storage already.
I agree the 256 GB size is limiting, barely enough for a single OS, but I'm not sure about the speed. Does there exist a benchmark for the 256 GB option? Bare Feats has benchmarks for a dual SSD option (1 TB) which doesn't exceed PCIe 3.0 x4 (normal NVMe speed).
 

macguru9999

macrumors 6502a
Aug 9, 2006
780
363
I am currently using a 4x adapter in a 4x slot on my 5,1 and happy with 1400mb/s from my 970 pro nvme drive. What happens if I get a simple, cheap 16x single adapter and use it in a 16x slot ? such as ... do i get the pcie max speed or what ? 3000, 5000mb/sec. These adapters are cheap and i dont need raid.
 

bsbeamer

macrumors 601
Sep 19, 2012
4,311
2,703
I am currently using a 4x adapter in a 4x slot on my 5,1 and happy with 1400mb/s from my 970 pro nvme drive. What happens if I get a simple, cheap 16x single adapter and use it in a 16x slot ? such as ... do i get the pcie max speed or what ? 3000, 5000mb/sec. These adapters are cheap and i dont need raid.

Read the first post:
Standard PCIe x4 cards (tops at 1500 MB/s with MP5,1, double with MP7,1)(no switch)

Have not personally seen a single blade x16 adapter that works with Mac.
 
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tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,064
13,274
I am currently using a 4x adapter in a 4x slot on my 5,1 and happy with 1400mb/s from my 970 pro nvme drive. What happens if I get a simple, cheap 16x single adapter and use it in a 16x slot ? such as ... do i get the pcie max speed or what ? 3000, 5000mb/sec. These adapters are cheap and i dont need raid.

Doesn't matter if the adapter is sold as x8 or x16, a M.2 M-keyed blade (PCIe) can't use more lanes than x4 since the M.2 M-keyed connector itself only have 4 PCIe lanes available.

M.2 M-keyed (PCIe) blades are x4 devices or less. Older ones are PCIe 2.0, actual ones are PCIe 3.0 and we are starting to see PCIe 4.0 blades. So, don't matter if you use a x8 or x16 adapter, the blade itself will forever be x4 and will be forever limited to x4 speeds. Since MP5,1 is a PCIe 2.0 computer, x4 = ~1500MB/s.

Btw, there are x2 blades, Apple used some early on with 2013 and 2014 MacBook Airs and WD sold a lot of PCIe 3.0 x2 blades too. A PCIe 3.0 x2 blade will get a maximum throughput of ~750MB/s if installed in a MP5,1.

You didn't asked about it, but it's usually the second idea people have, to use cheap multiple M.2 adapters without a PCIe switch, like Asus Hyper M.2 x16. These cards needs motherboards that offer a resource only some very specific chipsets support, usually x299/x399 chipsets and some selected others, called Intel PCI Express Lane Partitioning. The marketing name for this is bifurcation and no Mac supports it, not even the 2019 Mac Pro.

So, to get more than 1500MB/s with a PCIe M.2 blade installed in a MP5,1, you need an adapter card that has a PCIe 3.0 switch. The switch will convert the wide/slow PCIe 2.0 x16 into fast/narrow PCIe 3.0 x4.
[automerge]1578008074[/automerge]
Have not personally seen a single blade x16 adapter that works with Mac.
Outside datacenter and very high end enterprise PCIe SSDs that use HHHL and FHHL PCIe formats, there aren't any consumer x8 or x16 PCIe SSDs, all M.2 M-keyed blades are PCIe x4 devices (or less).
 
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dpzim

macrumors newbie
Dec 25, 2019
13
5
For those who have been interested in the bladeless OWC 4M2, I found this to bookmark for if/when they actually release it ("ACL" is the MacPro7,1-compatible variant):
 
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macguru9999

macrumors 6502a
Aug 9, 2006
780
363
For those who have been interested in the bladeless OWC 4M2, I found this to bookmark for if/when they actually release it ("ACL" is the MacPro7,1-compatible variant):
Its only 8 lanes, seems a bit of a waste for a 4 slot card. And how come they are not selling the bladeless card anymore ?
 
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dpzim

macrumors newbie
Dec 25, 2019
13
5
Its only 8 lanes, seems a bit of a waste for a 4 slot card. And how come they are not selling the bladeless card anymore ?

Can’t answer the second part, but you can see a good post by @bxs at:
for some value points plus and minus. For me, the big draw is being fanless, even with the x8 bottleneck.

MacRumors just ran through a review of it too at:
While not a data-driven exercise like other written reviews (lack of performance graphs), they do find a lower maximum throughput for the OWC 4M2 that doesn't track with the glowing diglloyd review. That bothers me more than the x8 limitation, because that's then a still lower ceiling.
 
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