Yeah, I don't understand why anyone who do something other than your suggestion.
Is the internal storage speed that much faster?
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Apple Now Offering $2,600 8TB SSD Upgrade Option for Mac Pro
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Is the internal storage speed that much faster?
Not really, if you plug an ssd into one of the internal slots.
FYI... Apple claims up to 3.4 GB/sec sequential read and write for their factory T2-controlled SSD.
That is a PCIe x8 card. Get a HighPoint 7101 or Sonnet M.2 4x4 for PCIe x16. Will result in faster speeds, especially if running in RAID modes.
Damn this completely destroy my hope of Mac Pro using SLC NAND. As it will likely be using the same type of NAND as the 16" MBP.
While we do know previous MBP and Mac are Using MLC NAND, there are no evidence, as far as I know that Mac Pro and MBP 16" are using MLC.
But even if that was the case those price is still quite expensive, especially on the MBP side which is a consumer product.
The T2 is currently limiting these SSD's performance, and I dont see how Apple will improve this anytime soon given none of the A Series Chip support faster SSD performance ( T2 is basically just an A10 )
People buying a machine like that have service contracts, not something you go to the genius bar for or wait in a phone queue. And probably volume license for the programs.
It shouldn’t really surprise me any more that the difference between consumer and enterprise products is missed around here.
A better comparison is to, say, the Samsung 983 DCT. That’s about $600 list for 1.9 TB, so $2400 would get you 7.6 TB. (I found one for $480 on Newegg.)
That said, we haven’t seen benchmarks on the hardware from Apple yet. Sequential reads and writes aren’t very interesting until the drives are near full or lots of data is streamed, enough to blow past the SLC cache in lower-end drives. Mixed random reads and writes, and sustained sequential throughout (say, over 1 TB) should be interesting to see.
On a side note, Apple has been making their own SSD controllers for years. They purchased Anobit, one of the first TLC controller developers. I don’t think Anobit ever shipped product — they were purchased shortly after coming out of stealth mode — but I received one of their prototype samples at my work. It was using first-generation TLC, but performed like an MLC drive, and with MLC-level endurance. That was in 2011, so the drive was not that impressive compared to today’s hardware, but it indicates that there’s a great deal of controller expertise behind the T2. (Apple at one point shipped more flash memory than anyone else. That may still be true.)
There is no SLC at the highest capacities, as far as I know. Toshiba reportedly has some really fast 16-layer SLC sampling as of a couple months ago, but I suppose it’ll be very expensive. Only 128 Gbit dies though as far as I have read. It’s called XL-Flash, Samsung has Z-Flash.
Toshiba Launches XL-FLASH 3D SLC NAND
Rather than same as 16” MBP the iFixit teardowns shows it uses same type of module as iMac Pro.
iirc the T2 itself had plenty of horsepower but it hangs off the shared DMI I think, so performance can vary. If you really want performance, you need to use a PCIe card w/ NVMe drives as @bsbeamer mentions above. Then you can have x8 or x16 dedicated bandwidth.
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The speed rating is for Raid 0, isn't that a way that dive manufacturers overstate the drive speeds?OWC just announced their Acceslior PCIe SSD cards that will hit 6000MB/s - 8TB is $1600.
OWC Accelsior 4M2 SSD for Apple Mac Pro
The ultimate performance drive for Mac Pro and PC towers. Achieve speeds over 6,000MB/s, and store up to 8TB of high-resolution footage, photos, and games.eshop.macsales.com
"Which brings us to RAID 0. RAID 0 works by dividing files up into two pieces, and sending each drive one piece to write. The same process happens in reverse for reads. This works for large files, especially on HDDs. But for small files... the smallest sector size is 4 kB. If you try to write a 4 kB file to RAID 0, it breaks it into two 2 kB pieces, and pads both out with zeros to make them 4 kB. Then sends each drive a 4 kB file to write. Exactly the same as if you weren't using RAID 0"
So not really the same thing. More like the performance is akin to 3000 MB/sec. Still good.
or am I missing something?
Would guess without RAID involved, it's around 2000MB/s-2500MB/s max, depending on the blade being used. Most blades themselves are x4, so if you're writing to only one at a time you'll get better speeds than if it's going to multiple at one time (in non-RAID modes). There are a TON of write ups about this on this forum if you search.
First, it increases throughput for your data, because the machine can then access data in parallel with system information. (Not a huge deal with SSDs, but still valid in some situations).
Second, it improves system reliability, because SSDs eventually wear out, and you will do a lot of writes to your data drive.
Third, it makes backup strategies easier, since your data drive contents change a lot but your system drive contents don’t
Fourth, if your system becomes corrupt or you experience hardware failure, having a separate data drive that can easily be removed and placed in another system (unlike the T2-secured system drive) makes your life a lot easier.
Fifth, if you, in the future, need more data space, having the data on a separate drive makes it easier to handle.
Sixth, if your data drive fails, you can replace it yourself without a trip to the Genius Bar to deal with T2-related issues.
I get it on the high end, but yeah in terms of their iMac lineup being entirely unrecommendable at the low end (hard drives are terrible, and fusion drives are asking for something to fail) they could just make a better product and keep most of their margins by swapping in a 256GB or 512GB SATAIII SSD. Keep the PCIe storage as the BTO options.
For the Mac Pro you have PCIe slots so you can run slow storage or really fast stuff as you need; that flexibility isn't as easily there for their other machines aside from daisy-chained drives.
You're saying the manufacturer is wrong?
"its performance speeds can reach up to 5000 MB/s (read) and 4400 MB/s (write) when using a PCIe Gen4 motherboard. Using a PCIe Gen3 Motherboard Speeds will reach up to 3400 MB/s (read) and 2750 MB/s (write)."
Strange that a $500 consumer motherboard is more future proof with PCIe 4.0 than 2019 Mac Pro.
https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/TRX40 Creator/index.asp
DMI is an Intel specific interconnect although it really is just another PCI-E lane under the hood.
The T2 is basically an A10, and even in the case of RAID it is clear the speed is limited to PCI-E 3.0 4x. Something both Intel and Apple needs to improve. There are currently no PCI-E 4.0 Support in both Apple or Intel part.
But in hindsight cmaier is correct, just add some super fast SSD in an additional PCI-E Slot.
Unfortunately there won't be PCI-E 4.0 until Icelake, and I dont have much faith on anything Intel at the moment. Would have been happy if it was EPYC Mac Pro, and they will be shipping PCI-E 5.0 in 2021.
Can you provide a link to your assertion the T2 is basically an A10? If memory serves, that was an iFixit claim from a year or two ago, that was later recanted by iFixit.
I suspect it's actually an Apple-designed full-custom ASIC. And thus does not limit SSD performance.
DMI 3.0 is PCIe 3.0 x4. That’s the limiting factor, not the T2.
And if I were Intel I’d be targeting PCIe 5.0 with 7nm. 4.0 can be skipped. Apple could dump Intel at the high end but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Assuming the contents of your data and system fit comfortably on a single SSD, keeping them on a single drive seems easier and more foolproof. You can clone your drive, and in the event your SSD fails you can simply boot from that clone and have everything in the same state it was before the failure. No need to manage backups of two separate drives, or know whether an app is storing its data/configuration on your system vs data drive, which means you're less likely to inadvertently lose data since it's all backed up in one place. If you need more space, you can restore your clone to the new, larger drive. For a Mac Pro, you could upgrade to a larger drive via PCIe or external SSD (not sure if the Apple internal SSDs are upgradable though).
Given the insane starting price and the low cost of the SSD to Apple, it should come with an 8TB SSD standard. Even then it would be a rip off.