So it seems, with the Mac Studio. Requiring a PCIe expansion box if I want to move my SSD storage rather than be subject to the enormous Apple Tax. Cost for a 3-slot is about $1000.00 MSRP from Sonnet. Such was life in the mid-80's with the IBM desktops which required an expansion box too. Consumers just can't win.
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To me, the real crime is the cost of the PCIe expansion boxes themselves. It is actually shocking what they go for.
Why do you need PCIe expansion? There are plenty of other ways to add external drives.
If PCIe expansion is important to you then you're using the wrong platform.
If you need that kind of ssd storage it's probably for your business?
$1000 spread over a few years, which you can deduct probably, isn't much at all.
$1000 spread over a few years, which you can deduct probably, isn't much at all.
I've looked into the PCIe expansion box route - thinking it might be better / cheaper - but again, these boxes just cost too much.
I think the issue is if you want a single box with maximum speed for multiple drives. I have several different 4 bay enclosures from Akitio / OWC, and they are designed to achieve maximum speed only when the NVMe drives are run as part of RAID. Each individual bay gets 1 or 2 lanes in most systems.
Personally, I don't like to RAID my drives and would prefer to have a box that each drive independently can be accessed at maximum TB speed (obviously this would not be the same if you accessed to drives in the box simultaneously).
This is what led me to investigate these PCIe boxes. The cards are cheap but the boxes are very expensive.
I think the best solution, which is cheaper although not all in one box, is to get a Thunderbolt 4 four port hub, and 3 single drive bus powered enclosures (usually around $129+ each) that get close to maximum Thunderbolt speed. The hub is $179 from OWC, so total cost for three drives would be around $575 or so depending on each enclosure cost.
I decided for myself, I only need full speed on 1 or 2 drives and really prefer the prebuilt multi-drive enclosures for everything else where maximum speed is not a requirement.
So I guess I disagree that this is the wrong platform if someone wants to use a PCIe expansion box - it is just with the pricing it really is not feasible unless cost is not an issue.
I think the issue is if you want a single box with maximum speed for multiple drives. I have several different 4 bay enclosures from Akitio / OWC, and they are designed to achieve maximum speed only when the NVMe drives are run as part of RAID. Each individual bay gets 1 or 2 lanes in most systems.
Personally, I don't like to RAID my drives and would prefer to have a box that each drive independently can be accessed at maximum TB speed (obviously this would not be the same if you accessed to drives in the box simultaneously).
This is what led me to investigate these PCIe boxes. The cards are cheap but the boxes are very expensive.
I think the best solution, which is cheaper although not all in one box, is to get a Thunderbolt 4 four port hub, and 3 single drive bus powered enclosures (usually around $129+ each) that get close to maximum Thunderbolt speed. The hub is $179 from OWC, so total cost for three drives would be around $575 or so depending on each enclosure cost.
I decided for myself, I only need full speed on 1 or 2 drives and really prefer the prebuilt multi-drive enclosures for everything else where maximum speed is not a requirement.
So I guess I disagree that this is the wrong platform if someone wants to use a PCIe expansion box - it is just with the pricing it really is not feasible unless cost is not an issue.
A company doesn’t become worth $3 Trillion by letting the customer win
Yeah that would be the fastest. I was trying to show an alternative to the PCIe box that would also only take one port and would operate similar to what the PCIe box would do with a basic setup.
I looked at the cost of PCIe vs Apple and went with Apple for 2TB.
Until you get to 4TB, I don't think that a PCIe expansion box saves enough over paying Apple for storage to make financial sense, and regardless you lose a lot of speed unless you're prepared to pay for two or more boxes and set them up as RAID 0.
Until you get to 4TB, I don't think that a PCIe expansion box saves enough over paying Apple for storage to make financial sense, and regardless you lose a lot of speed unless you're prepared to pay for two or more boxes and set them up as RAID 0.
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And with the external RAID 0 setup there would be absolutely no reliability that could be counted on.
I have a Netstor thunderbolt enclosure that you can configure quite a few ways, raid,jbod etc.
www.netstor.com.tw
Netstor Technology
The OP didn't come back. Gotta see this for what it is.
I am retired so it is my home computer, not business. About 18 months ago, I did away with all my hard drives (4) and went 100% SSD. Two of the drives were very close to EOL anyway. I just decided to put together the largest capacity I would ever conceivably need, Four Samsung 2TB SSD's on a HighPoint PCIe card, no RAID. That's several thousand dollars I don't want to lose, but want them to be usable with a Mac Studio if I buy one.
They store my work files (I still do a lot of work even though retired), reference files from other sources, backups of everything, one SSD as a System backup. No audio, no video, no games, etc. Just work and a small amount of personal stuff.
It all depends on whether Apple comes out with a smaller Mac Pro with at least one PCIe slot. I really would like to have an uncluttered desk without a lot of peripherals, but I'll live with what I have to.
I will check out NetStor, and surely there will be new ones coming to market sometime within the year.
So you need a 1-slot TB PCI expansion box which costs maybe $300, not $1000.
If you are waiting for Apple to create a base Mac Pro with Mac Studio Ultra performance (or slightly better) and only charge an extra $300 (i.e. a Mac Pro base price of $4300) for the the larger chassis/power supply/PCI expansion slots/etc.etc. you are going to be very disappointed.
I'd guess the BASE Mac Pro will be around $6000+ with only a modest performance difference over the Mac Studio Ultra base product. I expect Apple is going to have 3 tiers of headless desktop Macs at well separated entry prices, the Mini ($1000 or less), Studio ($2000 & $4000), and Pro ($6000). The Pro with effectively 2x Ultra's (probably M2's if the Pro slips well into 2023) will probably start around an $8000+ base price and go much, much higher. Just my guesses, but that's how I would market the Mac Pro now that Apple has committed to the Studio as mid-tier $2000/$4000 base price products.
I have a Netstor thunderbolt enclosure that you can configure quite a few ways, raid,jbod etc.
Netstor Technology
Yes, nice unit, but it isn't cheap and it's limited to the speed of a Thunderbolt 4 port. RAID 0 doesn't change that limitation. To get more speed, you need two or more Netstor boxes, each connected to its own Thunderbolt port, and configured as a group as RAID 0.
Early 2009 Mac Pro, macOS 10.13.6, updated to 2010/12 5,1. Still going strong, never a failure with any Apple hardware, but is slowly becoming more limited by OS version constraint.
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I have not seen a single-slot unit that will handle a full-size card. Of course, I haven't looked that hard yet.
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I really don't see the need for the fast storage that Apple provides internally in the Studio. Or even a RAID. Or even anything but USB maybe.
Samsung T7 non-touch version? I checked the price of the 2TB yesterday, and in the US it's at its lowest price ever ($219).
That makes a lot of sense and I don't think it needs to be all that costly. You did not specify if the SSDs that you are using are 2TB 2.5" SATA SSDs or 2TB M.2 NVMe drives. Either way, the solution would be similar.
For 2.5" SATA SSDs, I would recommend the OWC Thunderbay 4 Mini, which will hold 4 of the SATA SSDs, and also provides a fan. If you were to get more SATA SSDs, you can also buy extra drive trays which would allow you to swap the drives around (like maybe take one out for an offsite backup). I own the Akitio version of this same enclosure. At some point OWC purchased Akitio, and this is one of the few items that still exist from the Akitio line. I believe the internal setup of this enclosure is that the four PCIe lanes are broken into 2 sets of 2.
The empty version of this enclosure costs $249, which I think is a good price.
OWC ThunderBay 4: Thunderbolt 4-Bay External RAID Storage
The ultimate Thunderbolt RAID Storage Drive for creative workflows. Perfect for handling 4K video, audio, and photography with confidence and speed.
eshop.macsales.com
If you have 4 M.2 NVMe drives, the similar solution would be the OWC Express 4M2 which would hold all four of the M.2 SSDs. I don't own this drive enclosure, but I think I will add one to my mix of enclosures pretty soon. Each of the NVMe drives in this enclosure only has 1 PCIe lane, which means the max throughput speed of an individual drive would be around 700 MB/s. This is still pretty fast, and also allows you to write to all four drives at the same time. If you were to stripe these drives then you would reach max Thunderbolt speed (4x).
This drive also sells for $249 with no drives in it. Again, I feel like this is a good price for what you are getting.
OWC Express 4M2: DIY Four-Slot USB4 NVMe M.2 SSD Enclosure
Build a desktop high-performance RAID with your choice of NVMe M.2 SSDs and get up to 3200MB/s performance with USB4, Thunderbolt, and USB-C Macs and PCs.
eshop.macsales.com
I think a solution like these could serve you well. I have multiple enclosures like these for 2.5" SATA SSDs as well as 3.5" HDD and I am really glad I purchased them. For the tasks you mention, I don't think it is worth try to chase max throughput speed. I think the most important aspect and benefit of running on the SSDs is the endurance and stability of the data. Smaller file transfers and 4K random read / write will still be very fast on these enclosures.
Ok, now you have made me want to go out and buy another enclosure... 😁