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Maximum Storage in the Mac Pro (2019)?

MagnumOP

MagnumOP

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 5, 2010
195
12
Hey guys! I am super excited about the new cheese grater. Given my work, I might be able to justify buying one. One place where I could get significant value is by adding lots of internal storage.

It looks like there are several available options for internal storage: 3 Double-wide PCIe, 3 Single-wide PCIe, 2 Internal SATA, and 1 Internal USB. Assuming that 1 Double-wide PCIe is used for graphics and 1 Half Length PCIe is used for IO.

I guess that leads me to a few questions...

What are we supposed to do with the SATA ports?
How would you mount a drives if you plugged them in there?
Are there PCIe cards that would allow for mounting 3.5" drives? (I know this would be suboptimal)
Could ALL the new drives be set up in a RAID configuration without the need for a RAID Card?
Would software RAID provide sufficient performance?

I have over 100TB of storage on my desk right now. Most of the drives are getting pretty long in the tooth. If I could fit the storage in the Mac Pro then I might be able to justify getting one.

How much internal storage could we add? What do you think?
 
frankiee said:
Look here: https://www.promise.com/us/Promotion/PegasusStorage

So if you buy both, that would be six additional 3,5" drives. Maybe you could even move the gpu to one of the upper slots and add a second 4 drive cage. That should you bring close to your desired 100TB
Click to expand...


That would get me pretty close for sure.

I’m hoping the stock GPU can be moved up like you suggest, but it’s not clear to me that it can.
 
Storage is a major limitation for me too. I need to be able to reuse some of the 3.5" drives I currently have. I need to be able to add at least 2, of my 8TB drives internally in addition to the system SSD. The need for internal storage for me is much greater than having dual video cards.
 
Likely, Apple doesn’t want you to have internal mass storage like this. It’s telling that only 4TB are the maximum. There’s no question that a lot of workflows will require much more storage and this is Apple‘s way of saying „Go and buy external storage“.
 
I've been poking around and I think I will do something like this:

Factory SSD - 2 TB, I think that is the best trade off between my needs and the costs
MPX Slot #1 (2PCIe) - Graphics, one of the lower end options, but not the bare, basement model
MPX Slot #2 (2PCIe) - Promise MPX HDD Module with 32TB, but I do wonder if I can put 4 larger capacity drives in the module, maybe 10TB or 12 TB drives for more capacity
Single height PCIe - Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCIe Card, with a 1 TB NVMe drive in each of the four slots (I really wish the new Mac Pro had PCIe 4.0)
Internal SATA - Promise HDD module 16TB, but my hope is it can take 2 higher capacity drives here as well

This setup would give me somewhere between 54TB and 78TB, which would be a good start.
 
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