Sonnet's Fusion Flex J3i Mount Lets You Add Up to Three Internal Drives to Your Mac Pro

[MacRumors]

Sonnet today announced the upcoming launch of its Fusion Flex J3i internal drive mount for the 2019 Mac Pro, which lets users add up to three SATA storage drives to their machines.

Sonnet isn't the only company to launch an internal drive mount for the new Mac Pro, and Apple itself sells Promise's Pegasus J2i system that lets you add two drives, but Sonnet says it's the first to let users add three drives right inside the Mac Pro and connected directly via SATA.

The Fusion Flex J3i offers two slots that can accept either 3.5-inch hard disk drives or 2.5-inch SSDs, and a third slot that accepts a 2.5-inch SSD, allowing for a total of 36TB of additional internal storage.

Storage installed via the Fusion Flex J3i won't be as fast as the main NVMe SSDs at the heart of the Mac Pro or PCIe-based storage upgrades, especially if you're using traditional hard disk drives, but if you're a user who wants to prioritize storage space and simplicity over drive speed, Sonnet's Fusion Flex J3i might be worth checking out.

The Fusion Flex J3i includes the mount, required power/data cable assemblies, and mounting brackets to fit 2.5-inch drives into the 3.5-inch drive slots, but the drives themselves are sold separately. It will be priced at $199.99 and launches on June 15.

Article Link: Sonnet's Fusion Flex J3i Mount Lets You Add Up to Three Internal Drives to Your Mac Pro

 

[Rychiar]

wait these things don't allow more than one in the first place?🤯

 

[Sasparilla]

This looks nice and appears to be a good solution.

 

[RumorConsumer]

This is a "want to touch the heinie" level upgrade.

 

[Demultiplex_Dfunc]

This looks nice and appears to be a good solution.

They had to go ruin it by adding wires to the internal. Dang.

 

[SSDGUY]

wait these things don't allow more than one in the first place?🤯

I believe they can take two drives without an expansion mod.

 

[WildCowboy]

wait these things don't allow more than one in the first place?🤯

The stock storage is either one or two Apple-proprietary storage modules tied to the machine's T2 chip. You can go up to 8TB total with those.

Beyond that, it's either PCIe-based storage, internal SATA like this, or external options.

 

[coachgq]

But does it come with $700 wheels?

 

[Darth Tulhu]

There was a time when I would drool over stuff like this (I still kinda do).

My days of popping the hood are behind me (even though I've been keeping my 2011 17", and 2012 iMac and 15" alive for the last couple of years with those skills).

I'm amazed that we live in an age where I can ACTUALLY replace my hardware with an iPad!

I no longer need the power this machine offers, even if I think it's cool that it can provide it.

 

[Stang]

$200 for a piece of plastic and 3 sata cables? Yikes.

 

[shaunp]

It's an okay solution if you need the capacity, but I think the PCIe cards from OWC with 4 x NVMe SSD's are a much neater solution. That obviously costs much more and is only available up to 16TB, but it's good to have choice.

 

[kylelerner]

Super weird how the third caddy connects via and internal USB3 cable, rather than SATA like the other two.

 

[theluggage]

$200 for a mounting bracket and 2 slightly-customised SATA cables that should have been included with the Mac in the first place...

To be fair, the third cable is a USB3-to-SATA cable which might set you back as much as $7!

Sheesh. I've bought entire PC cases that cost less than $200 and they don't charge extra for the flippin' drive brackets. ...and that's premium Fractal Design/Silverstone stuff that you can compare with Apple and keep a straight face, although the Mac Pro blows right past "premium" and into "over-engineered to the point of parody"...

OK, I know all the big IT firms will charge you $50 for a cable tie if they think you're ordering with a corporate credit card and not watching the price, but that doesn't make it right - and they're usually doing it to compensate for under-bidding on support contracts.
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Super weird how the third caddy connects via and internal USB3 cable, rather than SATA like the other two.

...probably because there are only 2 SATA connectors (plus a USB-3) on the Mac Pro mainboard...?

 

[Ronlap]

It's about time someone gave Pegasus some competition for their overpriced mount with last year's 8GB HD. I'm still looking forward to additional products which fit that bay. What does OWC have up their sleeves?

$200 for a mounting bracket and 2 slightly-customised SATA cables that should have been included with the Mac in the first place...

To be fair, the third cable is a USB3-to-SATA cable which might set you back as much as $7!

Sheesh. I've bought entire PC cases that cost less than $200 and they don't charge extra for the flippin' drive brackets. ...and that's premium Fractal Design/Silverstone stuff that you can compare with Apple and keep a straight face, although the Mac Pro blows right past "premium" and into "over-engineered to the point of parody"...

OK, I know all the big IT firms will charge you $50 for a cable tie if they think you're ordering with a corporate credit card and not watching the price, but that doesn't make it right - and they're usually doing it to compensate for under-bidding on support contracts.
[automerge]1590596832[/automerge]

...probably because there are only 2 SATA connectors (plus a USB-3) on the Mac Pro mainboard...?

Exactly - there are only 2 SATA connectors on the Mac Pro mainboard where this bay mounts. But they could have daisy-chained, no?

 

[juanm]

This looks like it would be great as a 3d print and cost about $0.50 in materials (or twice that if you use some kind of carbon fibre filament to make it look like the original.

 

[D.T.]

$200 for a piece of plastic and 3 sata cables? Yikes.

Well, it's aluminum, but point taken

 

[4jasontv]

I for one need this to add my spare 1 TB WD blue.

 

[satcomer]

Everyone with a 2019 Mac Pro should look at this video because it tests most cards:

 

[HackMacDaddy]

There is already a 3D printable project on the net, based on the Pegasus. Just google it. You will need to make your own cables too.

And just for clarity because some people were confusing it: the Mac Pro comes with NO support for installing SATA drives AT ALL. So in order to bump up storage you go PCIE->NVME or a 3rd party bracket->SATA drives.

Additional info: If you go base 256GB its one proprietary SSD module from Apple (tied to the T2 chip). If you go above that, it's always two proprietary SSD modules.

This is one of the design flaws that kept me from buying this machine.

 

[Digital Dude]

There was a time when I would drool over stuff like this (I still kinda do).

My days of popping the hood are behind me (even though I've been keeping my 2011 17", and 2012 iMac and 15" alive for the last couple of years with those skills).

I'm amazed that we live in an age where I can ACTUALLY replace my hardware with an iPad!

I no longer need the power this machine offers, even if I think it's cool that it can provide it.

Dang, I had to read this twice because it looks like something I would've written. After decades of tinkering with Mac's, my age finally caught up with me so my interest has faded. However, I just returned the new iPad Pro 12.9. Still not refined enough for me.

 

[Jimmy James]

The Mac Pro should come with no built in storage and require an adapter to add it. Now that would demonstrate courage.

 

[cupcakes2000]

The Mac Pro should come with no built in storage and require an adapter to add it. Now that would demonstrate courage.

Are you saying it’s strange to require an adapter to add storage to a computer? Because that’s been the case ever since computers have existed. If you’re trying to say that this is somehow different, then I’d like to know what kind of computer you have used in the past. Of course, if the Mac did indeed come with no internal storage, I’d get your point. However- that’s clearly not the case, so I’m presuming you just wanted to somehow twist this into being able to add the very very tired cliche about the word courage and apples usage of it regarding other subjects? Bravo.

 

[Darth Tulhu]

Dang, I had to read this twice because it looks like something I would've written. After decades of tinkering with Mac's, my age finally caught up with me so my interest has faded. However, I just returned the new iPad Pro 12.9. Still not refined enough for me.

At the risk of derailing the thread, what do you mean by "still not refined enough"?

I'm genuinely curious 'cause I'm ping-ponging between that and an MBA.

I swear, I've opened two browser windows and had two carts comparing them both for far too many times now.

I have until next year to decide though, unless this fall brings something interesting.

 

[[AUT] Thomas]

Exactly - there are only 2 SATA connectors on the Mac Pro mainboard where this bay mounts. But they could have daisy-chained, no?

Not really. 2 Ports on SATA practically means 2 drives. Theoretically SATA Expanders exist, but AFAIK need to be supported by the chipset. But even if you get that working, SATA is damn slow for todays standards. A single SATA lane practically allows for ~550MB/s (yes, all those SSDs are capped by SATA in their speed). So, a single port could hypothetically handle 2 mechanical drives without a major performance impact -but even those will see a performance hit as long as you write to the drives cache (256MB these days). The sad truth is an external USB3.1 enclosure is superior to internal drives these days. When it comes to raw transfer rate even ethernet outperforms SATA.

As such I see only a small niche for that... but well... good for those who need/want it...

 

[wwetech]

Those sata cables look so out of place. They should be black as well.