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

[zorinlynx]

if you use a Hackintosh in a commercial environment where you could get software audited, you're taking a huge risk.

I have to ask, does anyone know if Apple has ever sued/threatened a company or individual users for running hackintoshes? My understanding is that they have been tolerant of the idea, with the reasoning being that anyone who works that hard to run MacOS on a regular PC is a big fan of Apple in at least that respect and a potential customer.

The one time I tried to Hackintosh I didn't have the patience to deal with issues that would come up, so I stopped, but I have respect for people who do that full time as it takes some hackery knowledge.

 

[theluggage]

My understanding is that they have been tolerant of the idea, with the reasoning being that anyone who works that hard to run MacOS on a regular PC is a big fan of Apple in at least that respect and a potential customer.

...yes, they've been tolerant and will continue to be tolerant up until the millisecond that they have a change of policy and decide to clamp down.

Anyway, if you're working for a company and they decide to/are forced have a software audit to get their Whatever-standards-authority "we're more concerned about paperwork than reality" certification it won't be Apple doing it - it will be the Witch-finder General. and he doesn't get paid for saying "You're good! No pointy hats or black cats here!"

 

[Onelifenofear]

NVMe drives are fast, but they aren't very large - which is why a lot of us still use spinning rust. My iTunes library is around 8Tb, and I am still moving my TV series to it.

That's when you need a Synology or other NAS
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Guys, the solution really is a hackintosh.

It's really not. Not for a work production machine. I've got a few and they are even more of a PITA than windows and that saying something. It really depends who you are. I find it mind numbingly boring dealing with clover and Kexts and all the other stuff I nearly understand. Now I have a Mac Pro 2019 and I am turning work out day in - day out without any issues. Hackingtosh can be great thing for a simple work machine perhaps. But I'd rather be outside enjoying the sunshine.

 

[haravikk]

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

They shouldn't even be visible; this is a bespoke upgrade for a high end computer which has the necessary ports in a fixed location yet they couldn't be bothered making the device just slot onto them? Especially since the drives can't be removed from the side, so you have to remove the entire bracket to access them.

I mean, if you're happy to have cables in the system then why do you even need the custom bracket at all? 2.5" drives in particular can go just about anywhere, no need to buy a custom bracket or lose expansion slots.

Feels like a really, really lazy solution for such a high end machine; fine if it were a DIY solution from existing parts, but not for a custom item.

 

[Onelifenofear]

They shouldn't even be visible; this is a bespoke upgrade for a high end computer which has the necessary ports in a fixed location yet they couldn't be bothered making the device just slot onto them? Especially since the drives can't be removed from the side, so you have to remove the entire bracket to access them.

I mean, if you're happy to have cables in the system then why do you even need the custom bracket at all? 2.5" drives in particular can go just about anywhere, no need to buy a custom bracket or lose expansion slots.

Feels like a really, really lazy solution for such a high end machine; fine if it were a DIY solution from existing parts, but not for a custom item.

Well it's Flexible in the Drives you can add.. but you could have backplane version that slots directly into those 3 ports under the caddy with the wires hidden inside.

 

[chikorita157]

Guys, the solution really is a hackintosh. Throw stones at me for mentioning it if you want to, but for everyone who wants the perfect solution, I suggest investing 2 days of work and researching/building it yourself.

Pros: Runs stable, same as a real Mac. Not forced to use Crapalina 10.15. HDD Trays galore depending on your case. In my case up to 5x 3,5" or 10x2,5" + two additional 2,5" SATA mounts in the back. I run 13TB of SSD storage. Two seperate drives for MacOS/Win10. You can swap out NVME drives on the MOBO at any time. Not tied to a T2 chip. Just go and buy a bigger and faster drive than what Mac Pro offers. The list goes on...

Cons: no Apple Logo on the case. Not plug and play.

Don't get me wrong: I could buy a couple of 2019 Mac Pros if I wanted, money is absolutely not my motivation. It's just absolutely not the solution that I wanted and was expecting like so many others. I am still interested in it and looking forward to how it will evolve. In case you want me to go leave this thread ;-) If this thing works for you, great! But we all know there is a huge gap between the Pro and the Mini.

I highly disagree. After building a Hackintosh using an X99 and a 5820k and using it since 2017, I am about to retire it probably in a few months. Sure, it’s fast, but the stability isn’t there. I run a good amount of virtual machines, do productivity work and development that requires a good amount of RAM. Sometimes, the system completely freezes, even without an overclock on macOS Catalina that I have to hard reset. In contrast, my 2018 and 2012 Macbook Pro runs for days without needing a reboot. Also, I don‘t have much free time to spend tinkering around with Clover, kext files, configurations, etc. I would rather have a working machine.

Yes, I am eventually going to ditch the Hackintosh soon, probably in a few more months for a base model Mac Pro, shove the NVME drive from the Hackintosh and boot off that and take two of the 3 TB WD Reds and install some hard drive bracket to have bulk local storage. Then take out the 580x and shove my RX Vega 56 into the system. No, an iMac or an iMac Pro won’t suit my needs since I don’t want a sealed system that I can’t upgrade and use for 5+ years. I probably need more than 64 GB+ to host a virtual lab enviroment and 32 GB isn’t cutting it. Sure a Mac Pro is expensive, but you aren’t going to replace it anytime soon, but rather expand on it with upgrades.

 

[HackMacDaddy]

I highly disagree. After building a Hackintosh using an X99 and a 5820k and using it since 2017, I am about to retire it probably in a few months. Sure, it’s fast, but the stability isn’t there. I run a good amount of virtual machines, do productivity work and development that requires a good amount of RAM. Sometimes, the system completely freezes, even without an overclock on macOS Catalina that I have to hard reset. In contrast, my 2018 and 2012 Macbook Pro runs for days without needing a reboot. Also, I don‘t have much free time to spend tinkering around with Clover, kext files, configurations, etc. I would rather have a working machine.

Yes, I am eventually going to ditch the Hackintosh soon, probably in a few more months for a base model Mac Pro, shove the NVME drive from the Hackintosh and boot off that and take two of the 3 TB WD Reds and install some hard drive bracket to have bulk local storage. Then take out the 580x and shove my RX Vega 56 into the system. No, an iMac or an iMac Pro won’t suit my needs since I don’t want a sealed system that I can’t upgrade and use for 5+ years. I probably need more than 64 GB+ to host a virtual lab enviroment and 32 GB isn’t cutting it. Sure a Mac Pro is expensive, but you aren’t going to replace it anytime soon, but rather expand on it with upgrades.

Sorry to hear that. But this is your specific case. I made my build in 2019. It's based on Z390, not X99. I've set it up ONCE and never did any tinkering with it ever since. It runs 6 days a week for hours and hours. No crashes, no freezes, nothing. I do all the system updates (Mojave) without a hitch just like a real mac. Sometimes while bouncing tracks I do like 5 really heavy tasks in parallel and this thing just eats through it.

It took me two days to build. But I much rather invest two days in building a 100% perfect machine, than waiting decades for the right Mac to be released. Also I am super happy I will never have any newly introduced crashes and freezes because of the T2 chip and all that comes with it. Also I can freely chose my OS and I'm not forced into Catalina.

 

[CJ Dorschel]

NVMe drives are fast, but they aren't very large - which is why a lot of us still use spinning rust. My iTunes library is around 8Tb, and I am still moving my TV series to it.

Same. I have a Thunderbolt array to hold my HDD’s from one of my 2012 Mac Pro’s to the Mac Pro6,1. The four drives simply needed housing and not using RAID - just storage. 6 years later they Promise Pegasus array is going strong but have increased my drives to 6TB and 8TB WD Red’s to accommodate my data needs. My iTunes library is roughly 6 TB’s and that’s not including my server racks in my home theatre in Berlin that have ripped 1080P - 4K movies in lossless with my Mcintosh AVR and B&W speaks (still use a player but rip movies for streaming when away from home). My Time Machine drives for my Mac Pro’s grow larger by the year and I don’t backup drives and folders that aren’t necessary and wipe them every year and start fresh (plus I keep my systems ridiculously clean and streamlined).

I realize technology is pushing towards amazingly fast drives yet the costs with limited storage capacities and high storage demands make 3.5” HDD’s a better option especially as differences in speed seem negligible. Boot drives certainly between but everything else seems less important for my needs. I simply wish Apple considered SATA III internal storage as an option instead of MPX modules and two SATA connections. As it stands, I’d be stuck running a 6 year old Thunderbolt 2 array connected to a $5-6k mac pro. I can’t use an iMac Pro - they’re slow my needs, I use two LG UltraFine 5K displays and require at least dual displays for work, and all-in-one form factors are out of the question.

It should have been simple: offer a BTO customisable system. The framework was already there. I understand the logicboard is the most expensive component to accommodate for professional top of the line components such as Afterburner, etc. yet it prices the system well above the $3k line for those of us who’ve use PowerMac’s and Mac Pro’s for decades now. I simply want a user upgradable tower that can fit my external storage and finally ditch my 12-Core Dual D700’s trash can that I constantly need to dismantle monthly to clean out the massive dust that slows it down and worsens the 2013 Mac Pro’s heating issues.

I’ve built numerous hackintoshes for friends and personal use yet they’re unstable and not a daily driver for my needs. Apple still refuses to fill a larger market demand than most realize by returning to Mac Pro’s of the 2000’s. I’m holding out that sales and user feedback may push Apple to offer a Mac Pro with a more reasonably priced logic board to fill that market yet Apple’s track record doesn’t give me much hope.
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I highly disagree. After building a Hackintosh using an X99 and a 5820k and using it since 2017, I am about to retire it probably in a few months. Sure, it’s fast, but the stability isn’t there. I run a good amount of virtual machines, do productivity work and development that requires a good amount of RAM. Sometimes, the system completely freezes, even without an overclock on macOS Catalina that I have to hard reset. In contrast, my 2018 and 2012 Macbook Pro runs for days without needing a reboot. Also, I don‘t have much free time to spend tinkering around with Clover, kext files, configurations, etc. I would rather have a working machine.

Yes, I am eventually going to ditch the Hackintosh soon, probably in a few more months for a base model Mac Pro, shove the NVME drive from the Hackintosh and boot off that and take two of the 3 TB WD Reds and install some hard drive bracket to have bulk local storage. Then take out the 580x and shove my RX Vega 56 into the system. No, an iMac or an iMac Pro won’t suit my needs since I don’t want a sealed system that I can’t upgrade and use for 5+ years. I probably need more than 64 GB+ to host a virtual lab enviroment and 32 GB isn’t cutting it. Sure a Mac Pro is expensive, but you aren’t going to replace it anytime soon, but rather expand on it with upgrades.

All this. You summed up my exact experiences, needs, etc better than my long post. I fear I may follow your lead and bite the bullet. My 25% off and current Mac Pro trade-in will make the sting much less.

I have four Red’s in an external array I’d prefer to mount internally and ditch my Thunderbolt 2 array yet it seems only 2 of them will fit. I’m not spending $2200 for a module just for internal storage. The base model will work just fine yet the GPU is a red flag. Even with the Mac Pro6,1’s heating issues impacting the soldering of the dual D700’s I’ve been lucky mine haven’t succumbed yet (knock on wood). Cleaning it throughly on a monthly basis makes a big difference which I won’t have to do with the Mac Pro7,1.

I’ll check out the RX Vega 56 as I haven‘t had time to research alternatives to the base GPU. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated and thank some much for your informative post

 

[chikorita157]

Sorry to hear that. But this is your specific case. I made my build in 2019. It's based on Z390, not X99. I've set it up ONCE and never did any tinkering with it ever since. It runs 6 days a week for hours and hours. No crashes, no freezes, nothing. I do all the system updates (Mojave) without a hitch just like a real mac. Sometimes while bouncing tracks I do like 5 really heavy tasks in parallel and this thing just eats through it.

It took me two days to build. But I much rather invest two days in building a 100% perfect machine, than waiting decades for the right Mac to be released. Also I am super happy I will never have any newly introduced crashes and freezes because of the T2 chip and all that comes with it. Also I can freely chose my OS and I'm not forced into Catalina.

I tend to prefer Intel enthusiast platforms since it’s closest to what the Mac Pro/iMac Pro uses and have the ability to use higher core count processors and adding memory. The challenge is that Apple never used X99/X299, although the iMac Pro and the Mac Pro uses the workstation variant of the X299. There used to be someone who maintained a guide to run macOS on these platforms using an Asus motherboard, but he has since retired. Sure, Catalina works and I kind of need it to develop iOS apps, but it’s not stable, even without an overclock. Not willing to swap to a consumer motherboard since there is not enough cores and memory slots for future expansion. Also, I don’t have the time to mess around with trying to get it to work.

Also, my Macbook Pro 2018 15 inch in comparison is a lot more stable. I still run Mojave on it, but I hardly have any T2 chip issues, except some minor issues that went away with time and almost have the same performance of the X99 desktop, which have a 5820k and use more power. Hackintosh does not provide me that kind of stability, especially when using enthusiast platforms. The only problem is it doesn’t have enough memory to run a lot of virtual machines (I probably need more than 64 GB+ if I want to run a virtual Vmware VCenter lab). Also, not willing to even build an AMD Ryzen based system and install macOS on it since that is another rabbit hole of tinkering. I just want something that works, upgradable and last for 7 years at least.

 

[HackMacDaddy]

Guys if Hacks didn‘t or don‘t work for you that‘s okay. But not everyone has the same negative experience and you need to accept that. My built is the closest you can get to an i9 iMac but with expandability and proper cooling if anyone is interested in the parts I can post them.

As I mentioned before, this thing has no issues whatsoever. I don’t even understand why you would want to fiddle around with kexts etc all the time?? Makes no sense.

It is my workstation which generates around 150.000€ of income every year. So I can whole heartedly disagree that it can‘t be used for pro work.

I‘m waiting for the ARM Macs now! Especially the laptops.