MP 7,1 What are Mac Pro 2019 owners using for storage?

[Keith Rondinelli]

It seems as though SSDs are too expensive to have sufficient storage for people that work with video and other large files, but mechanical hard drives don't make use of Thunderbolt 3's bandwidth. Just wondering what solutions folks on the board have come up with. Internal or external? SSD or HDD? I'm contemplating the OWC Excelsior 4TB SSD for critical projects that require fast speeds, and then some sort of RAID HDD external enclosure, but I'm at a loss as to which brands, etc.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Disagree. We have a couple of relevant threads on this here:

Mac Pro support for NVMe U2 Micron 9300 Pro 15.36TB U.2 Drive SSD?

Ok so I got the drive. I got a bracket and it all seems to fit in decently tidy. Some pics: So I have the Pegasus J2i in there. Swapped the useless 8TB for a 16TB spinner. I got a 3.5" to 2.5" bracket. One note, the screws in the J2i that hold larger drives, are too big for both the 2.5"/3.5"...

forums.macrumors.com

and here:

Suggestions for best bootable PCI NVMe card for 2019 nCMP 7,1 Mac Pro

So I’m looking to use the 15tb micron 9300 pro drivehttps://www.amazon.com/Micron-15-36TB-Enterprise-Solid-State/dp/B07SK8GSYZ as my boot/main drive with the new 7,1 Mac Pro. Thread on that drive can be found here...

forums.macrumors.com

You can probably put in a 15tb SSD and PCI card for well under $3000.

 

[C2R]

j2i (internal case from promise) with two Exos seagate in raid 0 (2x8 To) 16 To at 400 mo/s average... For photos library.
One external Thunderbolt3 Raid O
Work perfect
Iwill Buy some NVME for some vdeo files (not my primary use)

 

[bob_stan]

J2i with 2x8TB Toshiba drives in Raid 0.
1 2 TB Accelsior M.2 (internal) Raid 0 for running Parallels VDMs
Two OWC Thunderbolt3 Enclosures, each with 4x5TB Toshiba drives in a Raid 1+0 configuration
One OWC Thunderbolt2 enclosure with 4x2TB Toshiba non raid drives for Time Machine and Carbon Copy backups.

 

[bxs]

It seems as though SSDs are too expensive to have sufficient storage for people that work with video and other large files, but mechanical hard drives don't make use of Thunderbolt 3's bandwidth. Just wondering what solutions folks on the board have come up with. Internal or external? SSD or HDD? I'm contemplating the OWC Excelsior 4TB SSD for critical projects that require fast speeds, and then some sort of RAID HDD external enclosure, but I'm at a loss as to which brands, etc.

My initial storage configuration will be...

My goal is to have all storage be internal... and with this in mind...

• Using J2i with 1x 8TB, and 1x 16 TB HDD
• Sonnet/Samsung PCIe x16 card with 1x 2TB and 3x 1TB 979 EVO Plus blades
• The Sonnet/Samsung's 2TB blade will be split into 2x 1TB; 1TB for cloning internal Apple's 1TB SSD
• The Sonnet/Samsung's remain 4x 1TB setup as HFS+ RAID-0 for VERY fast i/o
• The J2i's HFS+ 8TB used for build data storage
• The J2i's 16TB split into three HFS+ pieces; 8TB, 4TB, 4TB with the 8TB for backing up the 8TB bulk data storage, 4TB for backing the Sonnet/Samsung 4TB RAID-0, and 4TB for Time Machine.

I will also have a TB3 1TB OWC Mercure Envoy SSD external (1600 MB/s) to serve me for testing new OSes as they get released before updating the internal Apple stock 1TB SSD.

The important goal for us is to have all storage be internal to the MP7,1.

 

[chfilm]

Disagree. We have a couple of relevant threads on this here:

Mac Pro support for NVMe U2 Micron 9300 Pro 15.36TB U.2 Drive SSD?

ZombiePhysicist, where you able to get the 9300 SSD running in the Mac Pro 7,1? The 9300 is the drive I've settled on but I haven't been able to find any confirmation that the drive will work under Catalina. (I understand that the 9300 will need a PCIe to U.2 adapter or RAID controller.)

forums.macrumors.com

and here:

Suggestions for best bootable PCI NVMe card for 2019 nCMP 7,1 Mac Pro

So I’m looking to use the 15tb micron 9300 pro drivehttps://www.amazon.com/Micron-15-36TB-Enterprise-Solid-State/dp/B07SK8GSYZ as my boot/main drive with the new 7,1 Mac Pro. Thread on that drive can be found here...

forums.macrumors.com

You can probably put in a 15tb SSD and PCI card for well under $3000.

This u2 drive is exciting, but has anyone tested it actually?
It would be very interesting for me as a video editor too.
So far I’m fine with my Pegasus2 R6, but I’m planning to add an internal SDD raid eventually.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

This u2 drive is exciting, but has anyone tested it actually?
It would be very interesting for me as a video editor too.
So far I’m fine with my Pegasus2 R6, but I’m planning to add an internal SDD raid eventually.

Yea. Me! I'm using it right now as I'm typing to you. LOVE IT!

 

[chfilm]

Yea. Me! I'm using it right now as I'm typing to you. LOVE IT!

right, I just read through this whole thread, how awesome is that?? Definitely considering it, especially with this cheaper solution with that single u.2 card..

 

[RyanFlynn]

I’m using the sonnet 4x4 with 4x 4tb nvme drives in raid zero and 4x drobo 8d with 96TB in storage each daisy chained via thunderbolt 3

 

[jasonmvp]

Storage:

• Base 1TB drive for the OS and apps (this is 2 x 512GB drives RAID0'd together in hardware)
• Two HighPoint 4xNVMe cards, each with four 2TB 970 Evo Plus drives on them. They're working together in a single RAID01 volume of 8TB. This is my working volume where I store all my "stuff".
• Old M.2 (non-NVMe) 512GB Samsung 951 on a x4 card. Scratch space for video editing.
• Two old(er) Samsung Evo 850 SATA SSDs striped into RAID0. This 4TB volume is where I upload video clips to, from my gaming rig.

 

[chfilm]

I’m using the sonnet 4x4 with 4x 4tb nvme drives in raid zero and 4x drobo 8d with 96TB in storage each daisy chained via thunderbolt 3

What 4TB SSDs are you using if I may ask?

 

[bxs]

What 4TB SSDs are you using if I may ask?

Yes, I'm also unaware of there being 4TB Samsung SSD/Flash blades at this time.

 

[bsbeamer]

Sabrent Rocket is the only with publicly available 4TB M.2 form factor NVMe at the moment. Samsung 4TB SSDs are all SATA varieties. All other 2/4TB+ models are U.2 or NF1 NVMe variety.

 

[profdraper]

Sonnet M.2 4x4 w/ 4x 970 EVOs: for fast cache & optimised media (Resolve & FCPX).

OWC Thunderbay 6 & SoftRAID: 5x2TB 850 EVOs as RAID 4; 1x4TB 850 EVO as TimeMachine (for now); 1x256GB PM961 M.2 NVMe as an Alt Boot volume. To date the Thunderbay has been excellent (no sleep or engery saving allowed on this mac). Only slight oddities with permissions that appears to be related to SoftRAID - seems to be sorted now.

 

[Snow Tiger]

I built a nice USB thumb drive just to use with my MP7,1 .

Built the thumb drive for $135 :

Sintech USB NVMe SSD enclosure ( model ST-M2U3-U ) . $25 .
Sintech USB-A to USB-C data cable ( enclosed in the above product ) .
EasyAcc Thunderbolt 3.0 Cable USB C to USB C cable ( model SS_DC_C2C ) . $10 .
1TB HP EX 920 NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD blade . ~$100 .

The Sintech enclosure has an Asmedia ASM2362 controller chip .

The drive was formatted GUID with Mac OS Extended Journaled ( AKA HFS+ ) .

The only thing I need to do in the future is place some thermal gap material in the enclosure if the drive gets a little too hot , as Sintech did not include any .

Got around 950 MB/s reads and writes .

Here are the results using the EasyAcc USB-C to USB-C cable with the TB3 port on the top of the Mac :

 

[chfilm]

I built a nice USB thumb drive just to use with my MP7,1 .

Built the thumb drive for $135 :

Sintech USB NVMe SSD enclosure ( model ST-M2U3-U ) . $25 .
Sintech USB-A to USB-C data cable ( enclosed in the above product ) .
EasyAcc Thunderbolt 3.0 Cable USB C to USB C cable ( model SS_DC_C2C ) . $10 .
1TB HP EX 920 NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD blade . ~$100 .

The Sintech enclosure has an Asmedia ASM2362 controller chip .

The drive was formatted GUID with Mac OS Extended Journaled ( AKA HFS+ ) .

The only thing I need to do in the future is place some thermal gap material in the enclosure if the drive gets a little too hot , as Sintech did not include any .

Got around 950 MB/s reads and writes .

Here are the results using the EasyAcc USB-C to USB-C cable with the TB3 port on the top of the Mac :

View attachment 889915

View attachment 889916

View attachment 889917

Yea I need something like this too, constantly need to move data from clients to my system and what good is the fastest internal storage when copying it off their server takes FOREVER.

 

[typecase]

Is there any way to put 3 3.5" HDD in the enclosure of the Mac Pro. I know the Pegasys and Sonnet brackets allow for 2 3.5" inch drives plus a 2.5" SSD. Is there anyway to get another 3.5" drive connected somehow?

 

[jasonmvp]

Is there any way to put 3 3.5" HDD in the enclosure of the Mac Pro.

At the moment, the only way to do it properly is the Promise MPX module. But it's silly expensive, partially because it comes with four drives already. Last I checked, they don't sell an empty module.

 

[jccmaxon]

6TB WD Thunderbolt Duo y 2tb sabrent nvme. And Ssd 860 500gb Windows data. ?

 

[Average Pro]

I just ordered the PROMISE Pegasus32 R8 32TB RAID. My plan is to pull all of the 4TB drives out and replace them with wither 6 or 8TB WD Gold/Ultrastar HDDs. The irony is that if I fill it with 8TB drives, it will cost less than if I had purchased the R8 64TB Pegasus brand new. I'll utilize the new 4TB drives as spares for other HDD external enclosures.

 

[typecase]

At the moment, the only way to do it properly is the Promise MPX module. But it's silly expensive, partially because it comes with four drives already. Last I checked, they don't sell an empty module.

Yeah. It would be nice if they sold it without drives. Does any one know if you can use the drives a JBOD instead of in the RAID Configuration? Makes the Sonnet bracket look downright cheap.

 

[jerrygladh]

Yeah. It would be nice if they sold it without drives. Does any one know if you can use the drives a JBOD instead of in the RAID Configuration? Makes the Sonnet bracket look downright cheap.

 

[jasonmvp]

Does any one know if you can use the drives a JBOD instead of in the RAID Configuration?

The show up as four, independent HDDs (or SSDs) to MacOS. What you do with them after that is up to you.

 

[iGobbleoff]

I've ordered mine so its still on the way, but I ordered the 1TB option from Apple, and then I'll get a 4TB SSD as an add-on then maybe a 8-10TB spinning drive as a secondary (for cloud drive syncing or general storage). I have servers for longer term storage so won't really be dumping too many drives in mine.

 

[typecase]

The show up as four, independent HDDs (or SSDs) to MacOS. What you do with them after that is up to you.

Thanks. It might be a while before I drop $2k on a hard drive rack. I had hoped it would have competitors by now and it may be the only way to import all the disks I currently use on my Mac Pro 5,1 to the new hotness.