Sonnet reached out to me last week to see if I’d be interested in taking its M.2 4×4 PCIe Card for a test drive in my Mac Pro, and I happily obliged. The x16 card, which features four slots for four single-sided M.2 blades, allocates four PCIe lanes per card.
Setting up the unit is just a matter of unscrewing the outer cover, removing the heat sink, and depositing four drives. Sonnet pre-filled four Samsung EVO 970 M.2 SSDs for me to test, which offer sequential read and write performance levels of up to 3,500 MB/s and 2,500 MB/s, respectively.
Keep in mind that Sonnet says that only SSDs with memory components on the top side of the module are compatible with this card. For that reason, double-sided memory component M.2 SSD media is not recommended. See Sonnet’s tech specs for additional details.
Thanks, yes that is the one. I have seen this compatibility list, but have seen contradictory reports. While the list says the Samsung 990 Pro nvme works on it for example, others have said it is incompatible with the Mac Pro 2019. It is hard to know what is correct?
Bringing this old thread back rather than repeating the question.. Has anyone added one recently and if so what ssds did you choose. The doc listed here is old now and most of those drives not easily obtained. Im looking for 2Tb ssds that are compatible with both Mac and windows?
Bringing this old thread back rather than repeating the question.. Has anyone added one recently and if so what ssds did you choose. The doc listed here is old now and most of those drives not easily obtained. Im looking for 2Tb ssds that are compatible with both Mac and windows?
So many people were helpful to me on this forum when I first started out that even though my participation has fallen away to "read-only" status, this was the area I ended up with special expertise and so I feel honor bound to assist (all humility to one side obviously).
The last best NVME SSD* for compat, speed, endurance etc is the Samsung 970 Pro. It's limitations (very real for some people) are that it only has two (2) variants - a 512GB option or a 1024GB (1TB) option.
[*in the m.2 NGFF 2280 form factor]
(So why weigh in now?)
Every one contributing here is acting in good faith, but it cannot possibly be known by current users and future readers that between the 970PRO end of production and the subsequent generational replacement (980PRO) global market forces (specifically, the cost differential) led the last 'honest broker' in super premium NVME manufacture to abandon their market leading position of FASTEST SUSTAINED SPEED NVMe STORAGE solution (..introducing the Samsung 970 PRO) in favour of *THE* FASTEST and BEST NVMe STORAGE solution on planet Earth (..introducing the Samsung 980 PRO).
I'M GETTING A BIT TIRED BUT ALL READERS TO THIS POINT ARE OWED AT LEAST A FEW MORE FACTS BEFORE I SIGN OFF. FORGIVE THE BREVITY FOR NOW - I'LL CONTINUE THE ESSAY AT A LATER DATE.
Basically, all SAMSUNGS competitors (BOTH cheap, low qual new entrants *AND* proven, trusted and respected tech titans) shifted to reporting [accurately] higher and higher (faster and faster) burst transfer rates.
In the early days, competitors promised and delivered 4500Mb/s for 17 seconds then when the flash mem device (dram i think) added to disk controller was *full* (usual 4-6% of advertised disk capacity) it would throttle transfer speeds down to say 375Mb/s for the remainder of the transfer. Taking maybe 35 minutes total to transfer the full disk contents of disk A to disk B when both disks are hosted in a Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCIe Card.
Problem was we'd lost disk technology, which was much more expensive to manufacture, which could do 3300Mb/s Read / Write Sustained. The 970 PRO would take maybe 4.2 minutes total to transfer the full disk contents of disk A to disk B when both disks are hosted in a Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCIe Card.
Check Toms Hardware, BareFeats and AnandTech where detailed performance benchmarks fairly explain and tease apart the costs [true sustained disk transfer speeds] and benefits [materially cheaper, faster adoption of NVMe SSD storage tech]
SO.... you'd think the 990 PRO (or 980 PRO) would be faster than the 970 PRO right? Well it is.. kinda.. burst is like 14900Mb/s.. CRAZY FAST..! but if you're like me, you may share in the belief that the disk the market leader released last year should be able to do a disk A to disk B 'copy and paste contents' transfer a little faster than the disk (970 PRO) it released 6-7 years earlier.
it WILL NOT, it CANNOT ..and it's very useful to know this
Only in closing I see that this whole post could have been - if you see a 970 PRO on eBay selling at double the price it retailed for 6-7 years ago - it's STILL worth it.
So many people were helpful to me on this forum when I first started out that even though my participation has fallen away to "read-only" status, this was the area I ended up with special expertise and so I feel honor bound to assist (all humility to one side obviously).
The last best NVME SSD* for compat, speed, endurance etc is the Samsung 970 Pro. It's limitations (very real for some people) are that it only has two (2) variants - a 512GB option or a 1024GB (1TB) option.
Agree with you on the Samsung 970 Pro which I bought 5 years ago and it's constantly responsive. Just works.
However, not everyone is interested in buying a used SSD. The one I would look at now is the WD SN8100. No experience yet -- my Samsung 970 Pro just works too well to replace -- but WD has a pretty good history on the Mac and this model looks pretty good from a sustained write performance, etc.
