Replacing System Drive in Mac Pro

Hi there

I will most likely buy one of the new, fast but very pricey, Mac Pros. I am looking at the 12 core version. I am however not that impressed with the price of upgrading the system drive to 2 TBs. It must be possible to use a third ware disk for this.....or what.

 

All the best

Henrik Krogh

It looks though Apple uses a proprietary connector, so no 3rd party option:

 

https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/06/10/apple-is-using-a-custom-connector-for-the-ssd-in-the-new-mac-pro

Which means that I won't get a new Mac Pro until the 3rdware guys come up with a cheaper solution....damn

Which means that I won't get a new Mac Pro until the 3rdware guys come up with a cheaper solution....damn

 

Aint gonna happen.

- drive is tied to the T2 chip which doubles as a controller, which means you need to re-calibrate the system to the new drives.

- the drive is not a "drive" it's just controller-less NAND.

- would've already happened for the most likely more widely adopted iMac Pro, and it didn't

 

on the other hand, why not just use one PCIe slot?

OWC carries Mac stuff. You could possibly buy a SSD replacement for what you're using now. They most likely will be the company to carry larger SSD for new Mac Pro, when Apple decides (if they do). l want/need a new Mac. Unfortunately I think there are a significant # of users (like us here) who need more power, but can't justify the price of a new Mac Pro..

256 GB SSD is pretty stingy. especially when so many companies want their data on the system drive. I'd like to buy a new computer, but with the additional specs I want, can't afford it. Idea of a 'hackintosh', but then you have to be somewhat talented in that area, to deal with updates, etc. Looking into a VEP set-up. Relieves computer of a lot of work. Would be able to get more milage out of old system.

 

You can make symbolic links for your system drive to offload some stuff. I bought a 1TB SSD in 2015 mac pro. I got enough space to do projects on it, then I offload to a raid system for storage. Good luck

 

I read of one guy proposing to buy a 2 TB drive, put in one of TB3 busses and boot off of that, (but he wasn't sure if you can do that with the new mac pro.. You'd have to check to see if that works.

You absolutely can, you can also use a PCIe drive.

 

And as i said, there won't be a third party primary drive for Mac Pro, just as it wasn't for the iMac Pro. Even if you find Apple branded sticks, you won't be able to pair them to T2 without a trip to the apple store.

Interesting, how do you use a PCI-e for a drive

https://www.sonnettech.com/product/m2-4x4-pcie-card.html like this.

best thing is, it offers 4x4 lanes, so if you RAID0 all four, you get probably in the 12gb/s vicinity throughput.

(one thunderbolt 3 is 1x4, so quarter that)

 

internal drive is on 1x4 lanes iirc, and tops up at 2.7gb/s, so this should be faster anyway.

Cool, that's the solution. I will have to get a 1TB system drive but the rest can be with this thing. I also have two other PCIe cards (UAD2 and RME Raydat) but there a 8 places if I have understood it correctly.

yes, but one is used by GPU by default, so effectively 7

Still I only use three slots now, actually two but Rayday takes up the place for two because I need 24 I/O

four slots in the new MP are double wide, and 4 are single