2Tb performance SSD, Mac Pro

[vbuggy]

Currently I've got several Mac Pro's with the 4 x factory 512Gb SSD's. I've been upgrading the Windows workstations with a mix of Fusion-IO and OCZ PCI-E storage, and am looking at sticking in something similar into the Macs as well, somewhere between 1-2Tb, 2Tb being optimal going forwards. Primary use to need the cards is large-dataset computation, although the performance comes in handy for everyday use as well.

I've noticed that most performance solutions either don't have an OS X driver, or are 'coming soon'. I was just wondering if anyone had any info on options, and perhaps some pointers on forthcoming availability. Thanks

 

[aigomorla]

WOW 2TB in pure SSD's.

i would love just a picture shot of that.. :O

You know who u should talk to?

Rubycon.

She is probably one of the only person i know who has played with a setup simular to what ur asking for.

 

[Cable God]

Currently I've got several Mac Pro's with the 4 x factory 512Gb SSD's. I've been upgrading the Windows workstations with a mix of Fusion-IO and OCZ PCI-E storage, and am looking at sticking in something similar into the Macs as well, somewhere between 1-2Tb, 2Tb being optimal going forwards. Primary use to need the cards is large-dataset computation, although the performance comes in handy for everyday use as well.

I've noticed that most performance solutions either don't have an OS X driver, or are 'coming soon'. I was just wondering if anyone had any info on options, and perhaps some pointers on forthcoming availability. Thanks

Yep, unfortunately, most of the PCI-E SSD's do not support Macs. If I were you, I'd look at the different 2.5" form-factor SSD's and see what you can get out of those if you must have Mac support. I currently use PCI-E from a couple manufacturers in my Windows & Linux machines, and now Intel 2.5" SSD's in the Macs in my environment.

 

[vbuggy]

Yep, unfortunately, most of the PCI-E SSD's do not support Macs. If I were you, I'd look at the different 2.5" form-factor SSD's and see what you can get out of those if you must have Mac support. I currently use PCI-E from a couple manufacturers in my Windows & Linux machines, and now Intel 2.5" SSD's in the Macs in my environment.

The problem is that there isn't that much (seemingly) in terms of performance gains to be had with regular SSD's running them in RAID0. I'm not a huge expert in this, but the ICH seems to be the bottleneck.

So the difference in performance between what I have now vs anything else I could stick directly in the drive bays appears to be minimal - tell me if I'm wrong here.

There are external solutions for the Pro but it seems messy - e.g. I could buy the Highpoint eSATA controller and string 4 M4's to it in external enclosures...?

It's not getting hugely in the way of things I'm doing at the moment, but I would like some degree of parity with my Windows kit, especially I'm moving more and more PC's to PCI-E SSD's as the 'main transaction' drives.

 

[vbuggy]

WOW 2TB in pure SSD's.

If you're WOW with that, I wonder what you'll do when I say "Currently I run around 60Tb in SSD's"

 

[JSt0rm]

Youre on the edge my friend. As you know the mac pro is sata II only for now (updates hopefully q1 2012) so think about that. Did you check OWC? I'm sure they would love to sell you 4x2tb pci-e ssd. So i would check with them. If it is possible I'm sure they know about it.

http://www.macsales.com/

 

[nanaki333]

If you're WOW with that, I wonder what you'll do when I say "Currently I run around 60Tb in SSD's"

i'd hate to see the replacement bill when they reach end of life

 

[Zap]

You know who u should talk to?

Rubycon.

She is probably one of the only person i know who has played with a setup simular to what ur asking for.

I'd love to play with Rubicon's setup too. Unfortunately I'm poor right now, and my SSDs are a hodgepodge of capacities/controllers from various hot deals.

I suppose I can just JBOD them all and end up with a lot of capacity, but it won't do much for performance.

 

[vbuggy]

Youre on the edge my friend. As you know the mac pro is sata II only for now (updates hopefully q1 2012) so think about that. Did you check OWC? I'm sure they would love to sell you 4x2tb pci-e ssd. So i would check with them. If it is possible I'm sure they know about it.

http://www.macsales.com/

These are probably the last Mac Pro's I'll buy until I transition fully away from OS X, so I'm not anticipating buying replacements, as typical an Appleholic answer as it might be.

I've checked OWC of course as well as other vendors and there are no high-performance internal solutions, and no truly high-performance external solutions either - the nearest approach possible appears to be the route I mentioned earlier - buy the Highpoint 4-port 6Gb eSATA card, and string together a bunch of Crucial M4's. I have more 512Gb M4's on order so I'm thinking it wouldn't hurt to pick up the controller and try establishing an array to see if it's a meaningful boost.

Still, a turnkey PCI-E solution would be a lot more elegant - it needn't be bootable, for that I'm reasonably happy with two fast SATA3 SSD's (even though this already appears to be flooding the Mac Pro ICH).

 

[Emulex]

might wait for intel - apple will support it in the newest mac pro's but keep in mind (you know this with fusion i/o) the heat and power is immense. will need a power connector. the enterprise mlc drives will fit into the drive bay slots from intel. but you will need to wait a bit.

 

[vbuggy]

Revisiting this thread, I'm intrigued by the new Promise Pegasus R6. What would I need to hook it up to a Pro, and has anyone stuck 2.5" SATA(III?) SSD's in there yet?

 

[vbuggy]

nvm. It appears there's no simple way to do it and it will likely only be solved when Thunderbolt-equipped Pro's appear.

However it so happens that pending finalisation it looks like I'm being drawn back into OS X with some new work and I have to change my plans for 'no more Macs'.

So I'll just stagger on with the drive-bay SSD's until whenever Apple refreshes the Pro and decide whether it makes sense to replace or not in terms of getting the performance I'm looking for.

Consider the thread closed until then and thanks for the comments thus far.