Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm
And more for fellow storage geeks... that find this thread.
I heard back from the helpful folks at Sonnet. It seems their Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCIe cards are PCIe switch equipped so even when you don't have a 16 lanes of PCIe to feed that card, like when you only have 4 lanes inside a Thunderbolt 3 expansion chassis that you can get full bandwidth to any one M.2 card unlike in that OWC Express 4M2 drive enclosure. That's really great design.
Oh so close yet so...
Unfortunately the Sonnet M2 4x4 card is really intended for 16 lane PCIe slots and is physically large and only fits within their largest Thunderbolt 3 expansion chassis. But it seems that users have used the 4x4 SSD card in the same chassis as HDX cards... and I'm willing to bet that's not "officially supported" by Avid or Sonnet but it's interesting to know.
Because of its size the 4x4 card will only work in the following Sonnet chassis.
https://www.sonnetstore.com/collecti...d-thunderbolt3
https://www.sonnetstore.com/collecti...r-thunderbolt3
https://www.sonnetstore.com/collecti...akaway-box-550
Which makes it kinda impractical for most folks with all that size... but I have a need coming up that means I might get to try one out in my breakaway GPU box for non DAW use. (no promises). |
Thanks for all your info on here Darryl. I recently upgraded my old Hackintosh to a new 2020 iMac retina 27" i9 and am having to closely examine my storage needs due to the lack of internal drive bays!
Currently running multiple external USB3.1 cases with SSDs inside for audio recording, FX and samples, and a couple of USB3 hubs with backup drives but have had some issues with tracking multiple tracks. I moved the audio tracking sessions to the internal flash storage and things are a bit better, but storage is at a premium on the internal already. Things are pretty slow at times.
I've also got a couple of external monitors running off a Belkin dock and Apple thunderbolt 3 - HDMI adapter.
I'm curious as to how you got on with using the Sonnet GFU external chassis - it seems to be way cheaper than the three-slot model which is excessive for my needs.
I was very tempted by the OWC solution until I saw your post here, so thanks for the heads up.
Ideally I'd like an external Thunderbolt 3 chassis I can chuck a few SSDs in for sample and fx libraries and smooth multi-channel recording at low-ish buffers.
Is the Sonnet full-length card and m.2 form factor still the way to go? Ideally I'd like something I can chuck a couple of 2.5" SSD's in as well, but that's not a high priority.
Many thanks in advance for any further insights you may have.
Chris