New Mac Pro (7.1)

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Marsdy

My thinking is streaming samples from four drives concurrently will be faster -
4x 3000MB/s vs 1 x 8000MB/s. Although most of my sample libraries are Kontakt some are not and work better streaming off their own drive. In this case it would mean I'd have a RAID 0 over three drives for Kontakt and the fourth for other libraries.

I'm adding a 5th NVMe m.2 for Pro Tools audio.

RAID 0 *is* streaming from those derived concurrently. Likely better than you would get by manually laying out stuff.

The downsides of RAID 0 is increased chance of drive failure taking everything down and just having another layer of software to shoot yourself in the foot with.

Whether your using individual drives will be as fast as RAID is the access patterns. With libraries installed on non-RAID separate drives, you are more likely to only have one drive actually busy doing IO at a time.

Ideas that you might want some samples on a dedicated drive because that was needed in the past with HDD (because of drive seek times) very likely do not apply here at all.

Still it's not clear that disk IO is significant enough enough to worry about, or ever notice compared to other overhead, and what plugins and how you have configured streaming/DFD in Kontakt etc.

Unless I had run into an actual performance problem with any of these nVME/PCIe fast drive I'd be more focused on setting up what is easier to manage, backup etc. (e.g. how to best back up a very larger RAID volume... might or might not want to use cloning to do that).

[lucienpalmer]

Originally Posted by lucienpalmer

I hope it works. LHi user here too. I'll find out when my new MP gets here in a week or so.

I reached out to AJA, and all they said was "the cards that have been tested are listed on the website". They didn't answer my question specifically about the LHi.

I got my MacPro last week. I just installed the AJA Kona LHi today, and it seems to work fine. No issues at all. I haven’t loaded a session and worked with it yet, but the control panel is happy and the color bars show up on the projector.

Good start!

[Marsdy]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

RAID 0 *is* streaming from those derived concurrently. Likely better than you would get by manually laying out stuff.

The downsides of RAID 0 is increased chance of drive failure taking everything down and just having another layer of software to shoot yourself in the foot with.

Whether your using individual drives will be as fast as RAID is the access patterns. With libraries installed on non-RAID separate drives, you are more likely to only have one drive actually busy doing IO at a time.

Ideas that you might want some samples on a dedicated drive because that was needed in the past with HDD (because of drive seek times) very likely do not apply here at all.

Still it's not clear that disk IO is significant enough enough to worry about, or ever notice compared to other overhead, and what plugins and how you have configured streaming/DFD in Kontakt etc.

Unless I had run into an actual performance problem with any of these nVME/PCIe fast drive I'd be more focused on setting up what is easier to manage, backup etc. (e.g. how to best back up a very larger RAID volume... might or might not want to use cloning to do that).

Thanks Daryl.
I was using 6x SSDs arranged as RAID 0 pairs for Kontakt before the new Mac Pro. Each pair ran at 730MB/s. I had my libraries distributed across the three drives so the load was spread pretty evenly.

In the end I’ve set up all for NVMe’s on the Sonnet card as RAID 0. After much experimenting I think you’re right. I’m not sure I’d even notice the difference between them being RAIDed and not. It’s just so ridiculously fast. Not only that but the Sonnet seems to keep the drives nice and cool whilst being very quiet. (Monitoring the temperature with iStat.)

I’m getting over 8000MB/s, often up to 8500 and interestingly, write speeds are often slightly faster with Samsung Evo Plus 970 drives. I also have a Sabrent NVMe on a dumb PCIe adapter that reads very slightly slower than the Samsungs but runs cooler and is nearly half the price.

And in the end I’ve decided that backing up one 8TB volume is a less hassle than 4x 2TB volumes. I also have a 1TB Samsung NVMe for Pro Tools audio and the Sabrent 2TB for non Kontakt libraries.

I’ve taken an old Samsung 760 from a sample server PC (no longer needed) and put it in an external USB-C enclosure. Even that is reading over 1000MB/s. You’ve got to love NVMe!

[Marsdy]

For reference.

Both these PCIe adapter cards are working great in the 7.1 nMP for single NVME’s.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Downside: will only take single sided NVMe’s which means Samsung or Western Digital.

Also the Lycom DT-120 although you’ll need a separate heatsink for the NVME.

If you have more that one dongle, this hub works great in the internal USB slot. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The mini 6pin power cable that came with my HDX card works fine. You don’t need the Belkin cable kit. My HDX card is in slot 6 (x8) and worked first time, as did the three other PCIe cards.

[lucienpalmer]

Originally Posted by Marsdy

The mini 6pin power cable that came with my HDX card works fine. You don’t need the Belkin cable kit. My HDX card is in slot 6 (x8) and worked first time, as did the three other PCIe cards.

Yep, the original cables worked great. Up and running with no problems. HDX3 in slots 5, 6, 7.

Kona LHi in slot 4. Kona works great. Did a test from Pro Tools looping for a couple hours. Smooth as silk.

I have to say, zooming in and out at lightening fast speeds during playback is a dream come true. It made me giddy. :)

[MixerGuy]

Originally Posted by lucienpalmer

Yep, the original cables worked great. Up and running with no problems. HDX3 in slots 5, 6, 7.

Kona LHi in slot 4. Kona works great. Did a test from Pro Tools looping for a couple hours. Smooth as silk.

I have to say, zooming in and out at lightening fast speeds during playback is a dream come true. It made me giddy. :)

so I dont have any spare cables that originally came with my HDX cards

but i now have HDX-3 in a 2012 Cheese grater.

Do you happen to know - if I move my cards over to slots 5, 6, 7 in a 2019 Mac Pro - do I need additional cables?

I thought i would - as isnt there a new, different kind of power supply plug on the 2019 Mac pro, that I will need to get power from?

thanks to anyone who can clarify. After reading many posts above... it still isnt clear to me.

[lucienpalmer]

Post a photo of the cable you used in your 5,1 MacPro. Was it a black 6pin, clustered in two rows of three?

I have three different kinds of cables that came with my HDX cards

[Marsdy]

Avis has revised the slot configuration for 7.1 Mac Pros. Makes more sense now.

https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/ar...-Configuration

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Here are some pics from my install. They don't show the Kona card which is in and works perfectly. I have to attach some house clock to it and see how long it will playback and hold sync. Everything else is to be expected. Two huge slow drives and two SSD's on a sonnet card set up as JBOD. I am thinking about adding OWC Accelsior 4M2 4TB drive as my project drive. Can anyone chime in as to how fast it is and how well it holds up?

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More pictures...