Mac Pro (Tower) Internal Storage Capabilities

[lordofradishes]

I am looking to get the newly announced M2 Ultra Mac Pro (Tower) computer for work.  We need to add internal HDD's as we will use this for testing our source code.  We therefore do lots of read/writes and normally do this on HDD's (scratch folders) since we can burn through HDD's rather quickly.   I was was chatting with Mac support and got basically no help and work around generic responses from a "specialist" who kept telling me RAM is not expandable. (Seriously I saved the chat logs, if someone at LTT is interested I'll send them over, seriously it is so bad). I also asked what the ports where on the motherboard and they said PCIe which is obvious and labeled in the description but the other ports are not listed.  I learned they are USB-a port (up to 5 Gb/s), Two Serial ATA ports (up to 6 Gb/s) and PSU C connector.  

So I am asking the community to help me decide what to do, I think if I get a SATA HDD I might not have the mounting point for the HDD. Also I am not sure if it will work as the "specialist" wasn't helpful or knowing enough to let me know if that would work. The reviews I have seen from the press are basically unsure what they are as Apple didn't provide them that information. I am also debating about PCIe alternatives which I am not familiar with for my storage needs.  

I am just looking for advise before I make a purchase that I personally hate making. 

[ki8aras]

im pretty sure it uses the same chassis as the previous one.

on the intel model you had to buy a seperate accessory that mounted inside and had space for 2(?) hdds

[lordofradishes]

3 minutes ago, ki8aras said:

im pretty sure it uses the same chassis as the previous one.

on the intel model you had to buy a seperate accessory that mounted inside and had space for 2(?) hdds

Yeah I just found this, https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HMUF2ZM/A/promise-pegasus-j2i-8tb-internal-storage-enclosure-for-mac-pro but it doesn't look like the bracket is separate.  Kinda ridiculous price for a 8 TB HDD and a bracket.  This is why I don't personally buy Apple.

[Shimejii]

You do know the ram is actually non expandable right? Its on the Compute chip itself, you have to buy exactly how much you need. That is how theyve done it for a few years now with their own chips.

 

Going forward the Mac Pro Tower makes pretty much 0 sense to buy, its 3000$ more then a Mac Studio with the exact same specs. For that 3000$ you can get a lot of External SSDs that will be pretty much the same. I dont expect the ones they use in the system to be any faster. 

 

As long as you have the potential to bring your own SSD enclosure it should work, but i dont know how much they will allow that since theyve been trying to lock down their hardware for whats allowed and not for a while.

[lordofradishes]

7 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

You do know the ram is actually non expandable right? Its on the Compute chip itself, you have to buy exactly how much you need. That is how theyve done it for a few years now with their own chips.

 

Going forward the Mac Pro Tower makes pretty much 0 sense to buy, its 3000$ more then a Mac Studio with the exact same specs. For that 3000$ you can get a lot of External SSDs that will be pretty much the same. I dont expect the ones they use in the system to be any faster. 

 

As long as you have the potential to bring your own SSD enclosure it should work, but i dont know how much they will allow that since theyve been trying to lock down their hardware for whats allowed and not for a while.

You missed my point, I know the RAM is not expandable but the "specialist" didn't realize I was talking about storage.  I don't need to expand it, I need HDD's.  Also I can't do the Mac Studio because I need HDD's as stated in my original post.  

Don't disagree with you, but as I stated, I am purchasing for my company so it is not my money to save.

[igormp]

48 minutes ago, lordofradishes said:

I am just looking for advise before I make a purchase that I personally hate making

I believe your only viable option would be to use an HBA card and pray that it works with MacOS, then jerry rig some way to keep those HDDs in place.

 

Honestly, it may be better to just build a NAS with 10GbE and connect the Mac system to this remote storage, networking speeds shouldn't be a bottleneck for HDD-based systems, and you can always go for faster networking if needed.

[seanondemand]

Yeah, a Studio and a Thunderbolt enclosure would be the way to go. Easier to put together and more cost effective. Or a NAS. 

[ki8aras]

On 6/12/2023 at 9:46 PM, lordofradishes said:

Yeah I just found this, https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HMUF2ZM/A/promise-pegasus-j2i-8tb-internal-storage-enclosure-for-mac-pro but it doesn't look like the bracket is separate.  Kinda ridiculous price for a 8 TB HDD and a bracket.  This is why I don't personally buy Apple.

as you said, its not your money to save