U.2 NVME to Thunderbolt Enclosure - Revision history

Bryan at 13:03, 16 July 2025

2025-07-16T13:03:05Z

Bryan: /* Parts */

2025-05-29T02:25:12Z

Parts

Bryan at 22:18, 28 May 2025

2025-05-28T22:18:23Z

Bryan: /* Pictures */

2025-05-28T22:04:21Z

Pictures

Bryan: /* Pictures */

2025-05-28T22:03:30Z

Pictures

Bryan: /* Pictures */

2025-05-28T22:02:07Z

Pictures

Bryan at 22:01, 28 May 2025

2025-05-28T22:01:53Z

Bryan: Created page with "This is an enclosure I built to put 8x U.2 enterprise NVME drives on a Mac Studio. Thunderbolt 4 gives 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes, which is about 4 GBytes/s of throughput, and most N..."

2025-05-28T21:50:41Z

Created page with "This is an enclosure I built to put 8x U.2 enterprise NVME drives on a Mac Studio. Thunderbolt 4 gives 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes, which is about 4 GBytes/s of throughput, and most N..."

New page

This is an enclosure I built to put 8x U.2 enterprise NVME drives on a Mac Studio.

Thunderbolt 4 gives 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes, which is about 4 GBytes/s of throughput, and most NVME drives support a 4x interface. There are several products which support NVME to thunderbolt, but most focus on m.2 consumer drives and don't support the 110mm long enterprise m.2. [https://www.owc.com/solutions/thunderblade The OWC Thunderblade], is listed as up to 32 TB of NVME, but is internally is 8x M.2 drives. What's worse is these are connected via 1x buses internally, as there is no PCI switch. This limits speed to any one drive, so any advanced raid setups will be limited. The consumer SSD's lack [https://www.kingston.com/en/blog/servers-and-data-centers/ssd-power-loss-protection Power Loss Protection] as well.

The OWC Thunderblade is 5500 USD for the 32 GB model. This is retarded. They refuse to sell the enclosure without disks, and make it non-upgradeable; so it's perfect for the typical Mac user (Why would you want to create and empty file!). OWC also claims a 2622 MB/s of peek throughput. This soultion has real results to 3376 MB/s read and 3220 MB/s write after exhausting on disk cache. In this case the limit is the PCI interface being maxed out.

With this you can upgrade NVME drives and I've found used NVME disks to have over a decade of life still left on them when used in typical service on the desktop.

= NVME on OSX =

First not all NVME U.2 drives are compatible with OSX.

[https://github.com/dortania/bugtracker/issues/192 Github discussion about NVME issues. ]

[https://abart.pro/en/blog/company-news-and-information-about-hardware-and-software/u2-and-u3-drives-compatible-with-apple-mac-computers-running-macos List of known OSX supported NVME U.2 disks]

= Parts =

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! QTY
! Part
! Price
! Extended
! Source
|-
| 8
| Micron 9300 PRO 7.68TB
| 375
| 3000
| ebay
|-
| 1
| CI Designs Ci2000 enclosure
| 54
| 54
| ebay
|-
| 1
| HPE 8sff cage
| 84
| 84
| ebay
|-
| 1
| SFX PSSU
| 64
| 64
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCJT8W2G
|-
| 4
| 𝐒𝐅𝐅-𝟖𝟔𝟓𝟒 74pin to 2*𝐒𝐅𝐅-𝟖𝟔𝟑𝟗
| 28
| 112
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B098JBS7QD
|-
| 1
| PCI Express reiser
| 9
| 9
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08R38B818
|-
| 1
| 80 mm fan
| 26
| 26
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VG9PJBO
|-
| 1
| Fan control
| 13.5
| 13.5
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D4YGKC6G
|-
| 1
| UT3G USB to PCI
| 115
| 115
| Aliexpress
|-
| 1
| CEACENT CNS44PE16 PCI Switch
| 130
| 130
| Aliexpress
|-
|
|
| Total
| 3607.50
|
|}

[[Category:Mac]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:18, 28 May 2025
Line 96:		Line 96:

	[[Category:Mac]]		[[Category:Mac]]
		+
		+	= Performance =
		+
		+	This was tested as a [https://openzfsonosx.org/ ZFS Stripe] or pool of the disks using [https://www.katsurashareware.com/amorphousdiskmark/ AmorphousDiskMark] using a 64 GB file, to ensure we're not hitting the disk cache or ZFS ram cache.
		+
		+	[[File:ZfsStripe - Apple M2 Ultra zfs stripe.png\|left\|ZfsStripe - Apple M2 Ultra zfs stripe]]
		+	<div style="clear: both"></div>
		+
		+	= Construction notes =
		+
		+	There's a ton of cable in here, but it's the least bad way to do this. It's important to have most of the holes other than a small vent for the PCI cards and the disks so that air is sucked though the enclosure. In testing I've seen the disks idle at 55-60c which is not warm for die temp on these disks; they are happy up to 80c. I put the temp sensor on the top of the disk cage, and configure the ramp setting so that it's very quiet and I can just feel some air movement with my hand in front of the disks.

	= Pictures =		= Pictures =

@@ Line 99: / Line 99: @@
 = Pictures =
-<gallery mode=hover widths=300px>
+<gallery mode=packed-hover widths="400px">
 U.2-NVME-Mac-Thunderbolt-00023.jpg
 U.2-NVME-Mac-Thunderbolt-00001.jpg

@@ Line 99: / Line 99: @@
 = Pictures =
-<gallery mode=packed-hover widths=300px>
+<gallery mode=hover widths=300px>
 U.2-NVME-Mac-Thunderbolt-00023.jpg
 U.2-NVME-Mac-Thunderbolt-00001.jpg

@@ Line 99: / Line 99: @@
 = Pictures =
-<gallery mode=packed-hover width=300px>
+<gallery mode=packed-hover widths=300px>
 U.2-NVME-Mac-Thunderbolt-00023.jpg
 U.2-NVME-Mac-Thunderbolt-00001.jpg

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 Thunderbolt 4 gives 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes, which is about 4 GBytes/s of throughput, and most NVME drives support a 4x interface.  There are several products which support NVME to thunderbolt, but most focus on m.2 consumer drives and don't support the 110mm long enterprise m.2.  [https://www.owc.com/solutions/thunderblade The OWC Thunderblade], is listed as up to 32 TB of NVME, but is internally is 8x M.2 drives. What's worse is these are connected via 1x buses internally, as there is no PCI switch.  This limits speed to any one drive, so any advanced raid setups will be limited.  The consumer SSD's lack [https://www.kingston.com/en/blog/servers-and-data-centers/ssd-power-loss-protection Power Loss Protection] as well.
-The OWC Thunderblade is 5500 USD for the 32 GB model.  This is retarded.  They refuse to sell the enclosure without disks, and make it non-upgradeable; so it's perfect for the typical Mac user (Why would you want to create and empty file!).  OWC also claims a 2622 MB/s of peek throughput.  This soultion has real results to 3376 MB/s read and 3220 MB/s write after exhausting on disk cache.  In this case the limit is the PCI interface being maxed out.
+The OWC Thunderblade is 5500 USD for the 32 GB model.  This is retarded.  They refuse to sell the enclosure without disks, and make it non-upgradeable; so it's perfect for the typical Mac user (Why would you want to create an empty file!).  OWC also claims a 2622 MB/s of peek throughput.  This soultion has real results to 3376 MB/s read and 3220 MB/s write after exhausting on disk cache.  In this case the limit is the PCI interface being maxed out.
 With this you can upgrade NVME drives and I've found used NVME disks to have over a decade of life still left on them when used in typical service on the desktop.

@@ Line 53: / Line 53: @@
 |-
 | 4
-| 𝐒𝐅𝐅-𝟖𝟔𝟓𝟒 74pin to   2*𝐒𝐅𝐅-𝟖𝟔𝟑𝟗
+| SFF-8654 to 2xSFF-8639
 | 28
 | 112

@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
 With this you can upgrade NVME drives and I've found used NVME disks to have over a decade of life still left on them when used in typical service on the desktop.
 = NVME on OSX =
@@ Line 16: / Line 18: @@
 = Parts =
 {| class="wikitable"
@@ Line 93: / Line 96: @@
 [[Category:Mac]]