M.2 Internal SSD startup?

[nobhobbor]

can a M.2 Internal SSD be used as a startup disk? i mean a start up SSD?
for music production, i'll have Logic running on the startup and record to another SSD

To obtain the

• Sequential reads/writes up to 530 / 510 MB/s on all file types
• Random reads/writes up to 92K / 83K on all file types

will the project SSD need to be M.2 also?
can the computer start from a drive in a PCIe slot?
is it a bad idea to create a dual boot Mac OS/AV Linux

 

[Jamesbond007]

Can a M.2 Internal SSD be used as a startup disk? I mean a start up SSD? for music production, I'll have Logic running on the startup and record to another SSD.

There are 2 types of M.2 SSDs, one based on the SATA interface and the other based on the newer NVMe interface. If the M.2 SSD is of the SATA type, it will be treated as just another SATA drive and no modifications are needed for MacOS to recognize and boot from it.

If the M.2 SSD is of the NVMe type, things are a little different. MacOS versions before High Sierra do not support third party NVMe M.2 SSDs. MacOS High Sierra supposedly does have support for them and should be able to start from them. You also need motherboard support to be able to boot from these NVMe drives.

To obtain the

• Sequential reads/writes up to 530 / 510 MB/s on all file types
• Random reads/writes up to 92K / 83K on all file types

Will the project SSD need to be M.2 also?
Can the computer start from a drive in a PCIe slot?
Is it a bad idea to create a dual boot Mac OS/AV Linux?

There are SSD drives nowadays that are made to be put into a PCIe slot, like the Plextor M8PeY. These drives are mostly of the NVMe type. There are also adapter cards like the Silverstone ECM20 that installs in a PCIe slot and allows you to install a M.2 SSD (SATA and NVMe are both accepted) on it. The same restrictions as in above would apply.

 

[nobhobbor]

here are my startup and project drives:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JCXXQ1A/?tag=tonymacx86com-20 $120 x 2

here is my mother board:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AIZXZHQ/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
which is not supported by apple i suppose $100

Gigabyte GA-Z270X-UD5 ATX $155
Slots: 1x PCI-Express 3.0 x16 Slots, 1x PCI-Express 3.0 x8, 1x PCI-Express 3.0 x4, 2x PCI Express 3.0 x1, 2x PCI Slots

what would be a CPU choice?
Intel Core i5-7600K $200
Intel Core i7-7700K $300

with the correct CPU, would this be a balanced system, or am i wasting the drives power?
what would you build around these drives to use their potential? i don't need to use their full potential if i can save a few hundred, but i'd like to use some of their potential

 

[Jamesbond007]

Here are my startup and project drives:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JCXXQ1A/?tag=tonymacx86com-20 $120 x 2

Here is my motherboard:

Gigabyte GA-Z270X-UD5 ATX $155
Slots: 1x PCI-Express 3.0 x16 Slots, 1x PCI-Express 3.0 x8, 1x PCI-Express 3.0 x4, 2x PCI Express 3.0 x1, 2x PCI Slots

What would be a CPU choice?
Intel Core i5-7600K $200
Intel Core i7-7700K $300

With the correct CPU, would this be a balanced system, or am I wasting the drives power?
What would you build around these drives to use their potential? I don't need to use their full potential if I can save a few hundred, but I'd like to use some of their potential

I have no experience with Logic, but I would guess that the 7600K should be sufficient for you.

As to the motherboard, it may be difficult to find the GA-Z270X-UD5 now as production seems to have been stopped and stocks are running out. You may have to consider another board (unless of course if you already have it).

You are planning to use 2 M.2 NVMe drives, which means you most likely need to go with High Sierra. And since most motherboards have only one M.2 slot, you will probably need a PCIe adapter card like the one I mentioned to hold the other M.2 SSD.

Do you plan to use a discrete graphics card or just the CPU graphics?

 

[nobhobbor]

i should have mentioned that i need to do video editing because it puts more demands on the system than music editing. music editing is my focus but i need to remember the computer should be built for video editing in Final Cut Pro so i will need a GPU. someone recommended a GPU for Final Cut Pro, but i'll have to look that thread up and see if is compatible. if you are thinking of something, i am all ears.

i assume i should consider the i7 7700K

i do not have any components yet. i am probably going to go through this build in my mind and maybe out here in this forum a few times because i do not have the money and my awareness of the components keeps changing. this proposal is way different than my last one. i do not have any components yet.

i read not to dual boot AV Linux with Mac OS, i can't remember if it's because AV Linux uses the KSM Linux kernel. i guess i’ll need another computer for Linux, i’ll get a used one for that.

 

[Pierre.s]

@nobhobbor how did you go with your build?
I'm also looking at building something for video editing and need a 3 SSD configuration (OS + Swap files + Rush files). I'd like the OS SSD to be on the M2 port of my motherboard (MSI Z370I GAMING PRO CARBON AC LGA 1151-2 Mini-ITX) but the M2 compatibility with hackintoshes (High Sierra) isn't clear.

 

[nobhobbor]

i do research ad nauseum, so no build yet. after researching DAWs for music production, i decided to migrate from Logic X to Harrison Mixbus and WaveForm Tracktion in Ubuntu, (Mixbus and Tracktion work in all 3 OSs) but still want to have the option of working in Mac OS X HS (i am still in Mavericks, afraid of upgrading at the moment) and even Windows 10 for some VSTs and possibly UA plugins (back to Mac OS X) that pointed to the multi booting forum here, and this thread https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/will-mac-os-x-run-in-exfat.241352/ and the NAS box storage system running FreeNas. so i was thinking of building a NAS box as my project drive. i want separate drives for boot drive that will run the DAW or final cut pro, the library drive for virtual or software instruments and plugins and the project drive which will be a NAS box, so now i want to know if the Library drive should be in the NAS box as well. multi boot hard drives are not recommended, what they suggest is a drive for each OS, so i think instead, since i'll have the NAS box, i'll build 3 small computers ... reading your post, and thinking about a thread from about 2 months ago, max, a mediator from this group suggested this M.2 drive http://www.goplextor.com/Product/Detail/M8Pe(Y)#/Features which i took to mean although it was not "supported by Apple" that it would very likely support Mac OS X. i am asking a seller on Ebay about this https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-H310-...or-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID/162834659601?rmvSB=true the number of drives is ridiculous, 6? for NAS, one or 2 (mirror) for the library and 3 for the boot OSs. they probably should be backed up, so 6+2+6=14. i am moving away from the thought of video production, well moving away from setting my stuff up for video, so i might do it a little differently if i were to focus on video. anyhow, if you are going to get interested in NAS (network attached storage) FreeNas has a forum. here is the thread i was looking at https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/citadel-build-plan-and-log.60371/page-2 if you are going to work in Mac OS X, perhaps you should build a RAID array that i think would support (but do not take my work for it) the Plexor M.2 above. large file manipulation generates corrupted data, i just learned this, so video is large and you should have either NAS (ZFS is perhaps more correct) or RAID, because those systems may correct computational errors, that is the other thing i am trying to find out about.

 

[Pierre.s]

ha! thanks for getting back to me

From my own little bit of (rabbit hole) research, the M2 port compatibility is ok as long as the drive is a regular one and not a newer / faster NVMe one. So basically Samsung 850 SSD are ok OOB but Samsung 960 not so much (more hacking required).

Re. RAID. I'm not sure it would be feasible to run a RAID with the new High Sierra file system?

 

[nobhobbor]

Re. RAID. I'm not sure it would be feasible to run a RAID with the new High Sierra file system?

i don't know, but there are 2 other reason why i am migrating my memory to a server, one is that they will run RAID mirror, so you get 50% drive efficiency because of redundancy (but you still need to BACK UP YOUR DATA), it runs Error Correcting Memory (ECC memory) and it works with files from Windows 10, Mac OS X HS and Linux. Mac OS X may run on Plexor drives, take a look at this article on drives https://www.pcworld.com/article/297...dup-tiny-drives-deliver-huge-performance.html the freeNAS community https://forums.freenas.org/index.php and this about NAS https://www.familybrown.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=fester:hardware_general

 

[Pierre.s]

I remember running RAID configs back in the days (like 12 years ago or so...) and I was then put off by the added complexity and lake of reliability (software RAID). Things have probably got better since...