[SUCCESS] Gigabyte Designare Z390 (Thunderbolt 3) + i7-9700K + AMD RX 580

jjsenecal · Feb 11, 2021

basett1 said:
Ok man, thank you! Btw great mod. If i had a normal case i would like to do but i have a rack case

No problem and thanks for the compliment.

By the way, here are the speed test results for my EVO 970 NVMe running on the motherboard as my OS volume:

Again, similar results.

mrfatcatt · Feb 11, 2021

I wrote a post the other day on my avb sound card not showing up in Big Sur. I just realize, there is no Thunderbolt port being loaded on Big Sur in my Ethernet connection. But in Catalina there is. I am on a Z390 running OC 0.6.6 with your config plist. Everything seems fine. If I can get my TB port to show, I'm 100 percent sure my sound will work.

CaseySJ · Feb 11, 2021

jjsenecal said:
I'm not sure if anyone is interested, or if this is even the right place, but I've spent the past 26 years of my career working with some form or another of virtualization tech for desktops, servers, and NAS. I'm very well versed on VMware Workstation, Fusion, ESX, and vCenter; Parallels Desktop; VirtualBox, and Synology NAS VMM. I also have an extensive library (12TB's) of Mac, Windows, and Linux VM's. So, I'm happy to answer your Mac virtualization questions here if you've got them. Thanks.

I have an old QNAP with dual gigabit ports that needs to be replaced. I've been looking for a new model that supports both Thunderbolt and 10 GbE (over Cat 6a RJ45). Although QNAP offers such models, I prefer to wait for a Thunderbolt 4/USB4 update, so that gives me at least a handful of months. Meanwhile, I see a number of virtualization capabilities advertised on QNAP's website, which leads me to the question:

How would we use virtualization capabilities of a NAS in a home office setting? Is there a good use case for this?

One of the reasons for flashing Thunderbolt firmware is to enable Thunderbolt Networking, which is necessary for connecting Thunderbolt NAS devices. My suspicion is that Ethernet-over-Thunderbolt operates at 1 GbE speeds even though Thunderbolt itself operates at 40 Gbps. Can anyone confirm?

If so, a 10 GbE Ethernet port would be considerably faster and hence it may not make sense to look for a NAS with Thunderbolt...

CaseySJ · Feb 11, 2021

mrfatcatt said:
I wrote a post the other day on my avb sound card not showing up in Big Sur. I just realize, there is no Thunderbolt port being loaded on Big Sur in my Ethernet connection. But in Catalina there is. I am on a Z390 running OC 0.6.6 with your config plist. Everything seems fine. If I can get my TB port to show, I'm 100 percent sure my sound will work.

Please post your IOReg file as follows:

IORegistryExplorer --> File --> Save As...

jjsenecal · Feb 11, 2021

CaseySJ said:
I have an old QNAP with dual gigabit ports that needs to be replaced. I've been looking for a new model that supports both Thunderbolt and 10 GbE (over Cat 6a RJ45). Although QNAP offers such models, I prefer to wait for a Thunderbolt 4/USB4 update, so that gives me at least a handful of months. Meanwhile, I see a number of virtualization capabilities advertised on QNAP's website, which leads me to the question:

How would we use virtualization capabilities of a NAS in a home office setting? Is there a good use case for this?

One of the reasons for flashing Thunderbolt firmware is to enable Thunderbolt Networking, which is necessary for connecting Thunderbolt NAS devices. My suspicion is that Ethernet-over-Thunderbolt operates at 1 GbE speeds even though Thunderbolt itself operates at 40 Gbps. Can anyone confirm?

If so, a 10 GbE Ethernet port would be considerably faster and hence it may not make sense to look for a NAS with Thunderbolt support...

Honestly, no, there really isn't much of a use case for NAS virtualization at home. Reason being is that folks generally only needs to virtualize 1 or 2 OS's which can be done better on the desktop. One of the biggest advantages of NAS virtualization was running apps in a specific OS 24/7, but these days it's much easier to throw those apps in a docker container on your NAS instead. Also, since most home NAS devices are severely underpowered they are not well suited to running VM's.

That said, I have multiple VM's on my Synology DS918+, but they are for emergency backup only. If one of my desktop demo VMs has issues then I can quickly spin it up on my NAS, but performance is not great. So for a work from home scenario it sort-of makes sense, but even then it's still a bit of a stretch.

mrfatcatt · Feb 11, 2021

thanks Casey!

CaseySJ · Feb 12, 2021

mrfatcatt said:
thanks Casey!

Are you using the Apple Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet adapter? ~~If so, please note that Big Sur no longer contains the driver for that!~~

UPDATE: See this post.

mrfatcatt · Feb 12, 2021

I am using that, and I run a StarTech (or Apple) TB3 to TB2, and then an Apple TB2 to Ethernet. It's been fine again in Catalina.

Why would they discontinue the driver when most of the new pro audio interface cards now run from avb.

Also what options do I have then? Is there maybe something else I run? Or what about a modded driver.

This is a shocker, actually!

Thanks in advanced. Wow! I'im really stuck now.

Will it work if I disable SIP?

CaseySJ · Feb 12, 2021

mrfatcatt said:
I am using that, and I run a StarTech (or Apple) TB3 to TB2, and then an Apple TB2 to Ethernet. It's been fine again in Catalina.

Why would they discontinue the driver when most of the new pro audio interface cards now run from avb.

Also what options do I have then? Is there maybe something else I run? Or what about a modded driver.

This is a shocker, actually!

Thanks in advanced. Wow! I'im really stuck now.

Will it work if I disable SIP?

~~Disabling SIP will not cause a non-existent driver to materialize into being!~~ UPDATE: See this post.

But there are alternatives. If you search this thread for AVB you will find some of those alternatives. Here’s one I found based on OWC’s 10GbE TB3 adapter. In Big Sur we may need to enable the Aquantia patch that is already contained in the config.plist under the “Kernel —> Patch” section.