Build servers offline due to failed SSD

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Mar 11, 2021, at 20:15, Bjarne D Mathiesen wrote:

> Have you looked at something like this for fast storage/cache :
> 
> https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDACL4M20GB/
> https://www.amazon.de/ASRock-Ultra-Quad-Controller-Karte-PCI-Express/dp/B079TQ9C6Q/ref=sr_1_6
> 
> Setting these up in RAID-0 (with proper backup) ought to be the fastest
> storage solution

I did find and look into some of those quad-m.2 PCIe adapters and agree that storage access would probably be quicker but did not buy them due to their cost. The OWC model you linked to is listed at $349 without any SSDs, and then I would have needed to buy four SSDs to fully make use of it. The single-m.2 PCIe adapters I'm using cost $20.


> With OpenCore it might also be possible to get to 384 MB RAM

Assuming that OpenCore is a replacement for the firmware and assuming that you meant 384 GB, then I have not looked into that because three of my servers only have 1/3 of their RAM slots populated as is, so there's still plenty of room to grow. I have also heard that replacing the Xserve firmware with the MacPro5,1 firmware could enable the use of 192 GB RAM, among other benefits, so if I'm going to replace the firmware that's the route I plan to investigate first.