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Mac Pro 2023 will not boot with PCIe SSD installed.

I just spent all night setting my new M2 Mac Pro. Everything seemed OK. This morning I was ready to do the final steps and get back to work. The final steps included adding some additional storage for my audio projects. Something I've been doing for over two decades now and didn't expect that to be a showstopper.

As soon as I installed my previously working OWC SSD OWC Accelsior 4M2 the Mac Pro would NOT boot. This drive works and I put it back in my 2019 Mac Pro and there are no issues. Even if I put the OWC SSD in a Sonnet PCIe to Thunderbolt chassis, the same thing happens. No boot. If I connect the chassis when the Mac is booted, it freezes.

I had also purchased a new OWC Accelsior 8M2 and planned for it to be my main working audio drive but the issue also happens with that SSD, so it's safe to say it's not a faulty SSD.

OWC is a VERY reliable brand and widely used in the pro audio and video community. I've been using them over 20 years now without issue.

I am not using these drives to boot the MacOS from. These are just storage for my actual audio projects, which is common in audio studios to have a dedicated drive for all the audio work. No software runs from these drives. I am using the internal Mac SSD to boot from as you normally would and without the PCIe SSDs, the computer seems to run just fine. I was so excited to get to work but I can't use this machine and get by on just the internal storage. Additional PCIe storage is essential in a pro studio.

I chatted with Apple Support today and they are looking into it, but I don't feel too confident about it. The "senior advisor" was not even aware there was a new 2023 Mac Pro (LOL) and hadn't watched the WWDC yet. I thought he was joking. He was not.

I called OWC as well and they are not aware of any issues yet but the Mac Pro just started arriving yesterday so it's still new territory. I'm trying to find out if it's an OWC issue, or Apple.

I do have an OWC Thunderbay 8 with 8 HDD (my project archives) and that did work OK.

Something about the new Mac Pro is NOT happy with PCIe SSDs connected either internally, or in a Thunderbolt chassis.

After staying up all night and wasting about 10 hours of setting up the new 2023 Mac Pro, I am sadly back to working on my 2019 Mac Pro. All my OWC SSDs work just fine again when inserted in the 2019 Mac Pro.

This could be bad news for Apple if it's on their end.

Mac Pro

Posted on Jun 15, 2023 10:22 AM

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Jperkins27 Author

Level 1

5 points

Posted on Jun 16, 2023 7:44 AM

Some progress has been made. While for some reason, the new and unformatted OWC 8M2 drive was still causing this issue (it could be due to needing an additional power cable/supply), I tried a new and unformatted OWC 4M2 drive and it worked.

I am currently back to work using the M2 Mac Pro and a new OWC 4M2 PCIe SSD to store my active audio projects.

In talking with OWC, it seems that the new Mac Pro might not like external PCIe drives that are formatted to anything other than APFS Volume • APFS.

Hopefully Apple can release an update that makes the M2 Mac Pro work with a wider variety of external drives in terms of how they are formatted.

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119 replies

Jun 20, 2023 10:29 AM in response to Jperkins27

Ok :/. What happens if you just remove all the other drives and Pcie cards, disconnect everything except power and internet? And try different slots?? (drives me nuts that you have to totally reassemble the machine each time to try this troubleshooting process). I'm having flashbacks to the old days when you had to use VERY specific slots for different things..ughhhhh

Jperkins27 Author

Level 1

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Jun 20, 2023 10:31 AM in response to David K. Gross

I don't have time for this right now. It works with no PCIe cards, and with my 3 RME audio cards, and with my 3 RME audio cards and the 4TB OWC 4M2 PCIe SSD.

Something about the 4TB is allowing it to boot. Something about the 2TB is not allowing it to boot. The same was true with my 2TB 8M2 PCIe SSD.

Jun 20, 2023 11:28 AM in response to Jperkins27

I have seen several reports of this. We are working on finding "workarounds".

One thing that will certainly work is backing up, and deleting your volume. Zero the disks.

Then run RAID Assistant in DIsk Utility to create a RAID 0 volume. If you make it HFS, you can "convert" this volume to SoftRAID when a permanent resolution to this issue has been found.

When there is a known temporary fix, I will post it here. At present, this issue seems to affect Mac Studio M2, Mac Pro M2 and possibly the most recent versions of MacOS.

Hopefully news will be posted in the next few days.

Jun 20, 2023 11:51 AM in response to Jperkins27

We have seen about 10 instances. All have the following in the top of the panic trace:

dart-apciec3 (0xfffffe1b39d40800): DART(DART) error:

This is the same error as MacOS/M1 had up until 13.4 was released, which fixed this problem.

In case this is a MacOS issue, can you post the MacOS build number of your System? I am especially interested in build numbers for MacOS versions that are NOT crashing.

So far, I have seen this with RAID 0, RAID 4, RAID 5. All with 4 drives. This panic does not happen with RAID 0 2-drive volumes.

Apple RAID does not seem to be affected.

HFS and APFS will both panic a system, so it is not file system related.

One trick that MIGHT work, I would like any affected users to try this, is with the drives disconnected, launch SoftRAID and "uninstall SoftRAID" from utiliities menu. restart, and connect the drives. (or put them back in the Mac Pro)

Does this prevent the panic?

Your volume will still mount and be usable.

Jperkins27 Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 20, 2023 11:57 AM in response to SoftRAIDSupport

My M2 Mac Pro is using MacOS 13.4 build (22F2073) but it is one that will not boot when any of the 2TB PCIe SSDs are inserted. This includes my older HFS drives, and whatever they are formatted to at the factory and out of the box.

I am not needing to use my drives as a RAID. I like to just use them as one big drive and do my own backups.

Can you see from my previous screen shot which RAID number mine is set to? Or is it correctly set to be just one big disk?

Jperkins27 Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 20, 2023 12:01 PM in response to SoftRAIDSupport

Thanks for confirming. Later today I am willing to take the drive out, uninstall SoftRAID and see what happens.

I guess my bigger question would be, is this a software/firmware thing and the Mac Pro is OK? Or do I need to consider returning the Mac Pro because it's a hardware issue with the Mac Pro?

Now that I've got the M2 Mac Pro up and running (aside from this issue), returning it and setting up a new machine at some point would be a bummer.

Jun 20, 2023 12:01 PM in response to lukiffer

Lukiffer

If you run "uninstall SoftRAID", do your cards work?

(no need to delete the app just "Uninstall SoftRAID - all components)

What is your MacOS build number.

I am collecting data on this issue.

Jun 20, 2023 12:04 PM in response to Jperkins27

Mine also was a brand new ootb 2TB 4M2. That's what I sent back to OWC on friday.. They should have that today for testing and/or replacement for me. I'll call them today to see if they are sending a new one out.. maybe they could try all this reformatting stuff before sending my way? And, like JPerkens, this tends to be my main 'Record" drive I keep non-raid as one big JBOD, and just do my own archiving. But, if it needs to just be Raid 0, that's fine too.

Jperkins27 Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 20, 2023 12:28 PM in response to SoftRAIDSupport

@SoftRAIDSupport

Unistalling SoftRAID did not allow the M2 Mac Pro to boot when the 2TB 4M2 was inserted in the Mac Pro. Same as before.

I have booted up again with SoftRAID uninstalled and the 4TB 4M2 inserted which for some reason has been working since Friday.

Do I need to have SoftRAID installed and running to use the 4M2 in a RAID 0 configuration?

I don't need any of the RAID features...I just want a PCIe SSD. Ideally just 2TB but this issue is forcing me into the 4TB model. I just ordered another 4TB model to see if they can both work together so I have a working drive and backup drive.

Jun 20, 2023 1:04 PM in response to Jperkins27

RAID 0 is striped RAID, every other superblock on every-other drive, NO redundancy, but possible faster read times.

Just Bunch Of Drives (JBOD) or drive-concatenation is its own thing, not included in RAID numbering scheme

Jun 20, 2023 1:28 PM in response to Jperkins27

I'll be curious to know if the new 4TB 4m2 solves this. I'd rather not spend the extra $, but if having 2 matching 4TB 4M2's makes my rig stable, I'll do it. (FWIW..I DO have a 1TB 1M2 as well that's working just fine along with my existing 4TB 4M2). heck..the only commonality I'm seeing through all of this is an issue with the 2TB 4M2 version.

Jperkins27 Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 20, 2023 1:32 PM in response to David K. Gross

Me too. On my 2019 Mac Pro I had been using a 1TB 4M2 for the audio drive and 2TB 4M2 for the CCC backup.

I decided to double those values and do a 2TB 8M2 for the main audio drive and 4TB 4M2 for the CCC backup.

So, it's just kind of luck that I even had a 4TB 4M2 here to try as a last resort and notice that it worked.

I'll report back when I get the 2nd 4TB 4M2 which I hope is tomorrow. I'm going to put it right in and see if it works as my CCC backup to the 4TB 4M2 which which is currently working.

Jun 20, 2023 4:38 PM in response to David K. Gross

David;

The optimization are for rebuilding priority and help in isetting up your volume (stripe unit size recommendation)

there is no driver changes with optimizations.

Grant;

SoftRAID publishes its volumes as whole numbers, rather than slices. So a SoftRAID volume disk10, is just the equivalent of disk10s2 with an APFS Apple volume. Not a problem.

Jun 20, 2023 5:08 PM in response to SoftRAIDSupport

<< Grant;

SoftRAID publishes its volumes as whole numbers, rather than slices. So a SoftRAID volume disk10, is just the equivalent of disk10s2 with an APFS Apple volume. Not a problem. >>

.. so that is the EXPECTED look of a SoftRAID-controlled device, no separate GUID Partition map partition is created (because none is needed).

I was going to go back and get the diskutil list output, but the Hosts must have decided it contained bad stuff and removed it. from memory, it showed something like (possibly inaccurate) re-creation:

disk10/dev/disk10 (external, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Volume 4.0 TB disk10

..that is distinctive in having no GUID partition Map partition, and no EFI partition, and no APFS container-disk, but goes straight to an APFS Volume.

Jun 20, 2023 4:54 PM in response to Jperkins27

Interesting it is not causing a panic. thanks. In my testing, I had mixed results, so this is a good data point.

Yes, it is safe to run this without the SoftRAID components installed.

Keep people here (and us) in the loop. Future panics, if any, would most likely happen at restart.

What is your MacOS build number?

Mac Pro 2023 will not boot with PCIe SSD installed.