Pegasus R6 compatibility with M2 Pro Mac mini?

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Riot Nrrrd posted this 4 weeks ago

I currently have a Pegasus R6 with 6x4TB drives connected by a Thunderbolt 1 cable to a 2012 Mac mini running Mojave 10.14.6.  The volume is seen as being 16TB by macOS.

Everything is working fine (outside of unplanned power outages during the L.A. wildfires) and so I'm a bit loathe to touch anything, but this Mac and the OS are a bit long in the tooth at this point.

If I bought an M2 Pro Mac mini, would I still be able to use the Promise with it?  Assuming the M2 comes with macOS Sonoma or Sequoia.  I'm assuming I would need an Apple Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 cable/adapter, and hope it Just Works™️ with the Thunderbolt 3 port on the M2.

Are there any other issues?  Would my existing Promise Utility work with it?  Or would it require a newer version or some other software to manage the RAID with?  I see references to "DEXT"s in some posts, but I'm not familiar with it.

~~~

BTW I wish I could upgrade to a Pegasus32 R6 unit (since it has Thunderbolt 3 to match the M2's TB3 ports), but even empty ones go for $1,400 on eBay!  :-O  I also have a 6-bay Synology NAS that only cost half that much ...

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R P posted this 4 weeks ago

Hi Riot,

Be advised that if your Pegasus R6 has very old firmware it may not be seen by the Mac Mini at all. If the firmware on the Pegasus is downrev, please update it on the 2012 Intel mac before moving it to the new M2 Mac Mini.

We have a knowledge Base article on this...

The Pegasus R6 should work well on the new Apple Silicon Mac, but M2 macOS does not include a Pegasus driver like the Intel macOS does, so you'll need to install the driver. We also have a Knowledge Base article on this.

Would my existing Promise Utility work with it?

I don't know which version your existing utility is, but this version of the Promise Utility is fully compatible with the Pegasus 1 and Pegasus 2 and Sequoia.

I'm assuming I would need an Apple Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 cable/adapter, and hope it Just Works™️ with the Thunderbolt 3 port on the M2.

The Apple Thunderbolt 3 > Thunderbolt 2 adapter works well and we recommend using the Apple adapter.

Riot Nrrrd posted this 4 weeks ago

Hi R P,

Thank you for responding.  The Pegasus R6 is on the most current firmware, 5.04.0000.61.

The version of the Promise Utility I am using is 4.02.0000.21.  Is that version OK?  It looks like the download link you provided is for version 4.06.0000.01.

It sounds like an Intel-based Mac mini would be more compatible with the R6.

I also have a 2018 Core i7 Mac mini lying around.  I have not replaced the 2012 with it yet because the 2018 only has a 128 GB SSD drive and the current 2012 Mac mini has 149 GB of data on the root volume.  So I need to 'trim the fat' first.  Then I noticed this cheap M2 Pro Mac mini ... but I guess I will not buy it.

G.

R P posted this 4 weeks ago

Hi Riot,

The version of the Promise Utility I am using is 4.02.0000.21.  Is that version OK?  It looks like the download link you provided is for version 4.06.0000.01.

With Mojave, v4.02.0000.21 should be OK.

But if you get that new M2 Pro Mac mini, it should have Sequoia and you should use 4.06.0000.01.

It sounds like an Intel-based Mac mini would be more compatible with the R6.

I've been using the Pegasus1 and Pegasus2 with Apple Silicon Macs since they came out. There were some transition issues as Apple was still working on the DEXT drivers. But everything works well now.

But as you say, with an Intel Mac, it's more plug and play.

Riot Nrrrd posted this 4 weeks ago

 

The version of the Promise Utility I am using is 4.02.0000.21.  Is that version OK?  It looks like the download link you provided is for version 4.06.0000.01.

With Mojave, v4.02.0000.21 should be OK.

But if you get that new M2 Pro Mac mini, it should have Sequoia and you should use 4.06.0000.01.

It sounds like an Intel-based Mac mini would be more compatible with the R6.

I've been using the Pegasus1 and Pegasus2 with Apple Silicon Macs since they came out. There were some transition issues as Apple was still working on the DEXT drivers. But everything works well now.

But as you say, with an Intel Mac, it's more plug and play.

 

Thanks R P.

I chose to update the Promise Utility.  When I ran the newer version I was surprised to see that it offered me a new firmware update.  The older version I was using did not.

I'm a little nervous about it because you have to power-cycle the Pegasus unit after the update.  These are old units and power-cycling them is always a bit scary!

As for the Apple Silicon Macs I trust your judgment but I already decided against the purchase after reading this discussion.  It was a really good deal (US $600 for an M2 Pro Mac mini) though!

Thanks for your assistance with this issue.

R P posted this 4 weeks ago

Hi Riot,

There was no need to update the Promise Utility on the Mojave Mac.

Not long ago there was a discussion with the development team and it came out that for the Pegasus1 the official latest firmware version is 5.04.0000.61 and for the Pegasus2 the latest official release is 5.04.0000.64.

For some reason the GUI recommends updating the Pegasus1 to the latest firmware for the Pegasus2. I'd suggest leaving it as it is and not updating the firmware, you already have the latest firmware release for the Pegasus1.

Riot Nrrrd posted this 4 weeks ago

Hi Riot,

There was no need to update the Promise Utility on the Mojave Mac.

Not long ago there was a discussion with the development team and it came out that for the Pegasus 1 the official latest firmware version is 5.04.0000.61 and for the Pegasus 2 the latest official release is 5.04.0000.64.

For some reason the GUI recommends updating the Pegasus 1 to the latest firmware for the Pegasus 2. I'd suggest leaving it as it is and not updating the firmware, you already have the latest firmware release for the Pegasus 1.

Oh, I see.

Well, eventually I will want to go past Mojave on the 2018 Mac mini I have in waiting, so maybe it's OK to stay on the newer Promise Utility version?  I will simply ignore any prompts to install the newer firmware revision meant for the Pegasus 2.

Thank you for your answers, I think we can 'close' this thread now.

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