The price saddens me. The $6K base is twice the base of the 2013 Mac Pro when it was released. Some quick spec-ing for a somewhat-equivalent DIY build gives somewhere around $3K. The build I was already spec-ing for my next workstation has 2x RAM, 16x SSD, SFP+ NIC and is under $5K.
I hope at least that the SSDs are standard M.2, but looking at the pictures I’m not sure they are.
Do they have to be special sauce drives? The picture makes it look like standard M.2 drives. It doesn't seem like you should need anything special if the T2 chip is just acting as a bog standard drive controller that happens to send only encrypted data to the drive.
I believe those drives are just the flash, as the T2 chip actually acts as the controller. That might be wrong but that's what I've gathered from how the iMac Pro works and I assume this is a similar configuration.
I hope at least that the SSDs are standard M.2, but looking at the pictures I’m not sure they are.