5,1 Restore to NVMe Crashing

[Neodypsis]

New to this forum, hope this thread is in the right spot.

Just finished rebuilding a 5,1 and everything worked great until I attempted to install a PCIE NVMe drive.

To nutshell my issue, I want to clone my current SSD boot drive (about 332gigs) to the NVMe.
Every time I try this it fails. Never in the same place in the procedure, sometimes a few minutes in, other times it will get 3/4 complete. Usually crashes the computer and it automatically restarts, other times it just freezes.
Used Super Duper, Apple Disk Utility and Carbon Copy with similar results. Also tried booting from an external drive but the same thing happens.

Oddity: If I format the drive to OS Extended Journaled rather than the desired APFS I CAN make the copy, but that kind of defeats the purpose of the super fast drive. Unable to convert the drive APFS after the transfer and the restore does not automatically convert.
Also have tried cloning to an external drive first, then moving the files to the NVMe with the same crash / freeze sceneario.

Tried un-mounting all disks other than the source and target. No difference.

I can freely copy large graphic files from / to any of the drives currently installed in the computer currently including the NVMe.

* Firmware is the 140.0.0.0.0
**PCIE adapter is in one of the 16 lane slots.

Here's the setup:
2010 5,1
10.14.6
Dual 6 core 5690 processors
Drive bays are full with two Samsung SSDs and two spinning plater drives
NVME is Samsung SSD980 NVMe M.2
PCIE card is "Ableconn PEXM2-130 Dual PCIe NVMe M.2 SSDs Carrier Adapter Card - PCI Express 3.0 x8 Card Support 2X M.2 NGFF PCIe NVMe SSD for Mac & PC (ASMedia ASM2824 Switch) - Support Non-Bifurcation Motherboard"
32 gig (2x16) OWC 1333 Ram
GTX 780 3 Gig metal video card Mac Reflash

Any ideas would be helpful.

Thanks!

 

[joevt]

Try it without the Ableconn?

 

[Dayo]

Oddity: If I format the drive to OS Extended Journaled rather than the desired APFS I CAN make the copy, but that kind of defeats the purpose of the super fast drive.

Can you clarify? Is APFS inherently faster than HFS+?

 

[KeesMacPro]

New to this forum, hope this thread is in the right spot.

Just finished rebuilding a 5,1 and everything worked great until I attempted to install a PCIE NVMe drive.

To nutshell my issue, I want to clone my current SSD boot drive (about 332gigs) to the NVMe.
Every time I try this it fails. Never in the same place in the procedure, sometimes a few minutes in, other times it will get 3/4 complete. Usually crashes the computer and it automatically restarts, other times it just freezes.
Used Super Duper, Apple Disk Utility and Carbon Copy with similar results. Also tried booting from an external drive but the same thing happens.

Oddity: If I format the drive to OS Extended Journaled rather than the desired APFS I CAN make the copy, but that kind of defeats the purpose of the super fast drive. Unable to convert the drive APFS after the transfer and the restore does not automatically convert.
Also have tried cloning to an external drive first, then moving the files to the NVMe with the same crash / freeze sceneario.

Tried un-mounting all disks other than the source and target. No difference.

I can freely copy large graphic files from / to any of the drives currently installed in the computer currently including the NVMe.

* Firmware is the 140.0.0.0.0
**PCIE adapter is in one of the 16 lane slots.

Here's the setup:
2010 5,1
10.14.6
Dual 6 core 5690 processors
Drive bays are full with two Samsung SSDs and two spinning plater drives
NVME is Samsung SSD980 NVMe M.2
PCIE card is "Ableconn PEXM2-130 Dual PCIe NVMe M.2 SSDs Carrier Adapter Card - PCI Express 3.0 x8 Card Support 2X M.2 NGFF PCIe NVMe SSD for Mac & PC (ASMedia ASM2824 Switch) - Support Non-Bifurcation Motherboard"
32 gig (2x16) OWC 1333 Ram
GTX 780 3 Gig metal video card Mac Reflash

Any ideas would be helpful.

Thanks!

Hi!

Did you install only 1 blade ?
If yes, this looks like several reports of issues with the I/O Crest (which is similar to the Ableconn ) when only 1 blade is installed. The I/O Crest uses the same controller ASM2824...

I suppose you installed the 980 with a heatsink and do you know what Temp it runs idle/ under load?

Another thing I'm curious about : are you sure the BootROM is 140.0.0.0.0 ?
IINM NVMe support improved with the latest version 144.0.0.0.0

Just some thoughts...

 

[Neodypsis]

Try it without the Ableconn?

Not sure how I would use the NVMe without the Ableconn other than purchasing a new adapter?? So far as I know, the only way to use the NVMe drive with a 5,1 is with a PCIe adapter. I could replace the Ableconn with another brand if there are known issues with this card.

 

[Neodypsis]

Can you clarify? Is APFS inherently faster than HFS+?

From what I have read, the APFS format is superior for error correction and file transfer speed. See link https://iboysoft.com/wiki/apfs-vs-mac-os-extended.html
I'm certainly not an expert so I'm open to other data and opinions which would refute that.

 

[Neodypsis]

Hi!

Did you install only 1 blade ?
If yes, this looks like several reports of issues with the I/O Crest (which is similar to the Ableconn ) when only 1 blade is installed. The I/O Crest uses the same controller ASM2824...

I suppose you installed the 980 with a heatsink and do you know what Temp it runs idle/ under load?

Another thing I'm curious about : are you sure the BootROM is 140.0.0.0.0 ?
IINM NVMe support improved with the latest version 144.0.0.0.0

Just some thoughts...

Yes, only purchased and installed 1 blade. It's not a fortune to add another so this may be worth a shot, thanks. I will read up on this issue.

Attached is a snapshot of my temps. It's the hottest part of the day, so this is probably as bad as it gets. Please let me know if anything looks out of sorts with the temps so we can adjust. Also I should add that I've been at this for almost a week, day and night, (sort of an obsession) with the ac blasting upon occasion and no variation or improvements seen with time of day / ambient temps outside the bo.

BootROM - my bad, a late night typo, current version is 144.0.0.0.0.

 

[joevt]

Not sure how I would use the NVMe without the Ableconn other than purchasing a new adapter?? So far as I know, the only way to use the NVMe drive with a 5,1 is with a PCIe adapter. I could replace the Ableconn with another brand if there are known issues with this card.

There might be issues with the product in general or with the particular one you are using.
There's a thread alt https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/pcie-ssds-nvme-ahci.2146725/ that has reports of different NVMe PCIe cards.
You can use MacRumors search function to look for PEXM2-130
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...e-causing-kernel-panics.2254537/post-28896603
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/pcie-ssds-nvme-ahci.2146725/post-30048032
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/pcie-m-2-nvme-on-macpro.2030791/post-28690051
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/pcie-ssds-nvme-ahci.2146725/post-28244251

Generally it works unless it doesn't...

So since it doesn't work for you, then either get a cheap adapter limiting you to 1600 MB/s or get an expensive adapter that can do 3200 MB/s.

Before replacing, since you only installed one NVMe, maybe having two NVMe installed will make it behave better?

 

[KeesMacPro]

Yes, only purchased and installed 1 blade. It's not a fortune to add another so this may be worth a shot, thanks. I will read up on this issue.

Attached is a snapshot of my temps. It's the hottest part of the day, so this is probably as bad as it gets. Please let me know if anything looks out of sorts with the temps so we can adjust. Also I should add that I've been at this for almost a week, day and night, (sort of an obsession) with the ac blasting upon occasion and no variation or improvements seen with time of day / ambient temps outside the bo.

BootROM - my bad, a late night typo, current version is 144.0.0.0.0.

Thx for the screenshot, but TBH I'm not very familiar with Fahrenheit.... since this is a international forum, people usually post in Celsius , if you could post another screenshot, that would be great : - )
If possible a screenshot at idle (including fan speeds).

I'm not sure if the issue is Temp related, but running a blade without heatsink will fry it on the long term (couldn't find info in your post about that).

Keep us posted!

 

[Neodypsis]

Thx for the screenshot, but TBH I'm not very familiar with Fahrenheit.... since this is a international forum, people usually post in Celsius , if you could post another screenshot, that would be great : - )
If possible a screenshot at idle (including fan speeds).

I'm not sure if the issue is Temp related, but running a blade without heatsink will fry it on the long term (couldn't find info in your post about that).

Keep us posted!

Thanks for the kind advice on the heatsinks! It never occurred to me that my problem could thermal related, but we'll heed your advice and add some heat dissipation as I don't want to burn up the chips.

Also attached is a screenshot from macs fan control in Celsius. I hope that this helps.

Best

 

[Neodypsis]

There might be issues with the product in general or with the particular one you are using.
There's a thread alt https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/pcie-ssds-nvme-ahci.2146725/ that has reports of different NVMe PCIe cards.
You can use MacRumors search function to look for PEXM2-130
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...e-causing-kernel-panics.2254537/post-28896603
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/pcie-ssds-nvme-ahci.2146725/post-30048032
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/pcie-m-2-nvme-on-macpro.2030791/post-28690051
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/pcie-ssds-nvme-ahci.2146725/post-28244251

Generally it works unless it doesn't...

So since it doesn't work for you, then either get a cheap adapter limiting you to 1600 MB/s or get an expensive adapter that can do 3200 MB/s.

Before replacing, since you only installed one NVMe, maybe having two NVMe installed will make it behave better?

Thanks, lots of good reading in these links. We'll report back after adding the additional blade and go from there.

 

[KeesMacPro]

Thanks for the kind advice on the heatsinks! It never occurred to me that my problem could thermal related, but we'll heed your advice and add some heat dissipation as I don't want to burn up the chips.

Also attached is a screenshot from macs fan control in Celsius. I hope that this helps.

Best

My pleasure Neodypsis, and thx for the headsup!

Although I assume that the issue is related to the Ableconn card itself, your fan setup is not very effective this way.
Aa many others, I've been testing lots of setups and came to a few conclusions.
Apart from the NVMe issue, a more effective fan setup will help to enjoy your MP a few years more.
One Temp to keep an eye on in the dual MP 4,1/5,1 is the NorthBridge diode (and even more with NVMe drives).

With your setup the cooling in the CPU compartment is not good: CPUs and NB may heat up a lot while T DIMM is relatively stable so T CPU and/or T NB can peak and with this setup fans will not respond ..........
Another point is that T CPU (and T NB) depends on the load and is not related to the T Ambient.
Naturally , a higher T ambient results in higher T for all components, but the Boost fans have no influence on T ambient ( the Boost fans are inside the CPU heatsink) *

Looking at the airflow, basically there are 3 separate compartments in the MP: opticalbay+PSU , BackPlane +PCI cards and the CPU compartment (CPU,RAM,NB).
If you'd like to give it a try, here's a generic fan setup (T= Celsius) with the fans never running unnecessarily fast , while keeping all Temps under control:

-PCI: auto/ sensor PCIE Ambient Tmin =32 , Tmax=50 (controls T around the PCI cards )
-PS: auto/ sensor PS supply2 : Tmin =32, Tmax= 50 (supply 2 responds a lot to powerdraw GPU, GTX780= hungry card)
-Exhaust: auto (exhaust fan doesnt improve much airflow in CPU compartment > auto is fine=~600 rpm)
-Intake: sensor NB diode Tmin=55 Tmax= 75
-Boost A: sensor NB diode Tmin=55 Tmax= 75 ( the small fan in the heatsink A directly behind NB)
-Boost B: auto ( CPU B only heats up when CPU A is at its limit, auto is fine =~ 1100rpm )

Short version: with Intake and Boost A set to NB diode as described and all other fans auto , all Temps will be controlled safely by the fans ( Bare Bones setup).
Curiously, one should think that Intake and Exhaust should run~ same rpm for a good airflow , but in real life Exhaust fan doesnt improve airflow significantly running faster > auto is fine.**
The Intake fan though has a huge influence on T of lots (if not all) components inside the CPU compartment.
As mentioned , this setup probably will not solve the issue, but your MP will run cooler, less noisy and with increased expected lifetime

*= The Ambient sensor can be seen as an overall Temp , and AFAIK it remains unknown where exactly it's located.
**= Exhaust has a little influence mainly on T DIMM 1,2,3,4 but to get a decrease of just a few degrees Celsius, Exhaust fan will run at quite high rpm thus generating a lot of noise for an insignificant improvement.

Keep us posted!