MP 1,1-5,1 Advice needed: SSD Upgrade for cMP 5,1 2010 using NVMe

[glawrie]

Hi all

I am planning to upgrade the storage on my Mac Pro 5,1. I've run out of bays, and so was trying to work out what of existing disks to drop when I read in passing a note about using PCIe connected m.2 cards in the 5,1 and it occurred to me that this might be a better solution.

Here is what I am currently proposing to do:

• Put a Aqua Computer kryoM.2 evo PCIe adapter into Slot 1
• Add a Sabrent Rocket Q 2TB to that card.

If it works, it is not much more expensive than adding a 2TB 2.5" SATA SSD drive (if I had a spare slot for it), but hopefully faster.

Ideally I would like to be able to boot from the new drive, but it sounds like this may not be possible if the drive is NVMe - I did see some suggesting that it was and others suggesting that it wasn't without some kind of firmware changes - would be good to get some clarity on that if there is any available.

So my questions are:

1. Would the proposed approach work?
2. Would I be able to boot from the new drive?
3. Is this the best approach...

I'm using macos 10.14.6, but hope in some near future to use OpenCore approach to get 10.15.x running.

What do you think?

Thanks in advance for any help / guidance.

 

[kohlson]

Probably best to review the sticky post at the top of this forum, regarding nvme. Yes, it's a lot of information. But you are pushing the capabilities of your cMP far beyond its original design.
There is no need to put this into slot 1. Slot 2 is fine - it's where mine is. I boot from mine.
You will need to be running the latest firmware (144, which you may be). Be sure to review the list of nvme cards known to work. Most do, but some don't.

 

[glawrie]

There is no need to put this into slot 1. Slot 2 is fine - it's where mine is. I boot from mine.
You will need to be running the latest firmware (144, which you may be). Be sure to review the list of nvme cards known to work. Most do, but some don't.

Thanks, all helpful.

I'm on 144 boot rom so hopefully that will be OK. Not using either Slot 1 or 2 right now, so will use where ever it fits best: I guess 2 better for all-round airflow.

The Sabrent - hard to find much conclusive information for use in cMP 5,1, but seems to work OK in MBP so I am hopeful... but would be good to hear from someone who has actually got one running in a 5,1 if such exists.

 

[jbarley]

Thanks, all helpful.

I'm on 144 boot rom so hopefully that will be OK. Not using either Slot 1 or 2 right now, so will use where ever it fits best: I guess 2 better for all-round airflow.

The Sabrent - hard to find much conclusive information for use in cMP 5,1, but seems to work OK in MBP so I am hopeful... but would be good to hear from someone who has actually got one running in a 5,1 if such exists.

I have a 512GB Sabrent blade mounted on a kryo adapter installed in slot3 on my 5,1 running Mojave, boots and runs just fine.

 

[flowrider]

Not using either Slot 1 or 2 right now, so will use where ever it fits best.

Where is your GPU? It should be in slot 1 (the double wide slot)

Lou

 

[glawrie]

Where is your GPU? It should be in slot 1 (the double wide slot)

It's in the lowest (double wide) slot right now (the one above the CPUs). I thought the slots were numbered from the top down - but I guess I was mistaken and they number from bottom up - in which case the Slot 1 is taken by the GPU... (a double-width R9 280X). That means that slot 2 is available. All very confusing... ?

I guess the question now is whether if I put the NVMe card into slot 2 will it overheat? Hoping not...

Thanks in advance for whatever help you can give!

 

[flowrider]

^^^^When I had my 5,1 cMP, my 4 NVMe drives were located in a Highpoint 7103 in slot 2. My GPU was an Aorus RX580. Temperatures were acceptable.

Lou

 

[jbarley]

@flowrider, I believe your HighPoint card had it's own cooling fan, the OP's kyroM2 is passively cooled so there could be an issue.

 

[flowrider]

^^^^Yes, it does have a small fan, but it also has four SSDs rather than the one and is more massive.

Lou

 

[MIKX]

I use a " made for Japanese market" "Owltech" M.2 NVMe adapter, very well made,

NVMe SSD 冷却用ヒートシンク付き M.2 SSD変換 PCI-Expressカード OWL-PCEXM2-03 | 株式会社オウルテック

www.owltech.co.jp

Samsung 970 EVO Plus
It's in ( from bottom up . . . PCIe slot 2

 

[glawrie]

@flowriderThe OP's kyroM2 is passively cooled so there could be an issue.

Well we'll find out... I've ordered the kyroM2 and 2TB Sabrent, should get them into the computer later this week. Will post a note here to report how things go.

Thanks everyone for your help with this! Much appreciated.

 

[h9826790]

I thought the slots were numbered from the top down - but I guess I was mistaken and they number from bottom up - in which case the Slot 1 is taken by the GPU... (a double-width R9 280X). That means that slot 2 is available. All very confusing... ?

I guess the question now is whether if I put the NVMe card into slot 2 will it overheat? Hoping not...

It's actually in the User Guide

https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1639/en_US/mac_pro_mid2012_ug.pdf

Anyway, for those low cost adaptor, the NVMe will be throttled to 1500MB/s. They may run hot, but I don't think it can go overheat under normal situation.

 

[glawrie]

Parts came today, and installed very easily into slot 2.

Installed as-is it appears as a PCI-Express External drive.

Huzzah! Now find out if I can configure it to become the new System Drive for the computer... ?

 

[jbarley]

Parts came today, and installed very easily into slot 2.

Installed as-is it appears as a PCI-Express External drive.

Huzzah! Now find out if I can configure it to become the new System Drive for the computer... ?

Check out this thread for a fix for the "External drive" issue.

Innie: A fix for PCI drives seen as external

It is well known that macOS sees PCI drives in a cMP as external. In the past, there have been several attempts to fix this annoyance, typically through codeless kexts and driver patches. However, these approaches are far from perfect. Codeless kexts affect the properties of all (even non-PCI)...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[glawrie]

Check out this thread for a fix for the "External drive" issue.

Innie: A fix for PCI drives seen as external

It is well known that macOS sees PCI drives in a cMP as external. In the past, there have been several attempts to fix this annoyance, typically through codeless kexts and driver patches. However, these approaches are far from perfect. Codeless kexts affect the properties of all (even non-PCI)...

forums.macrumors.com

Thanks! Yes, seen that thread: curious to know if it is compatible with the patches required to get Catalina running on the 5,1 - do you have any info on this?

 

[jbarley]

Thanks! Yes, seen that thread: curious to know if it is compatible with the patches required to get Catalina running on the 5,1 - do you have any info on this?

Check out this thread, maybe try searching for "innie" in the thread

macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

How to update Catalina Machine Support Video Card Support Pre-Metal AMD video cards (Radeon HD 6xxx series and older without acceleration, Radeon HD 4xxx series and older with acceleration.) Pre-Metal Nvidia video cards (GeForce 5xx series and older without acceleration, GeForce 3xx...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[tsialex]

Parts came today, and installed very easily into slot 2.

Installed as-is it appears as a PCI-Express External drive.

Huzzah! Now find out if I can configure it to become the new System Drive for the computer... ?

This is the default behaviour for all Mac Pro drives connected via PCIe slots. For the firmware only the SATA/SAS drives connected to the SATA southbridge ports are internal.

No need to fix anything.

What are internal storage for the Mac Pro firmware:

Mac Pro year model:	Model Identifier:	What Mac Pro firmware recognise as internal drives:
Mac Pro (2006)	MP1,1	SATA drives connected to the 6 southbridge SATA ports plus the two PATA drives connected to the PATA cable inside the ODD bay.
8-Core Mac Pro (2007)	MP2,1	SATA drives connected to the 6 southbridge SATA ports plus the two PATA drives connected to the PATA cable inside the ODD bay.
early-2008 Mac Pro	MP3,1	SATA drives connected to the 6 southbridge SATA ports plus the two PATA drives connected to the PATA cable inside the ODD bay.
early-2009 Mac Pro	MP4,1	SATA/SAS drives connected to the 4 southbridge SATA ports plus the two SATA drives connected to the SATA cable inside the ODD bay.
mid-2010 Mac Pro	MP5,1	SATA/SAS drives connected to the 4 southbridge SATA ports plus the two SATA drives connected to the SATA cable inside the ODD bay.
mid-2012 Mac Pro	MP5,1	SATA/SAS drives connected to the 4 southbridge SATA ports plus the two SATA drives connected to the SATA cable inside the ODD bay.
late-2013 Mac Pro	MP6,1	Only the PCIe SSD is a internal drive.
2019 Mac Pro	MP7,1	Only the T2 Storage is an internal drive for T2 Security. While the two SATA ports of the logic board are internal for macOS, T2 Security definitions override macOS and you can only boot from SATA native ports with relaxed T2 Security, with external boot enabled with Startup Security Utility. Any PCIe connected storage are external for the firmware and T2 Security.