Buildig MacPro A1186 with SSD?

[yeukhon]

Hi.

I picked up A1186 from my company when they threw it out. They trashed the HDD for security compliance.

The closest spec I get is http://support.apple.com/kb/SP30

I wonder if modern SSD like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167175 will work?

I also looked at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236339 do you think the motherboard and the SATA is capable of delivering at 6Gb/s (theoretically)?
Thanks

 

[Intell]

It will work, but only at SATA II/3.0Gbps speeds as that model Mac Pro does not support SATA III/6.0Gbps.

 

[EdDuPlessis]

Get an SSD adapter card for higher speeds.

 

[boodaddyz]

Awesome find man! The 3,1 is a great machine. Not many upgrading options, but it's still a beast. Intel makes a great SSD. I use the 730 series 480gb, in my 3,1 and I get 260mb+ read/write on Sata ll.

If you are going to use Sata ll and not a Sata lll PCIe card, you will need to get an adapter like this one to fit into the sled.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer Technology/ADPTADRV/

Mine is on the way, and I will use that until I get my Sata lll PCIe adapter. Just a word of advice. I tried the Apricorn Solo X2 and could not get it to boot Windows. If you are not using Windows, it will boot into Mac OSX just fine and give you Sata lll Speeds.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cm_re=apricorn_solo_x2-_-15-461-002-_-Product

The Mac Pro 3,1 can be upgraded to 2x 3.2GHZ X5482 SLANZ processors (Max) that will cost around $120 for the pair on Ebay.

I have 2x 3.2GHZ processors with 16gb ram and get benchscores of 12000+.

Good luck with your 3,1 man!

 

[yeukhon]

Awesome find man! The 3,1 is a great machine. Not many upgrading options, but it's still a beast. Intel makes a great SSD. I use the 730 series 480gb, in my 3,1 and I get 260mb+ read/write on Sata ll.

If you are going to use Sata ll and not a Sata lll PCIe card, you will need to get an adapter like this one to fit into the sled.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer Technology/ADPTADRV/

Mine is on the way, and I will use that until I get my Sata lll PCIe adapter. Just a word of advice. I tried the Apricorn Solo X2 and could not get it to boot Windows. If you are not using Windows, it will boot into Mac OSX just fine and give you Sata lll Speeds.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cm_re=apricorn_solo_x2-_-15-461-002-_-Product

The Mac Pro 3,1 can be upgraded to 2x 3.2GHZ X5482 SLANZ processors (Max) that will cost around $120 for the pair on Ebay.

I have 2x 3.2GHZ processors with 16gb ram and get benchscores of 12000+.

Good luck with your 3,1 man!

Thank you all of the repliers.

But to @boodaddyz, I think the model is even older (A1186 (EMC 2113)). It would be MacPro 1,1 given the CPU is 2.66Ghz...

I checked the spec http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-quad-2.66-specs.html sounds like 7300GT has already occupied the PCIe 2.0 x2 slot?? So if I were to get the SSD adapter the one you linked from newegg, I would get the single slot version like http://www.amazon.com/Apricorn-Velocity-Extreme-Performance-VEL-SOLO-X2/dp/B0090IA3GY ?

*The Mac Pro has four PCIe expansion slots (one double-wide 16-lane PCI Express slot is occupied by the NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT in the default configuration, and three full-length PCI Express expansion slots are open). Apple also reports that the system has "configurable bandwidth that mechanically supports 16-lane cards [and supports] 300W combined max for all PCI Express slots."

 

[boodaddyz]

Thank you all of the repliers.

But to @boodaddyz, I think the model is even older (A1186 (EMC 2113)). It would be MacPro 1,1 given the CPU is 2.66Ghz...

I checked the spec http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-quad-2.66-specs.html sounds like 7300GT has already occupied the PCIe 2.0 x2 slot?? So if I were to get the SSD adapter the one you linked from newegg, I would get the single slot version like http://www.amazon.com/Apricorn-Velocity-Extreme-Performance-VEL-SOLO-X2/dp/B0090IA3GY ?

Hi Yeukhon,

Please accept my apologies. I have the Mac Pro 3,1 A1186 (EMC 2180) I should have confirmed that with you.

apparently the 1,1 can be upgraded to a 2,1 with a firmware upgrade which will allow you to add better processors if you wanted to upgrade those.

http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,1094.0.html

The Mac Pro 1,1 has PCIe 1.1, and Sata ll. Sata ll has a higher bandwidth vs PCIe 1.1 so I would recommend using the on-board Sata ll connections.

Apricorn makes a compatible Mac Pro 1,1 Sata lll card, but I think it maxes out at 400 MB/sec.

http://www.apricorn.com/products/desktop-ssd-hdd-upgrade-kits/vel-solox1.html

They say it's bootable, but I can not confirm that. I am also not sure that it will benifit you that much, as it's requires a PCIe 2.0 x1 slot to get the full 400 MB/sec

I'm sure some other users here will chime in on the 1,1 as I am not to familiar with that system.

Here are my read/write speeds on Sata ll with my Intel 730 series SSD

Hope this helps

 

[yeukhon]

Hi Yeukhon,

Please accept my apologies.
....

Hope this helps

Hey! Thank you for your thorough follow-up! This is fantastic. I am not very hardware savvy but your info has been very helpful. Yeah. That SSD is quite cheap and I can still use it in another system should I ever want to dump 1,1 (as it's really old by now).

I completely agree some of the upgrades won't benefit me much. The hope is I can run a modern Mac OSX version. 10.8 would be ideal. I will do some more study and find the right pieces

Thanks again! Have a happy holiday!

 

[theitsage]

1,1 to 3,1 have the advantage when it comes to upgrading to SATA III due to their SAS cable for the 4 sled drives. I'm aware of 2 low cost SAS SATA III RAID Controller cards that support native OS X boot disk. Addonics ADMS6GPX2 and StarTech PEXSAT34SFF. Both of these use the Marvell 88SE9230 chipset.

I have a couple of Syba cards that have this very same chipset and have been getting great speed from them.

 

[boodaddyz]

Hey! Thank you for your thorough follow-up! This is fantastic. I am not very hardware savvy but your info has been very helpful. Yeah. That SSD is quite cheap and I can still use it in another system should I ever want to dump 1,1 (as it's really old by now).

I completely agree some of the upgrades won't benefit me much. The hope is I can run a modern Mac OSX version. 10.8 would be ideal. I will do some more study and find the right pieces

Thanks again! Have a happy holiday!

Hey Yeukhon,

No problem glad to help. Happy Holidays to you as well!

Yep. SSD on the Sata ll sled with the adapter is the way to go, and you should see a huge jump in performance. I would also get as much ram as you can if you plan to keep the system for a bit. This will also help tremendously.

Here is a YouTube video on how to install Yosemeti on your Mac Pro 1,1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwk8zU8OGzE

I'm sure you seen this post from the thread page, but it also has some good information.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1740775/

Have Fun!