Curious what would be max SSD speed in a Mac Pro 3,1

[pullman]

My trusty Mac Pro 3,1 is ticking along well after all these years and does what I need.

But just as a matter of idle curiosity – what would be the fastest drive configuration on such an old machine?

Over time I have installed a few SSDs and tried them both on the back plane and on a Sonnet Tempo Pro (the previous "non plus" version), both as RAID 0 and un-RAID'ed.

When I last checked I didn't notice much difference if I put my Intel 520s as a RAID 0 boot/apps drive on the Tempo or used only one of them for boot/apps.

I haven't really followed SSD developments closely since I bought the Intel 520s, but I gather there are also other formats now that fit in the PCI-E ports – are such drives even compatible with a 3,1 and its PCI-E 2.0?

And would they run faster than SSDs, even if RAID 0 on the Tempo? Are there other technologies available today?

Am I right in believing that if I upgrade my SSDs to, say, Samsung 850/860 the only difference to the Intel 520s would be in the random read and writes?

I realise this is in enthousiast territory rather than real-world use territory, but I'm curious.

Thanks in advance
Philip

 

[pl1984]

The answer really depends on what aspect of performance you're referring to. The question is very broad and without additional detail is difficult to answer. Given it's an academic exercise I will give a generic answer. All of this assumes ideal configurations (i.e. the availability of parts, drivers, and OS support).

There are two main aspects of disk performance: Sequential and random. A lot of people focus on the former as that's where the "big" numbers are but it's the latter where most people realize the benefit of an SSD.

Sequential performance of today's NVMe SSDs is impressive. The Samsung 960 products reach 2GB/sec transfer rates. This rate is easily handled by the 2008 Mac Pro's PCIe 2.0 bus. A 4x slot would provide the necessary 2GB/sec bandwidth. Given this I'm not really sure what benefit such speeds offer as there is no, at least stock, source or sink which approaches this speed.

Random performance is typically where most users see benefit. Typically the slowest aspect of a spinning hard disk is the physical movement of the disk platters and read/write heads. SSDs aren't, for the sake of this discussion, constrained by physical movements and therefore being able to read/write random data is much faster. Even the lower, wrt sequential, random read/write rates provide a much improved experience over a spinning hard disk. The SATA II ports on the Mac Pro are more than sufficient to handle most random access. Even if there is a constraint removing the SATA constraint is unlikely to provide noticeable gains (IMO, save for server workloads, most random access is for small, relatively speaking, amounts of data).

Unless you know your disk usage patterns include significant amounts of sequential access my recommendation is to choose a mid level SATA SSD and be done with it. If you have a specific use case you'd like to discuss let us know and we can provide further guidance.

 

[jbarley]

My MacPro 3,1 boots and runs from a Kingston PCIe HyperX® Predator card and without getting into all the details, as a home-hobby type user I'm more then happy with the performance gains I got when I installed it.

 

[MIKX]

If you are talking about M.2 PCIe .. .

This is what I get with my Samsung M.2 960 EVO in a Fusion setup with a USB 3.0 stick. The M.2 850 is considerably slower

 

[AlexMaximus]

My trusty Mac Pro 3,1 is ticking along well after all these years and does what I need.

But just as a matter of idle curiosity – what would be the fastest drive configuration on such an old machine?

Over time I have installed a few SSDs and tried them both on the back plane and on a Sonnet Tempo Pro (the previous "non plus" version), both as RAID 0 and un-RAID'ed.

When I last checked I didn't notice much difference if I put my Intel 520s as a RAID 0 boot/apps drive on the Tempo or used only one of them for boot/apps.

I haven't really followed SSD developments closely since I bought the Intel 520s, but I gather there are also other formats now that fit in the PCI-E ports – are such drives even compatible with a 3,1 and its PCI-E 2.0?

And would they run faster than SSDs, even if RAID 0 on the Tempo? Are there other technologies available today?

Am I right in believing that if I upgrade my SSDs to, say, Samsung 850/860 the only difference to the Intel 520s would be in the random read and writes?

I realise this is in enthousiast territory rather than real-world use territory, but I'm curious.

Thanks in advance
Philip

I think you are doing fine with the Tempo Pro card. There are some options out there that would be faster, but I absolutley doubt that you would really gain a significant speed boost from where you are now. With the Tempo card you are already way past the 700MB/s speed, which is really good when it comes to the MP 3.1.
Sure, you could throw thousands toward a faster PCIe card such as the amfeltec gen3 and enter a global search effort to source those very rare samsung 951 ahci drives (4x) but then again, how long are you planing to keep your machine? I would use your configuration you have now and be done with it. To sink any more money it it, would not really make sense in 2018. The Tempo Pro card is really good, I think you are doing fine. It would be a different story if you wouldn't have any ssd in it, or no pcie based card.

 

[pullman]

Thank you all for the replies and my apologies that it took a while to write back. I checked using Black Magic and got a measly 130 Write and 450 Read. I couldn't see the random test though, perhaps Black Magic doesn't test that.

I tried the Amorphous Disk Mark and then got the following on the Boot drive which is an Intel 520 attached to the Tempo card. Seems a bit slow, or?

pl1984 - I completely agree that it's in the random performance that one sees the big difference to HDDs. I don't do anything thath requires fast sequential access. Part of the reason for my question is that I'm seriously considering replacing the two Intel 520 because I'd like larger drives. But would switching them to, say, Samsung 850 improve the random performance?

The answer really depends on what aspect of performance you're referring to.
[...]
Unless you know your disk usage patterns include significant amounts of sequential access my recommendation is to choose a mid level SATA SSD and be done with it. If you have a specific use case you'd like to discuss let us know and we can provide further guidance.

Thanks Alex. I'm now curious if I could max the Tempo with two current SSDs in RAID 0, what do you think?

I think you are doing fine with the Tempo Pro card. There are some options out there that would be faster, but I absolutley doubt that you would really gain a significant speed boost from where you are now. With the Tempo card you are already way past the 700MB/s speed, which is really good when it comes to the MP 3.1.
Sure, you could throw thousands toward a faster PCIe card such as the amfeltec gen3 and enter a global search effort to source those very rare samsung 951 ahci drives (4x) but then again, how long are you planing to keep your machine? I would use your configuration you have now and be done with it. To sink any more money it it, would not really make sense in 2018. The Tempo Pro card is really good, I think you are doing fine. It would be a different story if you wouldn't have any ssd in it, or no pcie based card.

 

[pl1984]

pl1984 - I completely agree that it's in the random performance that one sees the big difference to HDDs. I don't do anything thath requires fast sequential access. Part of the reason for my question is that I'm seriously considering replacing the two Intel 520 because I'd like larger drives. But would switching them to, say, Samsung 850 improve the random performance?

Samsung 850's a great drives and not much of a premium. Highly recommended. But I can't say whether you'd experience a more responsive system (it might benchmark better, but might not provide any noticeable real world benefit) Are you experiencing a specific performance issue with your current drives? I know your intent is to replace the existing disks for capacity reasons but if you're not experiencing a performance issue then my thought would be you shouldn't spend much time on the performance aspect.

 

[pullman]

Thank you for writing back. To be honest, no I'm not experiencing any performance issue. I've been happy with these drives, though they're getting on a bit in age by now so I have a nagging doubt about reliability in the long run. I read about the Samsung 8xx series as being extremely long-lasting so that also got me thinking. And if they have higher random performance, albeit likely not very visible to me, then that's something too. So my original post was one part general curiosity because I've tried to maintain this machine as best I can over the years and keep it up-to-date, and one part 'need' in that I'd like larger drives and also better reliability for at least a few more years because the computer does what I need.

Samsung 850's a great drives and not much of a premium. Highly recommended. But I can't say whether you'd experience a more responsive system (it might benchmark better, but might not provide any noticeable real world benefit) Are you experiencing a specific performance issue with your current drives? I know your intent is to replace the existing disks for capacity reasons but if you're not experiencing a performance issue then my thought would be you shouldn't spend much time on the performance aspect.

 

[AlexMaximus]

Thank you all for the replies and my apologies that it took a while to write back. I checked using Black Magic and got a measly 130 Write and 450 Read. I couldn't see the random test though, perhaps Black Magic doesn't test that.

I tried the Amorphous Disk Mark and then got the following on the Boot drive which is an Intel 520 attached to the Tempo card. Seems a bit slow, or?

View attachment 767302

pl1984 - I completely agree that it's in the random performance that one sees the big difference to HDDs. I don't do anything thath requires fast sequential access. Part of the reason for my question is that I'm seriously considering replacing the two Intel 520 because I'd like larger drives. But would switching them to, say, Samsung 850 improve the random performance?



Thanks Alex. I'm now curious if I could max the Tempo with two current SSDs in RAID 0, what do you think?

Hi Pullman,

Hmm, its a difficult question because the perception of the speed of your computer is also partial a psychological one.
Me for instance, I have tried most speed steps in my 5.1 system. These have been:
1. No SSD // Standard spinners HDDs
2. Standard SATA SSD (Samsung 840 & 850 non Pro SSD) in the standard HDD bay, using the blue OWC 2,5 SSD bracket.
3. Standard SATA SSD in OWC Accelsior S PCIe card adapter.
4. Using Samsung 941 & 951 AHCI flash blades in px1 and hyperX PCIe card adapter.

Looking at those 4 variants, I came to the conclusion that the sweet spot is Step 3. I believe I really did feel the jump to the PCI card for sure and I think this is the most important one you can do. Step 4 doubles the SSD speed, so mathematically one would think Step4 is the most important upgrade. I felt a little speed bump, however it was not doubling the "speed feeling" I was hoping to achieve with step4.
What makes it more difficult for me to measure are different OSX systems, so a direct comparison is impossible for me at this time.
For example, El Capitan runs on a SSD in the standard SATA bay (slowest), my Windows 7 bootcamp for VR and gaming runs on the 951 ahci (fastest) and my new High Sierra OSX partition for FinalCut pro runs on the PredatorX 941 ahci drive (middle speed).
What I can really state for sure, El Capitan runs the best overall, High Sierra runs somewhat slower regardless the faster SSD hardware. But then again I knew exactly apple would slow down support towards the end of hardware lifecycle on OSX systems, so the ahci route was a measure to compensate for that. I also needed to have no bottle neck for the HTC VR goggle together with a fast USB3 cal digit card. It worked out great because I did not have to buy a separate VR box instead and a justification for my NVIDIA mutant 980ti SC card.

What I would recommend in your shoes:

Intel is a fine company, its SSDs are not the fastest but usually very reliable. I absolutely doubt a different SSD brand, based on the same SATA bandwidth will make any difference on your perception of speed on your MP 3.1. The option that makes sense is to do a Raid0 for a super fast boot drive for your OSX main system to reach those 700MB/sec+ above read speeds with the existing SSD's. Sonnet even states you could reach a 960MB/sec read speed, thats what I would shoot for. And it doesn't cost you anything. However, you should check if you have the same SSD firmware on those 520 drives, Intel provided updates in the past I think. Also check if you can enable Trim with the trim enabler. (maybe not possible because of raid0 ? - you need to check that as well)

Other then that, if you are still not happy, there is only one route left to reach the ultimate goal: Eliminate all spinners together and shoot for a 100% pure SSD system for the long run. Put all HDD's in external cases. Put the start up boot SSD on a large ahci drive if you plan to do VR or other Hight tech toy stuff. If you want to go haywire and ballistic on your upgrade, make sure to check out:

www.angelbird.com

&

www.amfeltec.com

.. and good luck!

 

[handheldgames]

Sharing some 4k benchmarks:


The Ultrastar 4TB HDD

A Raid0 Ramdisk

And the 970 Pro with Highpoint 7101A


The fastest option for single drive performance is the Highpoint 7101A coupled with the 970Pro.

A benefit of the 7101A is PCIe 3.0 compatibility. If I end up moving on from the cMP, I can leverage the 7101a to it's full PCIe 3.0 potential, without being held back to the PCIe 2.0 speeds from the Amfeltec Squid.

If anyone is interested in an Amfeltec Squid, four 256GB SM951 AHCI's, or a 1TB Apple PCIe SSD Drop me a PM.

 

[AlexMaximus]

Sharing some 4k benchmarks:
View attachment 767351
View attachment 767352
The Ultrastar 4TB HDD
View attachment 767353
A Raid0 Ramdisk
View attachment 767355
And the 970 Pro with Highpoint 7101A
View attachment 767356

The fastest option for single drive performance is the Highpoint 7101A coupled with the 970Pro.

A benefit of the 7101A is PCIe 3.0 compatibility. If I end up moving on from the cMP, I can leverage the 7101a to it's full PCIe 3.0 potential, without being held back to the PCIe 2.0 speeds from the Amfeltec Squid.

This is SUPER news, great numbers and thank you for providing those impressive numbers handheld. Much appreciated!
Looks like this blows the amfeltec squid card out of the water, -great news! Once more a new card to keep the 5.1 club running! Two questions that come to mind:

Can the Highpoint card be used as a startup disk to boot OSX?
Can you use bootcamp?

 

[pl1984]

Thank you for writing back. To be honest, no I'm not experiencing any performance issue. I've been happy with these drives, though they're getting on a bit in age by now so I have a nagging doubt about reliability in the long run. I read about the Samsung 8xx series as being extremely long-lasting so that also got me thinking. And if they have higher random performance, albeit likely not very visible to me, then that's something too. So my original post was one part general curiosity because I've tried to maintain this machine as best I can over the years and keep it up-to-date, and one part 'need' in that I'd like larger drives and also better reliability for at least a few more years because the computer does what I need.

I think the 850's would be suitable for your use. They're solid drives and would be a nice addition to your system.

 

[handheldgames]

This is SUPER news, great numbers and thank you for providing those impressive numbers handheld. Much appreciated!
Looks like this is blows even the amfeltec squid card out of the water, great news! Once more card to keep the 5.1 club running! Two questions that come to mind:

Can the Highpoint card be used as a startup disk to boot OSX?
Can you use bootcamp?

Ive booted the 970Pro NVMe and the SM951 AHCI without issue in the Highpoint and Amfeltec controllers.
Regarding bootcamp, I haven't tried.

 

[pullman]

Thanks again Alex. It really helps to read your experiences and suggestions. I remember feeling a big jump going from HDDs to SSDs and don't think anything like that will be possible again on this system.

I initially tried to Raid 0 the two Intels on the Tempo and it worked well, including booting-wise just as Sonnet says, but it was a bit fiddly to move the disk image over to the stripes and I had to try a few times before it "took". In the end I opted for using the Intels separately, one for boot and the other for user folder because otherwise I would have had to keep the user folder on an HDD.

But I don't think the drives currently perform optimally so I'll check out your suggestions on the firmware and enabling Trim - thanks a lot for these ideas.

I guess going for one of the current Samsungs would up the individual performance of each drive when on the Tempo un-Raid'ed, even though I wouldn't get the Tempo's max speed. Another option is to Raid 0 the Intels (or two new Samsungs) and then put the user folder in the second optical bay connected to the two extra SATA II ports on the logic board. I have an OWC bracket there with two HDDs which I don't need. That would require two new drives though.

Eliminating my four internal HDDs would be a dream of course but financially difficult to justify for me. But those two links you posted sure are interesting.

The whole business with flash blades is new to me. I have one 4x PCI-E slot left. Does one buy an adapter and then slot in card-based drives, or how does this work?

Thanks again
Philip

Hi Pullman,

Hmm, its a difficult question because the perception of the speed of your computer is also partial a psychological one.
Me for instance, I have tried most speed steps in my 5.1 system. These have been:
1. No SSD // Standard spinners HDDs
2. Standard SATA SSD (Samsung 840 & 850 non Pro SSD) in the standard HDD bay, using the blue OWC 2,5 SSD bracket.
3. Standard SATA SSD in OWC Accelsior S PCIe card adapter.
4. Using Samsung 941 & 951 AHCI flash blades in px1 and hyperX PCIe card adapter.

Looking at those 4 variants, I came to the conclusion that the sweet spot is Step 3. I believe I really did feel the jump to the PCI card for sure and I think this is the most important one you can do. Step 4 doubles the SSD speed, so mathematically one would think Step4 is the most important upgrade. I felt a little speed bump, however it was not doubling the "speed feeling" I was hoping to achieve with step4.
What makes it more difficult for me to measure are different OSX systems, so a direct comparison is impossible for me at this time.
For example, El Capitan runs on a SSD in the standard SATA bay (slowest), my Windows 7 bootcamp for VR and gaming runs on the 951 ahci (fastest) and my new High Sierra OSX partition for FinalCut pro runs on the PredatorX 941 ahci drive (middle speed).
What I can really state for sure, El Capitan runs the best overall, High Sierra runs somewhat slower regardless the faster SSD hardware. But then again I knew exactly apple would slow down support towards the end of hardware lifecycle on OSX systems, so the ahci route was a measure to compensate for that. I also needed to have no bottle neck for the HTC VR goggle together with a fast USB3 cal digit card. It worked out great because I did not have to buy a separate VR box instead and a justification for my NVIDIA mutant 980ti SC card.

What I would recommend in your shoes:

Intel is a fine company, its SSDs are not the fastest but usually very reliable. I absolutely doubt a different SSD brand, based on the same SATA bandwidth will make any difference on your perception of speed on your MP 3.1. The option that makes sense is to do a Raid0 for a super fast boot drive for your OSX main system to reach those 700MB/sec+ above read speeds with the existing SSD's. Sonnet even states you could reach a 960MB/sec read speed, thats what I would shoot for. And it doesn't cost you anything. However, you should check if you have the same SSD firmware on those 520 drives, Intel provided updates in the past I think. Also check if you can enable Trim with the trim enabler. (maybe not possible because of raid0 ? - you need to check that as well)

Other then that, if you are still not happy, there is only one route left to reach the ultimate goal: Eliminate all spinners together and shoot for a 100% pure SSD system for the long run. Put all HDD's in external cases. Put the start up boot SSD on a large ahci drive if you plan to do VR or other Hight tech toy stuff. If you want to go haywire and ballistic on your upgrade, make sure to check out:

www.angelbird.com

&

www.amfeltec.com

.. and good luck!

 

[pl1984]

Thanks again Alex. It really helps to read your experiences and suggestions. I remember feeling a big jump going from HDDs to SSDs and don't think anything like that will be possible again on this system.

I initially tried to Raid 0 the two Intels on the Tempo and it worked well, including booting-wise just as Sonnet says, but it was a bit fiddly to move the disk image over to the stripes and I had to try a few times before it "took". In the end I opted for using the Intels separately, one for boot and the other for user folder because otherwise I would have had to keep the user folder on an HDD.

But I don't think the drives currently perform optimally so I'll check out your suggestions on the firmware and enabling Trim - thanks a lot for these ideas.

I guess going for one of the current Samsungs would up the individual performance of each drive when on the Tempo un-Raid'ed, even though I wouldn't get the Tempo's max speed. Another option is to Raid 0 the Intels (or two new Samsungs) and then put the user folder in the second optical bay connected to the two extra SATA II ports on the logic board. I have an OWC bracket there with two HDDs which I don't need. That would require two new drives though.

Eliminating my four internal HDDs would be a dream of course but financially difficult to justify for me. But those two links you posted sure are interesting.

The whole business with flash blades is new to me. I have one 4x PCI-E slot left. Does one buy an adapter and then slot in card-based drives, or how does this work?

Thanks again
Philip

I wouldn't bother with a RAID 0 configuration on any SATA SSD. Today's SSDs are fast enough where a RAID 0 configuration over SATA doesn't make sense.

 

[AlexMaximus]

Thanks again Alex. It really helps to read your experiences and suggestions. I remember feeling a big jump going from HDDs to SSDs and don't think anything like that will be possible again on this system.

I initially tried to Raid 0 the two Intels on the Tempo and it worked well, including booting-wise just as Sonnet says, but it was a bit fiddly to move the disk image over to the stripes and I had to try a few times before it "took". In the end I opted for using the Intels separately, one for boot and the other for user folder because otherwise I would have had to keep the user folder on an HDD.

But I don't think the drives currently perform optimally so I'll check out your suggestions on the firmware and enabling Trim - thanks a lot for these ideas.

I guess going for one of the current Samsungs would up the individual performance of each drive when on the Tempo un-Raid'ed, even though I wouldn't get the Tempo's max speed. Another option is to Raid 0 the Intels (or two new Samsungs) and then put the user folder in the second optical bay connected to the two extra SATA II ports on the logic board. I have an OWC bracket there with two HDDs which I don't need. That would require two new drives though.

Eliminating my four internal HDDs would be a dream of course but financially difficult to justify for me. But those two links you posted sure are interesting.

The whole business with flash blades is new to me. I have one 4x PCI-E slot left. Does one buy an adapter and then slot in card-based drives, or how does this work?

Thanks again
Philip

Regarding the PCI-E SSD (single) drive, the best way to do it is to go for a Samsung 951 AHCI flash blade. This drive used to be the best and fastest option (around 1500MB/sec speed). Since you can only get the drive as flash blade, you need to purchase the PCI-e adapter separate. Most people on the forum go for a cheap adapter like this one here:

https://www.amazon.com/Lycom-DT-120-PCIe-Adapter-Support/dp/B00MYCQP38

However, in the last 6 month, the Samsung 951 AHCI drive became a very rare drive. You may look on eBay if traditional stores are out of stock. The reason behind it is the replacement with the newer NVMe flash Standard. If you use the Lycom adapter, you also will need an additional heat sink as well. The only drawback about this drive is the max size of 512 GB, there was no larger drive to my knowledge.

https://www.amazon.com/EKWB-EK-M-2-...sr=1-1-fkmr2&keywords=2210+nvme+heatsink&th=1


So if you want to have a 1TB drive you need to go for the HyperX Predator. This is basically the precursor drive to the one mentioned above. It runs slightly slower at around 1300MB/sec and uses the same adapter. It comes with an adapter, so you will not need the Lycom card, but you will still need the heat sink. I have both cards and I am very happy with both of them. Very fast and so far very reliable.
The benefit compared to the SATA SSD is basically one or two generations newer.

SATA SSD = 2011 gen technology
Flash blade 941 AHCI = 2014 gen technology
Flash blade 951 AHCI = 2015 gen technology

Since you have the MP 3.1 - High Sierra OSX is not officially supported, therefor you can not use NVMe flash blades. The options above are your only ones when it comes to configurations that you do on your own. (Proprietary ones are a different story)

http://barefeats.com/hard200.html

http://barefeats.com/hard211.html

 

[pullman]

Thank you very much again, Alex. I appreciate that you set this out in such detail. I checked here in the Netherlands and it is as you say also here; the 951 AHCI is nowhere to be seen. I'll definitely consider the HyperX. The one thing is that I only have one slot left and I am thinking of putting a USB 3 card there as I am beginning to need external storage. I haven't fully made up my mind yet though and might use one of the firewire connections I have left.

In the meantime I have bought to 860 EVO 250GB which I will initially stripe on the Tempo. Will be interesting to see how they fare. I've also ordered 64GB of server RAM. It's so cheap these days I might as well try. I've seen posts here that one shouldn't install all of it because that drops the SATA bus's speed so I'll fiddle around until I get that right. Once I have it all set up I'll post back with hopefully better results.

Oh I checked and unfortunately the two Intels are running the latest firmware but I did enable TRIM so thumbs up again for suggesting this to me.

Cheers
Philip

Regarding the PCI-E SSD (single) drive, the best way to do it is to go for a Samsung 951 AHCI flash blade. This drive used to be the best and fastest option (around 1500MB/sec speed). Since you can only get the drive as flash blade, you need to purchase the PCI-e adapter separate. Most people on the forum go for a cheap adapter like this one here:

https://www.amazon.com/Lycom-DT-120-PCIe-Adapter-Support/dp/B00MYCQP38

However, in the last 6 month, the Samsung 951 AHCI drive became a very rare drive. You may look on eBay if traditional stores are out of stock. The reason behind it is the replacement with the newer NVMe flash Standard. If you use the Lycom adapter, you also will need an additional heat sink as well. The only drawback about this drive is the max size of 512 GB, there was no larger drive to my knowledge.

https://www.amazon.com/EKWB-EK-M-2-NVMe-Heatsink-Black/dp/B077TZM1CC/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1529700206&sr=1-1-fkmr2&keywords=2210+nvme+heatsink&th=1


So if you want to have a 1TB drive you need to go for the HyperX Predator. This is basically the precursor drive to the one mentioned above. It runs slightly slower at around 1300MB/sec and uses the same adapter. It comes with an adapter, so you will not need the Lycom card, but you will still need the heat sink. I have both cards and I am very happy with both of them. Very fast and so far very reliable.
The benefit compared to the SATA SSD is basically one or two generations newer.

SATA SSD = 2011 gen technology
Flash blade 941 AHCI = 2014 gen technology
Flash blade 951 AHCI = 2015 gen technology

Since you have the MP 3.1 - High Sierra OSX is not officially supported, therefor you can not use NVMe flash blades. The options above are your only ones when it comes to configurations that you do on your own. (Proprietary ones are a different story)

http://barefeats.com/hard200.html

http://barefeats.com/hard211.html

 

[pl1984]

I'm curious as to what it is you're attempting to gain by buying a PCIe based SSD. Not trying to be snarky, just not clear what your end goal is.

You mentioned your workload is not composed of many sequential transfers, where PCIe based solutions excel, so it seems spending money on a PCIe based solution is not warranted. If I may reference a post by h9826790:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ssd-sata-iii-or-ahci-pcie.2028989/#post-24225240

The graph shows boot times for PCIe versus SATA-III versus SATA-II were, for all intents and purposes, the same.

 

[pullman]

No worries, I appreciate that you ask. I'm not seriously considering it because i will most likely need the remaining slot for external storage but I am also just generally curious about what can be done with such an old machine.

The heaviest I throw at my MP is very large film scans which I edit in Photoshop and other apps. A lot of the work is processor-intensive, such as filters, but general file handling does benefit from speedy drives. That being said with striped SSDs on the Tempo I'm more than covered.

I'm curious as to what it is you're attempting to gain by buying a PCIe based SSD. Not trying to be snarky, just not clear what your end goal is.

You mentioned your workload is not composed of many sequential transfers, where PCIe based solutions excel, so it seems spending money on a PCIe based solution is not warranted. If I may reference a post by h9826790:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ssd-sata-iii-or-ahci-pcie.2028989/#post-24225240

The graph shows boot times for PCIe versus SATA-III versus SATA-II were, for all intents and purposes, the same.

 

[pullman]

So I've receved the two 860 EVO and tried them out on the Tempo. I get a lot better random performance (which is what I am after) when the drives are not RAIDed. Here's the breakdown using Amorphous.

Any idea why the random 4K QD32 Read result is so low for the RAID 0 (yellow)?

It's as if the card itself introduces some cap here because all other results, which are single non-RAID drives, are much faster. Then again I don't know how important that 4K random read performance is. The other random numbers are good/as expected.

The two Intels are in the optical bay and System Profiler reports the link for one to be 1,5 and the other 3,0. I guess this is because that's how the board's SATA bus works, right? I mean two of the PCI-E slots are SATA I and two are SATA II.

 

[handheldgames]

So I've receved the two 860 EVO and tried them out on the Tempo. I get a lot better random performance (which is what I am after) when the drives are not RAIDed. Here's the breakdown using Amorphous.

View attachment 767928

Any idea why the random 4K QD32 Read result is so low for the RAID 0 (yellow)?

It's as if the card itself introduces some cap here because all other results, which are single non-RAID drives, are much faster. Then again I don't know how important that 4K random read performance is. The other random numbers are good/as expected.

The two Intels are in the optical bay and System Profiler reports the link for one to be 1,5 and the other 3,0. I guess this is because that's how the board's SATA bus works, right? I mean two of the PCI-E slots are SATA I and two are SATA II.

Nice work. First off, raids exhibit issue with random access. What is the data set size you are using for the test? It’s the drop down at the top of amorphous. 50mib will give you a good burst result. 1gig will expose any throttling of the ssd to compensate for heat /etc.

In your raid 0. What block size did you test with? That will also effect the raid’s performance. You may be able to achieve higher performance with a different configuration.

 

[pullman]

Thank you handheld. I only ran 50 and 500 MiB but have now added 1GB. Seems all drive configurations will but grind to a halt at 1GB so I guess that's an even playing field then. But the 4K random read remains very low for the stripes. Any ideas?

I honestly don't know which block size. Since I'm on El Cap I had to use appleRAID in Terminal but I'm afraid I don't know what the default block size is or how to change that.

I'll either use one of the EVOs or both as stripe for booting El Cap so I'm wondering which block size would be the best. From what I understand an aspect is how SSDs read and write data. I read somewhere that some SSDs need to read a whole block into the working memory even if that block is only occupied by a smaller file which speaks in favour of larger blocks.

Nice work. First off, raids exhibit issue with random access. What is the data set size you are using for the test? It’s the drop down at the top of amorphous. 50mib will give you a good burst result. 1gig will expose any throttling of the ssd to compensate for heat /etc.

In your raid 0. What block size did you test with? That will also effect the raid’s performance. You may be able to achieve higher performance with a different configuration.

 

[pullman]

Just an update. I decided to put use the two EVOs as single disks on the Tempo. I couldn't get the random performance to change.

Thanks again to all who helped
Philip

Thank you handheld. I only ran 50 and 500 MiB but have now added 1GB. Seems all drive configurations will but grind to a halt at 1GB so I guess that's an even playing field then. But the 4K random read remains very low for the stripes. Any ideas?

View attachment 767950

I honestly don't know which block size. Since I'm on El Cap I had to use appleRAID in Terminal but I'm afraid I don't know what the default block size is or how to change that.

I'll either use one of the EVOs or both as stripe for booting El Cap so I'm wondering which block size would be the best. From what I understand an aspect is how SSDs read and write data. I read somewhere that some SSDs need to read a whole block into the working memory even if that block is only occupied by a smaller file which speaks in favour of larger blocks.

 

[AlexMaximus]

Just an update. I decided to put use the two EVOs as single disks on the Tempo. I couldn't get the random performance to change.

Thanks again to all who helped
Philip

Hi Philip,

I think you have chosen the best scenario for your situation. The way I grew up with the early Raid systems in the industry, -the original thought behind it was always to keep the pressure from the main CPU and offload HDD controlling tasks to an additional external chip, - in this case to the hardware controller on the tempo pro card in order to free up more power for other tasks.
A SATA 3 connection speed wise usually is around 550MB/sec. This is about the performance you would have in case of a single SATA SSD drive on a single slot PCIe card such as the regular Tempo or an Accelsior S card. According to your provided Benchmarks, you have 908MB/sec Seq Read speed, -> that means your hardware raid controller is doing 450MB/sec on top of a standard single non raid0 set up. I think this is pretty good, especially on a MP 3.1.

Surprising to me was the slow Intel 520 read speed. This shows clearly, how fast the SSD chip architecture has developed over the last 4 years. This is stunning for me and it shows how important it is to go with an upgraded SSD.
I have two Samsung 840 SSD in my rig for multiple years now, and they are very solid drives. I think Samsung, in general, is the best possible brand you could go when it comes to SSDs with a SATA interface. Very well done, I think you will be fine for years to come with the 860's

 

[pl1984]

How does the system feel after the upgrade? The benchmarks show a marked improvement but has that translated into increased productivity / user experience?