Found a good PCIe SATA III card

[macsforme]

I recently picked up a Mac Pro 4,1 (flashed to 5,1), and was in the position where I already had a 1TB SATA III SSD from my previous Mac mini that I was happy with, so I wanted to use it in my new Mac Pro rather than investing in a new PCIe SSD. However, I didn't want to cut my speeds in half by using the SATA II ports, so I looked through this forum for some options. I was surprised at how limited the options are if you want to run Windows on the disk as well. From what I've read, the OWC Mercury Accelsior S doesn't support booting Windows at all, and same thing for the Sonnet Tempo. In fact, the only solution I could find for a PCIe card you can mount a SATA III SSD to was the Apricorn Velocity Solo/Duo x2 cards. The problem is that the Velocity Solo has reported issues with the system hanging when you boot up holding the option key for the boot manager. I heard the Velocity Duo doesn't have this issue, but in addition to how silly it is to need a dual-drive card when you only plan on running one card, the Velocity Duo just doesn't seem to be available anywhere, new or used.

Since there were reports of the Apricorn Velocity Duo x2 working well, I did a little research and tried to find another card with the same chipset (the Marvell 9230). I found this unbranded card on eBay for $62 (it only seems to be available from China):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/x4-PCIe-to...uo-SATA-port-multiplier-88SE9230/112831256531

I was pleased to find that it met my needs. It worked out of the box on macOS (shows as an external disk, but I knew this was to be expected no matter which solution you use). On Windows, as reported with other cards, I had to attach my SSD to one of the built-in SATA II ports to install Windows, and then install the driver from the included CD (it showed up as "Marvell Console" in the device manager; Windows couldn't automatically install a driver as reported with other cards, but it loaded the driver from the CD just fine). Then, I moved the SSD to the PCIe card, and Windows booted up like normal.

I have the card installed in one of the x4 slots, with the other X4 slot occupied by my NVIDIA GT 120. I wanted to put it in one of the x16 slots, but it seems to have a heat sink on the back that sticks out quite a bit and would protrude into my double-wide GPU, so I might have to see if I can mitigate that somehow. In this configuration, I am getting 93% write speed and 95% read speed compared to the same drive in my 2014 Mac mini with a built-in SATA III port, which I am quite happy with. I am not sure why the speed is slightly reduced, but I wonder if it has to do with having to share bandwidth with my secondary GPU in the other x4 slot.



Just wanted to report this in case someone else is in the same position and would benefit.

 

[kohlson]

I wanted to put it in one of the x16 slots

First - thanks for the tip - good info.
I looking at the other threads on this, I don't think you will get any performance improvement moving from x4 to x16. SATA-III maxes out around 500MB/s. And for most people, it reduced latency (not max throughput) that contributes to workflow improvement.

But one of the best things about a cMP is the relative ease to tune these things and see what works!

 

[handheldgames]

I recently picked up a Mac Pro 4,1 (flashed to 5,1), and was in the position where I already had a 1TB SATA III SSD from my previous Mac mini that I was happy with, so I wanted to use it in my new Mac Pro rather than investing in a new PCIe SSD. However, I didn't want to cut my speeds in half by using the SATA II ports, so I looked through this forum for some options. I was surprised at how limited the options are if you want to run Windows on the disk as well. From what I've read, the OWC Mercury Accelsior S doesn't support booting Windows at all, and same thing for the Sonnet Tempo. In fact, the only solution I could find for a PCIe card you can mount a SATA III SSD to was the Apricorn Velocity Solo/Duo x2 cards. The problem is that the Velocity Solo has reported issues with the system hanging when you boot up holding the option key for the boot manager. I heard the Velocity Duo doesn't have this issue, but in addition to how silly it is to need a dual-drive card when you only plan on running one card, the Velocity Duo just doesn't seem to be available anywhere, new or used.

Since there were reports of the Apricorn Velocity Duo x2 working well, I did a little research and tried to find another card with the same chipset (the Marvell 9230). I found this unbranded card on eBay for $62 (it only seems to be available from China):

View attachment 768552

https://www.ebay.com/itm/x4-PCIe-to...uo-SATA-port-multiplier-88SE9230/112831256531

I was pleased to find that it met my needs. It worked out of the box on macOS (shows as an external disk, but I knew this was to be expected no matter which solution you use). On Windows, as reported with other cards, I had to attach my SSD to one of the built-in SATA II ports to install Windows, and then install the driver from the included CD (it showed up as "Marvell Console" in the device manager; Windows couldn't automatically install a driver as reported with other cards, but it loaded the driver from the CD just fine). Then, I moved the SSD to the PCIe card, and Windows booted up like normal.

I have the card installed in one of the x4 slots, with the other X4 slot occupied by my NVIDIA GT 120. I wanted to put it in one of the x16 slots, but it seems to have a heat sink on the back that sticks out quite a bit and would protrude into my double-wide GPU, so I might have to see if I can mitigate that somehow. In this configuration, I am getting 93% write speed and 95% read speed compared to the same drive in my 2014 Mac mini with a built-in SATA III port, which I am quite happy with. I am not sure why the speed is slightly reduced, but I wonder if it has to do with having to share bandwidth with my secondary GPU in the other x4 slot.

View attachment 768561

Just wanted to report this in case someone else is in the same position and would benefit.

Great find.
Could you run a 4K performance test on the drive / controller setup with AmorphousDiskMark(link) It would be helpful to see how the 9230 performs against the integrated SATA II.

Thanks again for sharing.

 

[macsforme]

Great find.
Could you run a 4K performance test on the drive / controller setup with AmorphousDiskMark(link) It would be helpful to see how the 9230 performs against the integrated SATA II.

Thanks again for sharing.

Here's the result from the PCIe card:

I'll try to remember to run this test again if/when I swap the drive back to the built in SATA II ports; I just can't at the moment because I have some things running.

 

[macsforme]

Great find.
Could you run a 4K performance test on the drive / controller setup with AmorphousDiskMark(link) It would be helpful to see how the 9230 performs against the integrated SATA II.

Thanks again for sharing.

Sorry for the delay. I finally had my machine apart and had a chance to switch my SATA SSD to the built-in SATA II ports for testing. Here are the results from that, if you were still curious about them:

 

[startergo]

Sonnet tempo I use perfectly boots EFI Windows