MP 1,1-5,1 High Performance 740 MB/s NVMe USB SSD with a MP5,1

[Snow Tiger]

Hey Folks ...

I was busy building a fast USB thumb drive to install Memtest86 on in order to quickly verify large memory configurations in my Mac Pro 7,1 ( 2019 ) .

I tested it first connected to my MP5,1 .

Here's what I did :

Installed a Gigabyte Brand 10 Gbps PCIe USB Card ( model GC-USB3.1 ) in PCIe Slot 4 in my Mojave ( macOS 10.14.6 ) running Mac Pro 5,1 ( 4,1 > 5,1 ) . This is the card with one Type A and one Type C port .

Built the thumb drive for $135 :

Sintech USB NVMe SSD enclosure ( model ST-M2U3-U ) . $25 .
Sintech USB-A to USB-C data cable ( enclosed in the above product ) .
EasyAcc Thunderbolt 3.0 Cable USB C to USB C cable ( model SS_DC_C2C ) . $10 .
1TB HP EX 920 NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD blade . ~$100 .

The Sintech enclosure has an Asmedia ASM2362 controller chip .

The drive was formatted GUID with Mac OS Extended Journaled ( AKA HFS+ ) .

I got around 740 MB/s reads and writes . Not at all bad for USB in a classic Mac Pro . Apple must be really improving the drivers .

The only thing I need to do in the future is place some thermal gap material in the enclosure if the drive gets a little too hot , as Sintech did not include any .

Here's some pictures :

 

[Snow Tiger]

Here are the results of this Sintech NVMe USB SSD connected to the USB-C port of my Mac Pro 7,1 ( 2019 ) .

It is functionally identical to the results with the MP5,1 , in terms of video format support , although the absolute speeds are around 200 MB/s faster .

 

[tommy chen]

i use this one:

ICY BOX Write Protection Feature M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure with High Performance Innovative Heatsink Design with USB 3.1 Gen 2 Transfer Speed for Connecting to Type-C and Thunderbolt 3 Ports

ICY BOX IB-1817M-C31-TB3 Description The Aluminium Design from ICY BOX is the perfect Enclosure for M 2 NVMe SSD which enable users to connect directly via USB-A Port USB-C Port or Thunderbolt 3 Port from the Computer Laptop or MacBook The Enclosure enables high transfer data speed for the M 2 NV...

www.amazon.com

with a 2TB 970evo ( 65% full) and get this result on my 5.1
plugged with USB-C to USB-A in the HP1344 PCIe card