Highpoint 7101A - PCIe 3.0 SSD performance for the cMP

[tsialex]

Thanks for the quick reply!
Ugh.. so I guess the card was shipped without the screws. F'n ebay, man. Any chance someone knows the size of the screws? They're teeny tiny.

For my card, HighPoint SSD7101A-1 V1.01, it's the same screw as the cover, just a tad little smaller in height, with the exactly same diameter and thread count.

Took me a while to identify what were the heatsink cover screws and the stand-off ones. The four smaller ones are for the stand-offs.

 

[rylim]

Thanks for the quick reply!
Ugh.. so I guess the card was shipped without the screws. F'n ebay, man. Any chance someone knows the size of the screws? They're teeny tiny.

Are you going to use it with fan or without the fan? If without the fan, I would recommend to use the screws from the side panel

 

[DigitaLife]

Introduction

Stumbling into an Amazon warehouse Deal, I picked up the HighPoint 7101a NVMe PCIe adapter, equipped with a MacPro friendly Broadcom 8747 PCIe bridge at a great price. While Highpoint's acknowledgement of MacPro compatibility was sketchy at best, I ordered one to go along with a recently acquired Samsung 970 Pro NVMe Boot drive.


Some Images

PEX 8747
48-Lane, 5-Port PCI Express Gen 3 (8 GT/s) Switch, 27 x 27mm FCBGA
The ExpressLane™ PEX 8747 is a 48-lane, 5-port, PCIe Gen 3 switch device
Technical Specification Document link

On to the results
Let the numbers speak for themselves. I'm VERY impressed with the near PCIe 3.x performance on a '09 CMP with the Highpoint 7101A PCIe SSD Adapter and the Samsung 970 pro. Yes... Read performance has almost doubled from 1500MBs to 3000MBs. Writes are up 50%.

Taking a look under the hood, The 7101A addresses PCIe SSD’s at a pcie 3.0 x4 8.0Gts link, saturating the x16 a pcie 2.0 connection at close to PCIe 3.0 speeds.

If there is a Holy Grail of PCIe SSD adapters for the cMP, this may be the one.

View attachment 767207
970 Pro in a standard m2 x4 adapter with a heatsink.

View attachment 767208 970Pro in the 7101A.
View attachment 767209

Whilst the 7101a usually costs $400, a qty can be found at enthusiast pricing on Amazon for $275.

It’s clear the HighPoint 7101a brings a new level of PCIe NVMe / AHCI Sata Express performance to the 4,1/5,1 that’s unattainable with any other controller.

I was able to tear down the Amfeltec Squid 2.0x4 this morning, removing 3 SM951's and their heatsinks that are setup in a software raid. Moving them across to the 7101A, some interesting results came to light:

Addressing a single SSD at a time, the Highpoint 7101A is MUCH FASTER than the Amfeltec Squid. Allowing near PCIe 3.0 speeds from our aging mac pro.

Using a Software RAID 0 setup for the Amfeltec Squid, the Highpoint 7101A is about 25% SLOWER than the Squid. Perhaps I need to reformat the array with a different block size.


Let's start with BlackMagic Speed Test:

Highpoint 7101A 3xSM951
View attachment 767333
Highpoint 7101A 2xSM951 ** FASTER THAN 3X SM951 in 7101A**
View attachment 767369
Amfeltec Squid - 3xSM951
View attachment 767336

Amorphous Disk Mark (FREE - GO GET THIS ONE)

Highpoint 7101A 3xSM951
View attachment 767337
Highpoint 7101A 2xSM951
View attachment 767371
Amfeltec Squid - 3xSM951
View attachment 767340
QuickBench is another great test to show bandwith. Lets look first at 4k - 1m tests:

Highpoint 7101A 3x SM951
View attachment 767343
Highpoint 7101A 2x SM951

Amfeltec Squid - 3xSM951
View attachment 767344

Lets look at some larger file transfers.

Highpoint 7101A 3xSM951

Amfeltec Squid - 3xSM951

I recently installed the HighPoint SSD7101A-1 v. 3.10 controller on my MacPro 5.1, with 2 Samsung 970 EVOPlus 1TB.
As soon as installed I immediately ran a test with Disk Speed Test and got the expected speed (2500-2900 Mb/s; see attached image).
Then I installed the driver (for Mojave and Catalina), following the guide on the HighPoint website, but strangely the performance is much worse: in fact with the driver installed the speed is much decreased (2300-2500 Mb/s; see attached image).
Can someone give me some explanation or suggestion to avoid this problem?
Thanks in advance!

 

[DigitaLife]

For my card, HighPoint SSD7101A-1 V1.01, it's the same screw as the cover, just a tad little smaller in height, with the exactly same diameter and thread count.

Took me a while to identify what were the heatsink cover screws and the stand-off ones. The four smaller ones are for the stand-offs.

Hi, after installed the last driver of HighPoint SSD7101A-1 (using OC 0.6.5), the NVMe disks are seen (icons) as external disks.
I tried also to install Innie but without success.
Also, strangely, the performance of NVMe SSDs is much worse: in fact with the driver installed the speed is much decreased (2300-2500 Mb/s instead 2500-2900 Mb/s).
Any suggestions to fix these issues?
Many thanks in advance!

 

[Reefwalker]

Hi, after installed the last driver of HighPoint SSD7101A-1 (using OC 0.6.5), the NVMe disks are seen (icons) as external disks.
I tried also to install Innie but without success.
Also, strangely, the performance of NVMe SSDs is much worse: in fact with the driver installed the speed is much decreased (2300-2500 Mb/s instead 2500-2900 Mb/s).
Any suggestions to fix these issues?
Many thanks in advance!

You don’t need to run Innie if you’re using OC. Follow the instructions in PART II Advanced Configuration under Making External Drives Internal. FWIW, I’m getting read/write speeds in the 4500 MB/s range without the Highpoint WW using Apple SoftRAID RAID 0 with 3 Sabrent Rocket 2TB drives. I tested the HP software first and found it to be slower as well, not to mention creating another dependency to track.

 

[DEH]

"Introduction

Stumbling into an Amazon warehouse Deal, I picked up the HighPoint 7101a NVMe PCIe adapter, equipped with a MacPro friendly Broadcom 8747 PCIe bridge at a great price. While Highpoint's acknowledgement of MacPro compatibility was sketchy at best, I ordered one to go along with a recently acquired Samsung 970 Pro NVMe Boot drive."

I recently installed the HighPoint SSD7101A-1 v. 3.10 controller on my MacPro 5.1, with 2 Samsung 970 EVOPlus 1TB.
As soon as installed I immediately ran a test with Disk Speed Test and got the expected speed (2500-2900 Mb/s; see attached image).
Then I installed the driver (for Mojave and Catalina), following the guide on the HighPoint website, but strangely the performance is much worse: in fact with the driver installed the speed is much decreased (2300-2500 Mb/s; see attached image).
Can someone give me some explanation or suggestion to avoid this problem?
Thanks in advance!View attachment 1722197

Interestingly enough I also picked up a HighPoint 7101A-1 from Amazon 2-3 weeks ago. I just got it installed and working on a 5.1, 2010 MacPro. The machine has a Sapphire Radeon Nitro+ RX 590 8GB video card. My HighPoint looks a bit different from yours. (Older, newer??) In any event I have included pictures, speeds and how to squeeze it into the case.
Hopefully someone will find it interesting or at least amusing.

HighPoint SSD7101A-1 2x1TB x 970 EVO Plus in RAID0 (Got HighPoint used from Amazon)
4 lanes slot 3

HighPoint SSD7101A-1 2x1TB x 970 EVO Plus in RAID0
I suspect I lose a little speed caused by the extender cable
16 lanes slot 2

Setup includes a 5cm shielded PCI-E extender cable.
The HighPoint SSD7101A-1 has the PCI card slot, end cover removed so it will fit.

3 standoffs were used on the Sapphire 590 Nitro card, the case is plastic.
This card is about 2.25 slots wide

The card in slot 3 is a USB-3 card. The HighPoint card will set almost on top of it.

HighPoint is installed and a red plastic divider is installed to protect against shorts with the USB-3 card.
The HighPoint case is aluminum.

Air space for the video card fans is provided by the standoffs.

Picture as installed. About half of one fan on the video card is completely open. The HighPoint card just fits and pretty much sits over the USB-3 card.

As an aside, I have an ArcRAID 4 port card (ARC-1214-4I) in slot #1 using 4 lanes.
I tested 16 lanes and it is not much faster with 16.
Using two Samsung 860 EVO 500GB in RAID0 config for System
and
two Samsung 860 EVO 1TB in RAID0 config for user disk.
I get the following speed for the raided SSDs.
This is "probably" the saturation speed of the SATA bus.

This is a fun machine I have been upgrading off and on for years.
It has 2 x 2.93 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon processors that I added awhile back.

So far everything is working. The HighPoint card is rather stable do to the lack of space and the red plastic shim helps hold the card down.

I hope you find the post interesting or at least amusing.

regards

 

[TheSwissMatrix]

Hello community
First of all, I think it's great that there is such a great and helpful forum here. However, I have some problems with my HighPoint SSD7101A-1 version 3.1.
The card only runs with a link bandwidth of x4 instead of x16 (see picture). Do I need to do a PRAM reset here or is this due to my Radeon Pro WX9100 staying in slot 1?
Then the fan on the HighPoint is running at full blast and I think version 3.1 should be pretty current and yes it's a 3 pin fan and yes I read the post about the firmware update which can only be done via HighPoint.
It would be great if someone could help me.

ceers

 

[tsialex]

Hello community
First of all, I think it's great that there is such a great and helpful forum here. However, I have some problems with my HighPoint SSD7101A-1 version 3.1.
The card only runs with a link bandwidth of x4 instead of x16 (see picture). Do I need to do a PRAM reset here or is this due to my Radeon Pro WX9100 staying in slot 1?
Then the fan on the HighPoint is running at full blast and I think version 3.1 should be pretty current and yes it's a 3 pin fan and yes I read the post about the firmware update which can only be done via HighPoint.
It would be great if someone could help me.

ceers

You are looking at the downstream link from the PCIe switch to each M.2 device, x4, and it's correct. M.2 connector is a miniaturised x4 PCIe slot.

Before you ask, System Information don't show the upstream link to the PCIe switch, you have to use pcietools to see it.

 

[TheSwissMatrix]

You are looking at the downstream link from the PCIe switch to each M.2 device, x4, and it's correct. M.2 connector is a miniaturised x4 PCIe slot.

Before you ask, System Information don't show the upstream link to the PCIe switch, you have to use pcietools to see it.

Hey tsialex

Thanks for your quick reply. I just checked and yes the card runs with x16..
So far everything is good, only the fan noise makes me crazy...
Where can I see the bios version of the card?

ceers

 

[tsialex]

Hey tsialex

Thanks for your quick reply. I just checked and yes the card runs with x16..
So far everything is good, only the fan noise makes me crazy...
Where can I see the bios version of the card?

ceers

You can see the firmware version of the card using the HighPoint web management.

 

[TheSwissMatrix]

You can see the firmware version of the card using the HighPoint web management.

Unfortunately I can't find any information about the Bios version (see pictures)...

 

[tsialex]

Unfortunately I can't find any information about the Bios version (see pictures)...

I remember seeing the firmware version at the end of the page, but could be one of the other HPT cards. I'll take a look at my card later. Anyway, it's a moot point to see it, since for this model of High Point card is not field upgradeable, i.e. the firmware can be only upgraded by HighPoint technicians on it's lab and you only know of firmware upgrades when HPT leaks the info in the changelogs.

Why you want to know the firmware version, specifically? There is no BIOS here, btw.

 

[TheSwissMatrix]

I remember seeing the firmware version at the end of the page, but could be one of the other HPT cards. I'll take a look at my card later. Anyway, it's a moot point to see it, since for this model of High Point card is not field upgradeable, i.e. the firmware can be only upgraded by HighPoint technicians on it's lab and you only know of firmware upgrades when HPT leaks the info in the changelogs.

Why you want to know the firmware version, specifically? There is no BIOS here, btw.

Thanks for your reply...
I want to know the firmware version because I have to specify it in a support ticket at HighPoint....
And I can not find it, so I ask....

 

[tsialex]

Thanks for your reply...
I want to know the firmware version because I have to specify it in a support ticket at HighPoint....
And I can not find it, so I ask....

Firmware version or PCB version?

 

[YosemiteSam]

I just installed a HighPoint SSD 7104 (just like a 7101A-1, but fanless and has a large heatsink on the entire card) in my MP 5,1 on 10.13 HS. I had to add one Scotch/3M rubber "bumper"/riser on the top of my Sapphire Pulse RX 580, much like @DEH did a few posts earlier. I did not, however, modify the HighPoint in any way- I even left the endplate/cover on the card. One single bumper/riser right where DEH put his middle one was juuuuuust enough for me to manually turn both fans of the RX 580 with my finger- I didn't feel any resistance (the fans clearly wouldn't turn properly with no bumper in place). I'll be monitoring in the coming days/weeks to see if there are any GPU or HighPoint (or other) issues, but hopefully that one bumper was enough to allow everything to operate fully. I have a full-length Sonnet Tempo SSD Pro Plus in slot 3 above the HighPoint, so the HighPoint is pretty much pushed right up against it. But I think that'll be OK because it's all heatsink (no fans trying to spin anywhere in either card).

ANYWAY...

What seems to be the consensus about installing HighPoint software? Should I install it? I've read conflicting info thus far. I am NOT currently operating my NVMe blades in a RAID, nor do I intend to RAID any time soon. Should I still be installing the HighPoint driver or the RAID management software? Or just leaving it as-is (hardware-only install; no software)? Aside from RAID control, would there be any other benefit to installing the HighPoint software?

 

[CNDCodewarrior]

I just installed a HighPoint SSD 7104 (just like a 7101A-1, but fanless and has a large heatsink on the entire card) in my MP 5,1 on 10.3 HS. I had to add one Scotch/3M rubber "bumper"/riser on the top of my Sapphire Pulse RX 580, much like @DEH did a few posts earlier. I did not, however, modify the HighPoint in any way- I even left the endplate/cover on the card. One single bumper/riser right where DEH put his middle one was juuuuuust enough for me to manually turn both fans of the RX 580 with my finger- I didn't feel any resistance (the fans clearly wouldn't turn properly with no bumper in place). I'll be monitoring in the coming days/weeks to see if there are any GPU or HighPoint (or other) issues, but hopefully that one bumper was enough to allow everything to operate fully. I have a full-length Sonnet Tempo SSD Pro Plus in slot 3 above the HighPoint, so the HighPoint is pretty much pushed right up against it. But I think that'll be OK because it's all heatsink (no fans trying to spin anywhere in either card).

ANYWAY...

What seems to be the consensus about installing HighPoint software? Should I install it? I've read conflicting info thus far. I am NOT currently operating my NVMe blades in a RAID, nor do I intend to RAID any time soon. Should I still be installing the HighPoint driver or the RAID management software? Or just leaving it as-is (hardware-only install; no software)? Aside from RAID control, would there be any other benefit to installing the HighPoint software?

Installing the drivers will let you get to the interface for the card where you can set things like temp alerts etc. So if that's important to you then I would say yeah install the drivers, if you leave the blades alone and don't raid them or use apple software raid then you are good for if and when an OS update might break the drivers.

So as with a lot of computer things and life in general, what every floats yer boat.

 

[juaganmu]

On the last weeks I've had extremely slow red/write speeds on the two blades installed in my HighPoint SSD7101A-1 (Samsung 970 Pro 512 GB), until then I had normal values. I use one as the boot drive and the other as scratch disk fo fcpx. Free space on boot drive is 67 GB and on the other one 159 GB.

The card is installed on Slot 2 on a Mac Pro 2009 10.14.6 Mojave and on Slot 1 I have RX 580 Pulse. Do you think is a problem with de blades or should I see something else on the HP?

Disk 1 (boot disk)

Disk 2: Scratch disk

 

[TeaZy]

I’m trying to get a 7101A to work on 11.4 using open core. It’s a hack on Asus x299 10G. Upgrading to big sur broken driver support.

Does anyone have older versions of the big sur drivers?

 

[ekwipt]

What’s the best Samsung M2 cards to put in these 1Tb and 2TB?

Has anyone installed these into a PCIe chassis and ran it via Thunderbolt on a M1 Mac and what speeds could I get/theoretically achieve?

 

[ekwipt]

A better external PCIe box than the Highpoint?

Highpoint RocketStor 6661A Thunderbolt 3 to PCIe 3.0 X16 Expansion Chassis

Ultra-compact & portable Thunderbolt 3 PCIe expansion chassis - transform your notebook into a compact media workstation! the RocketStor 6661A allows you to quickly add any PCIe X4, X8 or X16 card to your Thunderbolt 3 capable computing platform; such as media capture, Ethernet, fiber channel, or...

www.amazon.com.au

 

[Socket]

I don't understand the difference between the Highpoint 7101A and the Highpoint Rocket R1104, could you help me please? https://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series-r1000-fan-less-overview.html

 

[quadra605]

I'm guessing Covid has a lot to to with the current prices of the HP7101A -- is there any pricing out there better than the $399 USD on Amazon?

 

[G10]

I'm guessing Covid has a lot to to with the current prices of the HP7101A -- is there any pricing out there better than the $399 USD on Amazon?

if you're still looking amazon warehouse has 2 for sale at 235

 

[bl0ckdevice]

Hey guys, do you know if this card can boot Big Sur/Monterrey on CMP 5.1 with Opencore MartinLo's package ?

 

[feinberj]

Hey guys, do you know if this card can boot Big Sur/Monterrey on CMP 5.1 with Opencore MartinLo's package ?

I am booting Monterey 12.1 with OpenCore 0.7.6 and a Samsung 970pro NVMe mounted in a HighPoint 7101a. OpenCore is installed on a SATA SSD in bay 2. Works great!