Kingston HyperX Predator on Mac Pro 5.1

[mavericks7913]

Much much faster than any SATA3 SSD!

I bought Samsung 850 Pro but it wasn't that fast which was around 250mb/s. So I refunded today and then got Kingston HyperX Predator 240gb.

After I installed it, I feel the speed. Although 240gb was slower than 500gb version, it is still faster than my Macbook Pro. I could buy Samsung 950 Pro version in future.

Anyway, if you want more speed, get PCIE M.2 SSD.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Real world difference for normal usage is next to zero. Learn how bandwidth is utilised by different sized files and how queue depths work.

 

[h9826790]

Much much faster than any SATA3 SSD!

I bought Samsung 850 Pro but it wasn't that fast which was around 250mb/s. So I refunded today and then got Kingston HyperX Predator 240gb.

After I installed it, I feel the speed. Although 240gb was slower than 500gb version, it is still faster than my Macbook Pro. I could buy Samsung 950 Pro version in future.

Anyway, if you want more speed, get PCIE M.2 SSD.

It's good to hear that, may I know how much faster in real world? e.g.

Boot time m.2 15s vs 850 pro 25s

Or

Apps loading m.2 2s vs 850 pro 5s

Or

Video editing m.2 smooth vs 850 Pro shuttering

So far, I know copying / unzipping large file's performance shows significant improvement by using PCIe SSD (vs SATA SSD). I want to know more real world application of the PCIe SSD, therefore we can give out better suggestions to the others.

Since you said it's much faster, so, may I know how can you feel that? (Again, I mean from which operation / application in real world, not benchmark)

 

[Draeconis]

I could buy Samsung 950 Pro version in future.

You can buy it. It won't work, since it's NVMe, but you can buy it.

If you're after M.2, your best option is a Samsung SM951 AHCI variant. They're slower than their NVMe counterparts, but still run faster than PCIe-2 can manage.

I have the 128Gb AHCI SM951, which tops out at 1.5Gbps read, ~700Mbps write. Unfortunately apparently these aren't produced any more, so the price may well go up.

 

[Draeconis]

It's good to hear that, may I know how much faster in real world?

I guess it depends on what you're doing.

An SM951 certainly boots Windows 10 faster than an SSD connected to the SATA-II controller. OS X booting was around the same as an SSD connected to a SATA-III PCIe adapter, so no real difference there.

Logging in is slightly quicker, some basic file system tasks are more responsive, but not all that much.

Doing some tasks are notably faster though. Provisioning storage for a VM is amazingly fast. File compression/decompression as you mention. But games don't really load much faster or slower, so don't expect that.

It's a mixed bag. What's nice is having the fastest drive available for this machine (faster than the XP941 the Late 2013 Mac Pro still ships with!), though we're stuck with AHCI models. Has anyone tried an NVMe M.2 drive with Windows though? That would be interesting..

 

[h9826790]

I guess it depends on what you're doing.

An SM951 certainly boots Windows 10 faster than an SSD connected to the SATA-II controller. OS X booting was around the same as an SSD connected to a SATA-III PCIe adapter, so no real difference there.

Logging in is slightly quicker, some basic file system tasks are more responsive, but not all that much.

Doing some tasks are notably faster though. Provisioning storage for a VM is amazingly fast. File compression/decompression as you mention. But games don't really load much faster or slower, so don't expect that.

It's a mixed bag. What's nice is having the fastest drive available for this machine (faster than the XP941 the Late 2013 Mac Pro still ships with!), though we're stuck with AHCI models. Has anyone tried an NVMe M.2 drive with Windows though? That would be interesting..

Thanks for your sharing.

It's interesting to know that Windows can boot faster on a PCIe SSD. Because only very few people actually report here about successfully boot Windows from the PCIe SSD. So, my mindset still stuck at "how to boot Windows from PCIe SSD", but not "will it boot faster?"

And TBH, I don't know the technical stuff behind a VM. But it seems the VM itself is actually a single large file. If that's correct, then I can see it can benefit a lot from the PCIe SSD (AFAIK, handling a single large file is the strongest area of the PCIe SSD).

I think use the NVMe in Windows as storage / scratch disk only (not the boot drive) should be OK. It's a bit like we can't boot via a USB 3.0 port but can use it without issue once boot to desktop.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

I have seen reports of Windows booting on a PCIE SSD but never saw any evidence of it.

On my Skylake PC Windows 10 boot time is 7 seconds on a 850 Evo with fast boot enabled. It doesn't get faster than that unless you try to load an older smaller OS.

 

[Draeconis]

Thanks for your sharing.

It's interesting to know that Windows can boot faster on a PCIe SSD. Because only very few people actually report here about successfully boot Windows from the PCIe SSD. So, my mindset still stuck at "how to boot Windows from PCIe SSD", but not "will it boot faster?"

And TBH, I don't know the technical stuff behind a VM. But it seems the VM itself is actually a single large file. If that's correct, then I can see it can benefit a lot from the PCIe SSD (AFAIK, handling a single large file is the strongest area of the PCIe SSD).

I think use the NVMe in Windows as storage / scratch disk only (not the boot drive) should be OK. It's a bit like we can't boot via a USB 3.0 port but can use it without issue once boot to desktop.

It certainly does work, but it wasn't easy to work out how to get it there. Some people seem to be able to install to it when booted into the Windows EFI installer. However, I can't. It demands a driver, despite it being driven by a generic Windows driver when running. If the SM951 is formatted, it will even let me browse the drive to look for a driver.. to get it to work?! Nuts.

I had to install Windows on it initially on a spare desktop I have. Ironically, though my spare machine can see it under the Windows installer, the BIOS doesn't see the SM951 as a boot device, so the setup never completed past the initial install. Once I realised this, I moved the SM951 and the install DVD back to my Mac, and astonishingly the installation carried on!

You're absolutely correct, the VM is basically one giant file. It's obviously a little more involved than that, but it's very impressive seeing this tiny stick write that fast. Especially in a machine from 2010

I know that there was that generic NVMe driver someone wrote for OS X, but it stopped working. But since Windows doesn't have that limitation, I wonder what would prevent Windows using the Mac Pro from using it. May well be hampered by firmware on the logic board not seeing it at POST I guess.

 

[ActionableMango]

How can random read speed be noticeably improved? Or are we already in the ballpark with a SATA 2 SSD and there isn't much that can be done about it?

I almost went the m.2 AHCI route but @SoyCapitanSoyCapitan saved me money and time with his frequent posts about how it doesn't really improve that particular metric (or most metrics really).

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

How can random read speed be noticeably improved? Or are we already in the ballpark with a SATA 2 SSD and there isn't much that can be done about it?

I almost went the m.2 AHCI route but @SoyCapitanSoyCapitan saved me money and time with his frequent posts about how it doesn't really improve that particular metric (or most metrics really).

Basically these drives are so fast, the IOPs so high, and latency so low that in order to see the difference in real world day to day usage all our software would have to be rewritten. That will happen in the future because software follows hardware (and vice versa).

But I think quite soon, in about 5-7 years, storage speed will match memory speed. At that point we can have a unified storage+memory system and we will never need to boot or wait for app launching. Everything will instantly be there when we open it. All our OS and apps will need to be rebuilt to take advantage of that. We are still running archaic kernels.

 

[zedsdeadbaby]

Hi All,

Brand new here... Anyway I've been looking at buying one of these and using it as a boot drive for my Mac Pro 5,1.

Basically the gist is this... I'm kind of a noob in terms of PCIe SSDs. Currently I have an Accelsior e2 I've ben using. For some weird reason it shows up in system info as "rotational" and trim can't be enabled on it... OWC firmware didn't resolve it... And after moving to 10.11 and enabling trimforce it still shows up as rotational but all other SSDs have TRIM enabled. Dunno what the scoop is there but OWC didn't have a solution.

Anyway I'm basically looking to replace that with this and wondering about two things which I'm assuming should work out fine...

A: If TRIM should enable fine on this thing.

B: These are x4 (and here's where my noobiness becomes apparent...) OS X does not see these as RAID 0 is this correct? (My concern being to be able to run first aid and boot into recovery if needed...)

Sorry these are probably fairly obvious questions, just want to avoid any headaches before buying one...

 

[h9826790]

Currently I have an Accelsior e2 I've ben using. For some weird reason it shows up in system info as "rotational" and trim can't be enabled on it... OWC firmware didn't resolve it...

Accelsior e2 does not support TRIM, it doesn't even support SMART, of course you can't enable it.

 

[zedsdeadbaby]

Ok, well I did not realize that. Again, I'm new and still learning about PCIe SSDs.

So can trim be enabled on the Predator?

 

[h9826790]

Ok, well I did not realize that. Again, I'm new and still learning about PCIe SSDs.

So can trim be enabled on the Predator?

Yes, apart from OWC SSD, I don't know any other porpular current generation consumer level SSD that doesn't support TRIM.

 

[zedsdeadbaby]

Thanks, I appreciate it.

 

[cdf]

I have the HyperX Predator in my Mac Pro. It boots MacOS and Windows 10 just fine. By default it shows up in MacOS as an external hard drive without trim. Trim can be enabled using the "trimforce" command, but the SSD is still seen as external. However, it's possible to create a codeless kext that both makes the SSD be seen as internal and enables trim.

 

[zedsdeadbaby]

Thanks cdf. I just bought one, looking forward to seeing how it performs... As long as 'trimforce' works on the drive I'm not concerned about it showing up as internal that much... If I did decide I wanted to create the kext is there a link explaining how, and is there any upside to the machine seeing it as internal?

As far as the Accelsior, that's interesting, and odd. I'll be the first to admit I'm fairly in the dark about the what it implies on a technical level other than being able to verify that garbage collection is working properly from time to time.. (Having to use TrimEnabler previously I found TRIM was disabled a few times and had to be re-enabled... I'm assuming trimforce eliminates that issue.)
Anyway, it does seem like a potentially bad thing assuming however the Accelsior handles garbage collection eventually failed. Do you see this deisgn as a downside or having no real impact on its performance?

The added e-sata ports were convenient for cloning drives quickly, other than that I won't miss it once I replace it with a faster PCIe drive...

 

[pastrychef]

I remember seeing info that led me to believe that the OWC Accelsior was nothing more than two SATA SSDs running in a RAID config. That's probably why you can't enable TRIM and why it looks like a mechanical drive.

 

[666sheep]

I remember seeing info that led me to believe that the OWC Accelsior was nothing more than two SATA SSDs running in a RAID config. That's probably why you can't enable TRIM and why it looks like a mechanical drive.

Exactly. When RAID is set up on chip (unlike OS X software one) TRIM won't work. Accelsior is a kind of RoC card with all its downsides and it's non-user configurable. And it uses proprietary blades. Another example of OWC craptastic design.

 

[zedsdeadbaby]

Thanks guys! That confirms my opinions about them Overpriced crap, and money I wish I spent elsewhere at the time... live and learn!

 

[pastrychef]

Overpriced crap

That about sums it up...

 

[cdf]

As long as 'trimforce' works on the drive I'm not concerned about it showing up as internal that much... If I did decide I wanted to create the kext is there a link explaining how, and is there any upside to the machine seeing it as internal?

The "trimforce" command will work. I have used it. If the drive is seen as external, it might be possible to accidentally eject it, although I haven't tried this. Other than that, I think that having the drive as being seen as internal is more of a cosmetic thing.

My sources for creating the kext were the following:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/18703027/
https://www.idelta.info/archives/how-os-x-open-the-gate-for-trim-on-3rd-party-ssd

The kext only contains a plist (see the examples in the first link above). This plist includes the boolean "Force Data Set Management = YES", which enables trim (see the description in the second link). It also includes an entry for the SSD's controller (Marvell 88SS9293), and under this property, a string "IONameMatch = X", where X is the name (which starts with "pci") of the SSD that shows up in the PCI section of System Profiler (this was the key to getting it to work!).

If there is interest, I could post the plist.

 

[jonashoechst]

Hey cdf,

i just got my HyperX Predator today, and would totally appreciate if you'd share the kext with me.
I also followed your hints, but my PCI section of system-profiler shows an error when collecting the data. I don't yet know which error comes in place there, but i'll further investigate.

best regards, jonashoechst

 

[h9826790]

Hey cdf,

i just got my HyperX Predator today, and would totally appreciate if you'd share the kext with me.
I also followed your hints, but my PCI section of system-profiler shows an error when collecting the data. I don't yet know which error comes in place there, but i'll further investigate.

best regards, jonashoechst

Do you have a PC GPU in there?

 

[cdf]

To install the kext, SIP needs to be disabled (it can be reenabled afterwards). Then, appropriate permissions need to be assigned to the file. The following links explain how to do this:

http://osxdaily.com/2015/10/05/disable-rootless-system-integrity-protection-mac-os-x
http://osxdaily.com/2012/01/12/how-to-manually-install-kernel-extensions-in-mac-os-x

Unfortunately, OS updates sometimes disable the kext, and the steps above need to be repeated to continue using it.