MP All Models Mac Pro 2013 - Internal HD upgrade questions

[iamsoniq]

Hello All,

I have been using this machine for a while and am looking to get internal HD upgrade. What is the best aftermarket drive I can purchase.

I am a music producer and am looking to make sure there is a good amount of local HD space for logic to access things. 256 is running low as I have FCP/Premiere/etc installed.

Arpit

 

[MikkelAD]

Hello All,

I have been using this machine for a while and am looking to get internal HD upgrade. What is the best aftermarket drive I can purchase.

I am a music producer and am looking to make sure there is a good amount of local HD space for logic to access things. 256 is running low as I have FCP/Premiere/etc installed.

Arpit

In terms of internal possibilities you can go for ordinary NVMe and maybe install a heatsink yourself. You will need one of those small adapters to get around Apple's proprietary connection though(there is other threads about this)
There is also a board from 'Amfeltec' which can carry 2 NVMe drives(there is a dedicated thread to that product) and the original SSD. That way capacity and speed are possible. As far as I remember the RAID 0 option didn't give anymore speed.

The last option is to buy a faster generation SSD taken from newer Apple products. The Mac Pro 6,1 was originally equipped with a SSUAX model and the next generation is called SSUBX. This option may be the best solution for most since this gives you capacity (eg. 1 TB) and the "maximal" speed of around 1500 MB/s at a reasonable price. These drives can be bought with and without heatsink as well...

 

[MisterAndrew]

Take a look at this thread for some compatible SSDs.

PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI

This is a general info thread for blade SSDs that can be used in the Mac Pro. This is a WikiPost so anyone with the proper credentials may edit it. NVMe SSDs can be used as a boot drive in the MP5,1 and MP6,1 with the latest firmware installed (beginning with version 140.0.0.0.0 for MP5,1 and...

forums.macrumors.com

If you are only going up to 1 TB then I suggest to get an SSUBX pulled from a newer 6,1. There are usually quite a few on eBay. If you want 2 TB or more then I suggest going for a 3rd party NVMe SSD with an adapter. There is also a 2 TB Apple SSD that came in 2017 iMacs you can install called SSPOLARIS that doesn't require an adapter, but it's very expensive. OWC also makes some replacement SSDs that don't require an adapter, but I don't know how good they are. I put a 2 TB Toshiba XG5-P SSD in one of mine. It works well. I converted it to the 4Kn format under Linux using the NVMe-CLI app for best compatibility. I added instructions on how to do that in the first post of that thread.

 

[iamsoniq]

Thanks all!