MP 1,1-5,1 Mac Pro 5,1 loses SSD on restart

[MDangerous]

I have a friend with an MP 5,1 running 10.8.5(because he needs to use Pro Tools 10). He recently bought and installed a Samsung 2TB 870 EVO SSD to replace the spinning drive in the MP. He cloned the HDD to the SSD using SuperDuper. The MP boot fines from a cold start. However, whenever the MP is asked to restart it displays the circle with a line through it. This is with the SSD in one of the 4 drive bays. He has also tried to repair the SSD with Disk Utility by booting into the HDD and then running repair on the SSD. This does not fix the restart issue.

I then installed his SSD onto an Apricorn Velocity Solo from my old MP. The restart trouble was resolved.

My question is why would the 5,1 have issues restarting with the SSD in the drive bays. How can I fix this issue other then putting the drive onto a PCI-e SSD adapter like the Velocity Solo?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Macschrauber]

are you sure that's an 870 evo?

know this behaviour on QVO SSDs what dont survice warm boot.

 

[Juicy Box]

I have seen a lot of firmware related stuff on older Macs when using SSDs. This could be an easy fix by installing newer OS versions, which will automatically update the firmware if it is needed.

If your friend as the OEM HDD, I suggest backing up the boot drive (not required, but general good practice), partition the OEM drive with at least 20GB of space and install High Sierra on it. This should install the latest firmware.

But, check the firmware version to make sure it is current for that Mac.

Retry the SSD.

Also, make sure the SSD is selected as the start up disk in system preferences.

If you are still having issues, try doing a fresh install on the SSD and migrate the data instead of cloning.

 

[Juicy Box]

According to this website, the firmware version for the Mac Pro 5,1 after getting the 10.13.6 update is "0089 B00".

 

[Juicy Box]

Also, don't forget to enable TRIM via terminal if you have not already.

It is super easy and is basically copy and paste. Open Terminal and type or paste the following then press enter:

sudo trimforce enable

You can check to make sure that TRIM is enabled by Apple Symbol > About This Mac > System Report > Hardware > SATA/SATA Express > Your SSD > TRIM Support.

 

[Juicy Box]

If your friend as the OEM HDD, I suggest backing up the boot drive (not required, but general good practice), partition the OEM drive with at least 20GB of space and install High Sierra on it. This should install the latest firmware.

One more thing, your friend can delete this partition if they want when they are done. This is just to update the firmware. Once the firmware is updated, you do not need to keep High Sierra on the Mac.

 

[mackcat]

I have a Mac Pro 5,1 (well, it's a 4,1 that was flashed to 5,1 firmware, but it's a 5,1 in practice). I installed a 250GB 870 EVO SSD in it with High Sierra, and it seemed like at least every few boot-ups (if not every other), it would load very slowly and eventually display the circle with a line through it. I solved it by purchasing the SATA 3 OWC Accelsior S PCIe card ($38) and installing the drive in that. It seems to me that there is some kind of incompatibility between the stock SATA 2 slots and the SATA 3 SSD, even though they should work together, in theory.

I feel it prudent to mention that the drive is seen as external when connected to the PCIe card, and as such cannot be used with Boot Camp.

 

[cabbageevo]

I have a Mac Pro 5,1 with a 1TB Samsung 850 evo SSD which has worked fine for 2 years. I recently installed a 4TB Samsung 870 evo SSD which has similar problems that people describe above.

When I start up the computer the SSD mounts correctly. However, if I restart the computer the 870evo always disappears and cannot be mounted or seen from disk utility app. Very odd. The only way to get the 870evo back is to shutdown, wait a second, then start the computer with the on/off button again.
(Luckily I boot up from the 850evo so the computer never hangs at start up if do try a restart, but my 4TB 970 disappears which is where Im storing most of my data).

Does anyone have any ideas why this happens???

 

[MarkC426]

There are known issues with 870 and/or qvo drives.
Best to avoid them.

Caution! Troubles with 870 evo drives on cMP 5,1 !

My experience is yes they will work for storage only duty. I ran an 860 QVO in the early days before I knew better. Used it for storage only. Never had any issues with it. I sold the QVO when I sold my 5,1 cMP. Would I do it today❓ Nope 👎 Lou

forums.macrumors.com

 

[KeesMacPro]

deleted.