Mac Pro adding USB 3.0 without PCiE

[steve997]

Hi guys,
I have a 5,1 Mac Pro.
All my PCiE slots are full (GPU, miniSAS/RAID card, Blackmagic Video, 10GigE). I also want to have USB3.0.

Short of buying a CUBIX expander can anyone offer any way to put a USB3 input on the box (possibly by using one of the SATA slots for disk drives via adaptor to USB3)?

Cheers

 

[Draeconis]

USB 3 would only be via a PCIe card. I'm not sure what the SATA to USB3 idea is about, even if something like that did exist, you'd be limited to SATA-II speeds, which are slower than USB2!

 

[ActionableMango]

If you are using wired Ethernet (not wi-fi), then you could pull your Wi-Fi card out and you'd have a mini-PCIe slot free.

There are USB 3.0 cards in mini-PCIe format. You'd then need a cord to run from the internal usb header on the card to an external USB port outside of the case.

Actually the first challenge would be finding a mini-PCIe card with a chipset that has OS X drivers. The three most common USB 3.0 chipsets I see out there with OS X drivers are Fresco Logic, NEC, and ASMedia. If you are only running Windows, then that wouldn't be a problem.

I seem to remember someone doing this before, but I am unable to find the thread, so maybe not.

even if something like that did exist, you'd be limited to SATA-II speeds, which are slower than USB2!

That sounds way off to me. In my experience, hard drives connected directly to the SATA ports are significantly faster than if I pull them out and connect that very same drive via USB 2.0. Looking up the specs, SATA-II is much, much faster than USB2.

 

[Draeconis]

That sounds way off to me. In my experience, hard drives connected directly to the SATA ports are significantly faster than if I pull them out and connect that very same drive via USB 2.0. Looking up the specs, SATA-II is much, much faster than USB2.

Ignore me, I'm getting Mb and MB mixed up.

Even so, SATA and USB are totally different connections, you can't just slap a USB header on a SATA connector, that doesn't make any sense.

 

[goMac]

SATA-II - 300Mb/s (Source)
USB2.0 - 480Mb/s (Source)

SATA2 is 300 megabytes a second
USB2 is 480 megabits a second

Converted...
SATA2 is 2400 megabits a second
USB2 is 480 megabits a second

"Second-generation SATA interfaces run with a native transfer rate of 3.0 Gbit/s that, when accounted for the 8b/10b encoding scheme, equals to the maximum uncoded transfer rate of 2.4 Gbit/s (300 MB/s)."

 

[merlinmage]

USB 2.0 is 480mbit, not MB/s.

 

[ActionableMango]

Short of buying a CUBIX expander can anyone offer any way to put a USB3 input on the box (possibly by using one of the SATA slots for disk drives via adaptor to USB3)?

I found the post I was mentioning earlier. This guy got USB 3.0 working over the mini-PCIe slot.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-3-0-on-mac-pro.1501482/page-35#post-19011744

I don't know why he used a miniPCIe->ExpressCard->USB3 setup instead of just a USB3 card directly in the miniPCIe slot.

 

[haralds]

Hi guys,
I have a 5,1 Mac Pro.
All my PCiE slots are full (GPU, miniSAS/RAID card, Blackmagic Video, 10GigE). I also want to have USB3.0.

Short of buying a CUBIX expander can anyone offer any way to put a USB3 input on the box (possibly by using one of the SATA slots for disk drives via adaptor to USB3)?

Cheers

Wouldn't it be simplest to replace one of the eSATA cards with one that does both eSATA and USB 3? I have two of these: http://www.caldigit.com/Fasta-6GU3pro/

 

[666sheep]

I found the post I was mentioning earlier. This guy got USB 3.0 working over the mini-PCIe slot.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-3-0-on-mac-pro.1501482/page-35#post-19011744

I don't know why he used a miniPCIe->ExpressCard->USB3 setup instead of just a USB3 card directly in the miniPCIe slot.

Most likely because all mPCIe USB cards are on a Nec chipset which isn't reliable and usually requires 3rd party drivers.