MP 1,1-5,1 MacPro 5.1 & high capacity hard drives

[kohlson]

but is your Seagate Enterprise drive one of those in the "Exos"

Nope. It's an earlier model. I'll try and update this post with the exact model when I am back at my cMP. I should mention that the prime factor in any drive I buy is price. When purchasing this enterprise drive my first filter was how little I could pay for a 4TB/7200/256MB drive. It was $80 last November. If I was in charge of a data center I would approach drive purchasing much more rigorously. But buying singles for a 10-year old cMP - I am less choosy. I should say in the dozen or so drives I've purchased over the last 10 years, I had a couple of Seagate around the same period that went bad. Seagate replaced them under warranty, albeit with return units. I think these may have been "enterprise," too. Really, I expect all drives to last about the same amount of time, and sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. But I do expect drives with superior specs (speed, cache size) to perform better. Reliability seems to be a crap shoot.

I've always found the spec on the mfg'r data sheet. Sound levels get tricky, because of things like ambient noise and frequencies. Currently they're building a house on the other side of our fence, so sound levels really don't matter.

 

[macstatic]

Yes, price is an important factor.
I'm trying to think ahead and believe stretching my budget to accomodate for 10TB might be a better long-term investment. I need a main storage drive and two backup drives (these can be slower/cheaper) and these two models appear to be the best choices so far:

Toshiba MG06ACA10TE (10 TB, 7200 RPM, 256 MB cache, 2.5 million MTBF, 34 dB typical idle noise level, max sustained speed 237 MB/s)

Seagate Exos X10 ST10000NM0016 (10 TB, 7200 RPM, 256 MB cache, 2.5 million MTBF, 2.8-30 bels idle noise level (link), max speed 249 MB/s)

I believe they're both "Enterprise" SATA drives and their specs/prices are very similar, but the Seagate Exos is a little faster, and if dB and Bels are related to each other in tenths the Seagate Exos is also quieter). Does this sound right? For some reason the acoustic levels weren't included in its usual specifications sheet, but digging deeper I found another document (linked above) which says 2.8-3 Bels. It's helium-filled, though I don't know if this is a good or bad thing.
I believe they both use the "new" 6-screw mounting scheme, but failing to get a new OWC drive mount I could always place it in the lower part of the 5.25" optical drive bay (along with a 2.5" SSD), connecting it to my SATA-II PCIe card.

Plutionius appears to be happy with his Toshiba (exact same model as above) while ZombiePhysicist recommends the Seagate Exos (but refers to the 16 TB version).
Apart from the 6-screw mounting scheme (which I believe is something which goes for all large (greater than 8 TB?) drives) I haven't heard of any issues when used with the cMP, or special "tricks"
needed (taping one of the pins to eliminate the power disable feature.

Between a quieter drive with a little performance loss and a slightly faster but also noisier drive I would choose the quietest one.
I'm also considering getting an NVMe PCIe SSD as a "temporary work drive" for performance critical applications (music, video), then transfer the completed files over to the HDD afterwards, so super-performance from the HDD isn't that important if it means I can get a quieter work environment.

 

[kohlson]

dB and Bels are related to each other

I believe 1 Bel = 10 decibels. The Latin Thing. So the Seagate is spec'd to be 4-6 decibels quieter.

I believe in an internal cMP HDD bay, you won't see any difference in performance between these drives. Actual performance varies depending on what's being copied.

Also, if specs are to be believed, Toshiba is rating their transfer speed in MB, or megabytes. Seagate is rating their drives in MiB, or mebibytes. Not the same. But perhaps a sloppy use of language.

 

[macstatic]

I should probably just order the Seagate Exos X10 for now then, and see how suitable it is for a main drive. I'll need two backup drives anyway, so if the noise is unacceptable I can always use it as a backup drive. I don't know if the transfer speed ratings are correctly using the terms or not, but maybe the difference isn't that much anyway as you said above.

You mentioned using the internal cMP HDD bays: would I get better performance there than connecting it to a PCIe SATA-2 card? I'm just a little hesitant in ordering OWC replacement drive trays until OWC have looked into the issue properly, given the fact that a couple of people here have complained about them not being drilled to spec and thereby not fitting inside the cMP as the old ones do.

 

[kohlson]

would I get better performance there than connecting it to a PCIe SATA-2 card

Perhaps a SATA3 card? Yes, a PCIe SATA3 card connected to a SATA3 drive will provide better performance than if the drive is connected to a SATA2 port. Whether that performance is noticeable to your workflow depends, but it will probably be noticeable.

IIRC, many people here have purchased OWC sleds and been quite happy with them. Worst case if they don't fit is get it exchanged.

 

[macstatic]

When you wrote:

I believe in an internal cMP HDD bay

.... I thought you meant that performance would be better than in the optical bay, but maybe you meant to say it's just more practical with the HDD bays/trays. Related to that, isn't there a speed limitation with the SATA connector for the lower optical drive bay (intended for a 2nd optical drive)? I thought I read about that somewhere.
I was thinking it's a temporary option if I can't mount it in one of the HDD trays right now.

Yes, a SATA-3 PCIe card would be a better solution if I run out of drive bays. I see there are several such cards on eBay (even bootable) for a very low cost -does anyone know if those "no brand name" are worth getting and work properly in a cMP 5,1?

Good to hear about those HDD trays from OWC. Maybe they had a bad batch.
Exchanging is nice if you live in the US, but from overseas the shipping costs/import duties will likely not make it worth it, so getting it right the first time is preferred.

 

[jscipione]

I should probably just order the Seagate Exos X10 for now then, and see how suitable it is for a main drive. I'll need two backup drives anyway, so if the noise is unacceptable I can always use it as a backup drive. I don't know if the transfer speed ratings are correctly using the terms or not, but maybe the difference isn't that much anyway as you said above.

So you’re willing to spend $250+ on a HDD but not $25 for an OWC bracket? Just buy the bracket, I got a couple on sale a while back and they work great, only missing the numbers.

You mentioned using the internal cMP HDD bays: would I get better performance there than connecting it to a PCIe SATA-2 card? I'm just a little hesitant in ordering OWC replacement drive trays until OWC have looked into the issue properly, given the fact that a couple of people here have complained about them not being drilled to spec and thereby not fitting inside the cMP as the old ones do.

You won’t get better performance out of a spinning rust HDD by connecting to a SATA-2 or even 3 card because the drive will never reach the SATA-2 300MB/s limit anyway. The hard drive bays and optical drive bays are all the same SATA-2 speed. You could jerry-rig the drive to connect to a SATA-2 PCIe card but there isn’t much point to it. Put the drive in a spare optical drive bay or pay the OWC bracket toll.

 

[macstatic]

So you’re willing to spend $250+ on a HDD but not $25 for an OWC bracket? Just buy the bracket, I got a couple on sale a while back and they work great, only missing the numbers.

It does sound quite silly when you put it that way
No, I'm going for replacement brackets (or drill new holes for my existing trays if that's doable) but I just want to get brackets that work the first time around. Did you find your trays fitting inside the computer without pressing against the side-lid? I believe that was what a couple of people complained about earlier here, and the picture in posting #172 does show that they're not made to precision. But like I said, I hope that was only a bad batch and that they've improved upon them.

You won’t get better performance out of a spinning rust HDD by connecting to a SATA-2 or even 3 card because the drive will never reach the SATA-2 300MB/s limit anyway.

Ah. Good to know.
So SATA-3 PCIe cards only come in handy if you attach 2.5" SATA SSDs to them? Do you have any experience on how fast they can run in comparison with SATA-2 PCIe cards/SATA-2 internal HDD drive bays?

The hard drive bays and optical drive bays are all the same SATA-2 speed. You could jerry-rig the drive to connect to a SATA-2 PCIe card but there isn’t much point to it. Put the drive in a spare optical drive bay or pay the OWC bracket toll.

I'm going to have a look inside the computer to see how I attached my two SSDs and what I can do about re-arranging my drives. To have two internal backup drives (one Time Machine, another one with a bootable clone backup) is likely not the best idea in case of theft, fire etc. Now that I've purchased a USB 3.1 PCIe card I'll be looking at an external removable drive solution for that bootable clone backup and other external backups.

Until I get the new drive brackets I want to start using the new 10 TB drive so it appears the optical bay is the best solution for this, then move it over to a regular drive bay later.
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the optical bay SATA connectors were of much lower speed than those 4 HDD bays, but maybe this information was wrong or it referred to an older cMP than the 5,1.
I already have a Sharkoon 5.25" mounting frame which will take 1x 3.5" HDD and 2x 2.5" SSDs, so mounting should be a breeze.

 

[jscipione]

It does sound quite silly when you put it that way
No, I'm going for replacement brackets (or drill new holes for my existing trays if that's doable) but I just want to get brackets that work the first time around. Did you find your trays fitting inside the computer without pressing against the side-lid? I believe that was what a couple of people complained about earlier here, and the picture in posting #172 does show that they're not made to precision. But like I said, I hope that was only a bad batch and that they've improved upon them.

2 & 4 are standard brackets, 1 & 3 are owc brackets. They all fit about the same.

So SATA-3 PCIe cards only come in handy if you attach 2.5" SATA SSDs to them? Do you have any experience on how fast they can run in comparison with SATA-2 PCIe cards/SATA-2 internal HDD drive bays?

I don’t have any regular SSDs to test but my experience is that the best way to connect a SSD, SATA or NVME is over PCIe. You can even achieve higher than SATA-3 600MB/s this way sometimes. The 4x PCIe SSD adapters are pricey though and the 1x ones are only good for 2.5” hard drives (200MB/s.)

I'm going to have a look inside the computer to see how I attached my two SSDs and what I can do about re-arranging my drives. To have two internal backup drives (one Time Machine, another one with a bootable clone backup) is likely not the best idea in case of theft, fire etc. Now that I've purchased a USB 3.1 PCIe card I'll be looking at an external removable drive solution for that bootable clone backup and other external backups.

I prefer everything in the box but my Time Machine backup is external over USB2. If you need more room for SSDs the drive bays are an ok option.

Until I get the new drive brackets I want to start using the new 10 TB drive so it appears the optical bay is the best solution for this, then move it over to a regular drive bay later.
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the optical bay SATA connectors were of much lower speed than those 4 HDD bays, but maybe this information was wrong or it referred to an older cMP than the 5,1.
I already have a Sharkoon 5.25" mounting frame which will take 1x 3.5" HDD and 2x 2.5" SSDs, so mounting should be a breeze.

The 1,1-3,1 Mac Pro had PATA optical drives and the 3,1 has some additional SATA ports on the board you can plug into but you don’t have to deal with that on the 4,1 or 5,1. You only have two SATA connectors in the optical bay so you’ll have to run an extra SATA cable or two and a sata power splitter. It might be easier to mount the HDD in the optical bay and the SATA SSDs in the drive bays for now.

 

[macstatic]

The OWC brackets look good (at least from that angle).
Is it easy to close the side door or do they bulge out, pushing into that door?

I don’t have any regular SSDs to test but my experience is that the best way to connect a SSD, SATA or NVME is over PCIe. You can even achieve higher than SATA-3 600MB/s this way sometimes. The 4x PCIe SSD adapters are pricey though and the 1x ones are only good for 2.5” hard drives (200MB/s.)

Which 4x PCIe SSD adapters are you referring to? These are the ones that take 2.5" SSDs as well, right?
I was recommended an AquaComputer KryoM.2 NVMe PCIe card which appears to be a fast, low cost solution (depending on the SSD size of course). I believe they're not bootable unless you upgrade the cMP boot-ROM which (as far as I know) can't be done unless you install a new "Metal compatible" graphic card along with Mojave (if even temporarily).

The 1,1-3,1 Mac Pro had PATA optical drives and the 3,1 has some additional SATA ports on the board you can plug into but you don’t have to deal with that on the 4,1 or 5,1. You only have two SATA connectors in the optical bay so you’ll have to run an extra SATA cable or two and a sata power splitter. It might be easier to mount the HDD in the optical bay and the SATA SSDs in the drive bays for now.

Must have confused it with the 3,1.

I opened up the computer today to check what I have to order along with the new HDD and see that I had already done what you suggested. A SATA power splitter connected to the lower optical bay, and a new SATA cable from the "lower" SATA socket on the backplane PCB. In addition I had installed another SATA cable from the PCIe SATA card, underneath the power supply (and the backplane PCB I think), but alas it's too short.
It was too much of a hassle to remove for now (I even unmounted the power supply but I also have to remove one of the PCBs which it goes underneath (the backplane PCB I think) but believe it's roughly 50cm long, so I've ordered a couple of 70cm SATA cables to replace it (attaches to the SATA PCIe card's two internal ports).
This means I can have up to 3 SATA storage devices in the lower optical drive bay! (provided I split the power cable again with yet another Y adapter)
I already had an Orico 5.25" to 3.5" adapter bracket (which can take two 2.5" drives), but now I've replaced it with a Sharkoon 5.25" BayExtension bracket which can take a combination of a 3.5" drive and two 2.5" drives. Or four 2.5" drives.

So for now I can attach the new 10TB HDD on top (with two screws as the bracket doesn't have the "new" screw hole scheme; but it doesn't really matter as it won't be upside down as with the Mac Pro drive trays, and the bracket also has rubber shock mounts alongside those screw holes -I've tried it with an old HDD I had laying around (with the standard 4x screws though).
And underneath I have a single 2.5" SSD.

Provided I get those longer SATA cables installed I should have a nice working solution

 

[jscipione]

The OWC brackets look good (at least from that angle).
Is it easy to close the side door or do they bulge out, pushing into that door?

It is easy to close the side door, no bulging.

Which 4x PCIe SSD adapters are you referring to? These are the ones that take 2.5" SSDs as well, right?
I was recommended an AquaComputer KryoM.2 NVMe PCIe card which appears to be a fast, low cost solution (depending on the SSD size of course). I believe they're not bootable unless you upgrade the cMP boot-ROM which (as far as I know) can't be done unless you install a new "Metal compatible" graphic card along with Mojave (if even temporarily).

OWC Accelsior S is a x4 adapter that can take a regular SSD. It’s $45 though. You can get a x4 NVMe adapter for ~$10.

OWC Accelsior S Storage Expansion With a Speed Boost

Accelsior S is the simple solution to add a high speed SATA 6G drive to silver Mac Pro towers otherwise restricted to 3G architecture.

eshop.macsales.com

 

[macstatic]

An update: I purchased 3 of the new style drive trays from OWC Europe (costing me quite a bit though: around EUR 94/US$ 106 with shipping/import duties), but at least I don't have to worry about the drives falling off
They were indeed a little "off" lengthwise compared to the original Apple trays, but I haven't experienced any "bulging" towards the computer's side panel. I've so far only mounted two new trays, but hope I won't experience the problems others have had in this thread.

Regarding the drive I decided to dig really deep into my pockets and do an upgrade that would last, so I bought a Seagate Exos X10 10 TB/7200 RPM/256 MB (ST10000NM0016) which is an "enterprise" type drive filled with helium (!). Apparently that should improve on performance, I don't know, but price and featurewise it appeared to be a good buy compared to others. It plugged in and worked right out of the box, and with the new trays the new style screw layout was no problem.

I'm currently awaiting a second drive (for Time Machine backups): a Toshiba 12 TB/7200 RPM/256 MB enterprise drive (MG07ACA12TE) and hope it'll work out of the box as well. That should give me enough storage space for a while!

UPDATE 2: I received the mentioned Toshiba 12TB drive yesterday and that too worked without any issues whatsoever (once I put it in a "new style" OWC drive tray because of the different mounting screw arrangement -which I believe is now standard among larger HDDs). Just plug it in, format it and off you go!
It's now been busy backing up my entire machine overnight and hasn't reported any issues.

 

[mrt209]

Does anyone use WD Golds in their mac pro? Do they run hot? What about noise?

Trying to decide between the Red Pros and WD Golds as they are almost equal in price.

Thanks

 

[s.m.t.]

does anyone who has had a drive disappear from OS X after a warm reboot, use Time Machine for backups?

I have found that if OS X doesn't see the drive, when it does show up again and Time Machine does a backup, it triggers a full backup of that disk. Being large in capacity, this greatly reduces my backup window...

I am wondering if there is some identifier that is changing when it shows up again, that I can force and prevent this behavior...

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

does anyone who has had a drive disappear from OS X after a warm reboot, use Time Machine for backups?

I have found that if OS X doesn't see the drive, when it does show up again and Time Machine does a backup, it triggers a full backup of that disk. Being large in capacity, this greatly reduces my backup window...

I am wondering if there is some identifier that is changing when it shows up again, that I can force and prevent this behavior...

the key to time machine success is making sure the very first backup is successful and uninterrupted. I would set the machine so it can’t sleep to make sure that first backup completes successfully.

 

[s.m.t.]

the key to time machine success is making sure the very first backup is successful and uninterrupted. I would set the machine so it can’t sleep to make sure that first backup completes successfully.

In this case that is not the issue... I have had a months worth of backups and do a warm reboot (forgetting about the drive). When the machine boots back up and the drive is missing, I simply shut it down and do a cold boot. The very next backup is a very large one since the drive in question has 5TB of used capacity. It wouldn't bother me, except that in order to backup what it essentially sees as 5TB of new data, it has to delete older backups.

This always happens after the drive disappears from he OS. It is as if TM sees the drive as brand new. None of the data even changes, since it occurs in the span of a reboot. The data on this drive is not active content...

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

In this case that is not the issue... I have had a months worth of backups and do a warm reboot (forgetting about the drive). When the machine boots back up and the drive is missing, I simply shut it down and do a cold boot. The very next backup is a very large one since the drive in question has 5TB of used capacity. It wouldn't bother me, except that in order to backup what it essentially sees as 5TB of new data, it has to delete older backups.

This always happens after the drive disappears from he OS. It is as if TM sees the drive as brand new. None of the data even changes, since it occurs in the span of a reboot. The data on this drive is not active content...

so sorry to hear. Weird, it should just resume backups regardless of the type of reboots. Wishing you luck on running down the issue.

 

[flygbuss]

Did someone test the WD Ultrastar 8TB DC HC320? Looks like the mounting points fit the original drive tray.

 

[zachek]

This always happens after the drive disappears from he OS. It is as if TM sees the drive as brand new. None of the data even changes, since it occurs in the span of a reboot. The data on this drive is not active content...

What happens if you cancel the backup, remove the drive from being designated as TM backup drive (from within time machine system preference) and add it again?

 

[zachek]

The way I see it we’re lucky to have a company that offers drive trays with the new hole pattern, you should buy them while they’re still available because they won’t be forever.

Dumb question, but why can't you just drill out the old sled to accommodate the two new holes?

edit: nevermind. looking at it now, I see it would need an extra length screw and possibly some nylon washers. still seems a bit ridiculous to pay those prices for drive sleds when you could modify the ones you have easily enough. When I wanted to stuff two 3.5 drives in the ODD, I did opt to buy an OWC sled, but that was different because I had nothing on hand that would fit in that space without vibrating.

 

[zachek]

Yes, I agree the price is a bit steep for some pieces of metal.

If you think that's steep, wait'll you get a load of these northbridge heatsink rivet replacement retainer springs...

 

[zachek]

So far I have tried the following drives in my 5,1:

WD Ultrastar DC HC530 14TB 7200 512MB WUH721414ALE604 (in lower ODD bay) x2 different drives
WD Ultrastar DC HC530 14TB 7200 512MB WUH721414ALE6L4 (in upper ODD bay) x2 different drives
HGST Ultrastar 0F23102 4TB 7200 128MB HUS726040ALA614 (in SATA bays 1-4) x4 drives

The two types of WD drives spin up on cold boot just fine. I know that the WUH721414ALE6L4 works fine on cold and warm boot. I have actually had to return both models of the WD drives once so I've tested four total WD drives, 2 of each model but I neglected to test warm boot with the first WUH721414ALE604 I installed. I will test the second one shortly.

The HGST drives in the regular SATA bays on the other hand are a different story. I have them in an AppleRAID 1+0 and they all disappear on warm boot. They also show as "RAID Member diskNs#:Offline" under "Internal" drives in Disk Utility and under "External" the two AppleRAID 1 sets show as External RAID Member (Missing) and "not mounted". They seem to work fine otherwise.

I tried taping pin 3 before realizing that wasn't exactly prescribed for those with drives only exhibiting the warm boot disappearance issue. It did not work.

I'm curious for those that have used Mountain and gotten it to work, did it play nice with Jettison? I am using Jettison currently to avoid "disk not ejected properly" error notifications for USB 3.1 drives attached to my Inateck KT4004 card. Hoping my soon to be upgraded GCTR + powered thunderbolt dock fixes that issue, but if not, I'll continue using Jettison.

 

[h9826790]

Anyone tried this work around yet?

Newer HDDs won't mount after restart in M… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

 

[153957]

Does anyone use WD Golds in their mac pro? Do they run hot? What about noise?

Trying to decide between the Red Pros and WD Golds as they are almost equal in price.

I've just ordered some WD Gold 18TB drives, I will report back once they arrive and I've had a chance to test them.

 

[flygbuss]

Did someone test the WD Ultrastar 8TB DC HC320? Looks like the mounting points fit the original drive tray.

View attachment 938343

Just wanted to confirm that the 8TB version does fit in the original cMP Tray.