MP 5,1 mid 2010 hard drive bay questions

[pidcin1]

Hello!

Can someone explain to me, since I’m not too tech savvy about the hard drive bays.

Currently I have a 8TB configuration with regular 7200rpm 2TB drives, and it’s used for regular storage , however I’m planning on upgrading my mid 2010 5,1 ,12 core 2.93ghz Mac Pro to have a dedicated and super fast boot drive 256gb, and a super fast 500gb scratch drive

BUT I was thinking to upgrade and to use the hard drive bays to install my apps, such as pro tools , cinema 4D and the adobe suite . Would it be wise to get FOUR fast SSDs ( example : samsung EVO series) and configure them in raid 0 to have a dedicated drive for my apps?

Would this configuration with a dedicated drive for boot, dedicated scratch and a dedicated drive for apps be the most optimal?
And to simply use a sonnet 4x USB3 Pro PCIe card for connecting mass storage ?

Any thoughts , advice , recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

 

[tsialex]

Hello!

Can someone explain to me, since I’m not too tech savvy about the hard drive bays.

Currently I have a 8TB configuration with regular 7200rpm 2TB drives, and it’s used for regular storage , however I’m planning on upgrading my mid 2010 5,1 ,12 core 2.93ghz Mac Pro to have a dedicated and super fast boot drive 256gb, and a super fast 500gb scratch drive

BUT I was thinking to upgrade and to use the hard drive bays to install my apps, such as pro tools , cinema 4D and the adobe suite . Would it be wise to get FOUR fast SSDs ( example : samsung EVO series) and configure them in raid 0 to have a dedicated drive for my apps?

Would this configuration with a dedicated drive for boot, dedicated scratch and a dedicated drive for apps be the most optimal?
And to simply use a sonnet 4x USB3 Pro PCIe card for connecting mass storage ?

Any thoughts , advice , recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Since APFS still don't have RAID support, you can't install 10.13 with RAID and APFS, only with HFS+. With Mojave you can't install your boot disk with HFS+, so no RAID.

You can still use RAID with HFS+ for your data and scratch disks, but no more for boot disks.

Start to look at NVMe PCIe drives and a PCIe adaptor with switch, like HighPoint SSD7101-A.

 

[pidcin1]

Since APFS still don't have RAID support, you can't install 10.13 with RAID and APFS, only with HFS+. With Mojave you can't install your boot disk with HFS+, so no RAID.

You can still use RAID with HFS+ for your data and scratch disks, but no more for boot disks.

Start to look at NVMe PCIe drives and a PCIe adaptor with switch, like HighPoint SSD7101-A.

Hey thanks for the response , won’t lie but a lot of these terms went way over my head. I will have lots of fun looking them up!

My plan is to get a

http://amfeltec.com/products/pci-express-carrier-board-for-m-2-ssd-modules/

And adding four SM951 to them for booting .

And another amfeltec and adding 970 NVMe m.2s for a scratch drive.

But as for the hard drive bay, is it possible to add a bunch of high speed SSDs and raid them?

I will only be using High Sierra , I’m not concerned or interested in Mojave . I’m not sure if that will change anything but would greatly appreciate some advice , thanks again

 

[mcnallym]

The connectors for those Bays are 3Gbps as SATA2 connectors. I believe some people have put in a 4 Port SATA3 Card and modded the caddies so can connect the Data Part to a cable going off to the SATA3 Card rather then the built into the Motherboard.

If what tsialex said went over your head then this probably not for you.

I don't believe will see the benefit of RAIDing modern SSD's with the SATA2 connectors.

 

[tsialex]

Hey thanks for the response , won’t lie but a lot of these terms went way over my head. I will have lots of fun looking them up!

My plan is to get a

http://amfeltec.com/products/pci-express-carrier-board-for-m-2-ssd-modules/

And adding four SM951 to them for booting .

And another amfeltec and adding 970 NVMe m.2s for a scratch drive.

But as for the hard drive bay, is it possible to add a bunch of high speed SSDs and raid them?

I will only be using High Sierra , I’m not concerned or interested in Mojave . I’m not sure if that will change anything but would greatly appreciate some advice , thanks again

Forget all this, you are making your choices based on old obsolete info. With the price of one SM951-AHCI you can almost buy a double sized 970PRO that have double throughout.

You can make a RAID array with the SATA ports, HFS+ one.

Mac Pro has native NVMe support now. You can use NVMe drives for boot. Amfeltec Squid is not the appropriate card for a Mac Pro, look into High Point SSD7101A.

You need to think about Mojave indirectly, since support for everything now on is based on what Apple removed support with 10.14 release.

 

[pidcin1]

Forget all this, you are making your choices based on old obsolete info. With the price of one SM951-AHCI you can almost buy a double sized 970PRO that have double throughout.

You can make a RAID array with the SATA ports, HFS+ one.

Mac Pro has native NVMe support now. You can use NVMe drives for boot. Amfeltec Squid is not the appropriate card for a Mac Pro, look into High Point SSD7101A.

You need to think about Mojave indirectly, since support for everything now on is based on what Apple removed support with 10.14 release.

Respects, I got my homework set forth.
I only thought I could get bootable drives from that AHCI sm951.

This is good info, thanks a lot!

 

[tsialex]

Respects, I got my homework set forth.
I only thought I could get bootable drives from that AHCI sm951.

This is good info, thanks a lot!

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-140-0-0-0-0-has-native-nvme-support.2132317/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/highpoint-7101a-pcie-3-0-ssd-performance-for-the-cmp.2124253/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/blade-ssds-nvme-ahci.2146725/

 

[pidcin1]

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-140-0-0-0-0-has-native-nvme-support.2132317/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/highpoint-7101a-pcie-3-0-ssd-performance-for-the-cmp.2124253/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/blade-ssds-nvme-ahci.2146725/

Hey I’ve been reading around and stumbled on someone saying that I can only use the 7101A with Mojave? Is that true ? Is it possible to have one of these and four 970s in a raid 0 configuration in this 7101A and use it as either a boot drive or a scratch drive in El Capitan or high Sierra ? Or is this only for Mojave’s ? Also do you know where I can find a definitive guide on installing high Sierra ? I’m having a heck of a time trying to install to high Sierra from El Capitan .

 

[tsialex]

Hey I’ve been reading around and stumbled on someone saying that I can only use the 7101A with Mojave? Is that true ?

False.

Is it possible to have one of these and four 970s in a raid 0 configuration in this 7101A and use it as either a boot drive or a scratch drive in El Capitan or high Sierra ? Or is this only for Mojave’s ?

Works perfectly with High Sierra.

Also do you know where I can find a definitive guide on installing high Sierra ? I’m having a heck of a time trying to install to high Sierra from El Capitan .

Read my guide to install Mojave, everything about firmware up to MP51.0089.B00 is exactly the same for High Sierra.

BTW, you need 140.0.0.0.0 to boot from NVMe. 140.0.0.0.0 works perfectly with 10.13.6, it's my work config.

MP5,1: What you have to do to upgrade to Mojave