PCIE M.2 NVMe on MacPro

[mrkapqa]

maybe with this Samsung 950 Pro it would be possible to run NVME drive in AHCI Mode on cMacPro?

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/nvme-drive-booting-in-ahci-mode-solved.2500796/

 

[MIKX]

mrkapqa

Download Samsung Magician .. run it in Windows .. it will tell you whether AHCI mode is available or not.

 

[pr33tz]

I’m thinking of buying a cMP (2012 dual processor model) and would like to know if there is a preferred PCI card for using with an nvme SSD?

I’ve seen DT-120 Lycom being mentioned but are there others are better/recommended? I’d like to be able to boot from it if that makes a difference.

 

[Pandanl]

I’m thinking of buying a cMP (2012 dual processor model) and would like to know if there is a preferred PCI card for using with an nvme SSD?

I’ve seen DT-120 Lycom being mentioned but are there others are better/recommended? I’d like to be able to boot from it if that makes a difference.

Most PCI card adapter will do, however gettin one with a heatsink is a big plus. A m.2 can get hot and starts throttling if temps get to high.

I got this one, which has passive cooling blocks on both sides with a Samsung 960 Evo. However if you want to boot from it, you need to inject the NVMe dxe into the bootrom.

 

[TinyWorkshop]

I’m thinking of buying a cMP (2012 dual processor model) and would like to know if there is a preferred PCI card for using with an nvme SSD?

I’ve seen DT-120 Lycom being mentioned but are there others are better/recommended? I’d like to be able to boot from it if that makes a difference.

better go for a 2009, much cheaper and you can upgrade it to the same level of a 2012 (the two machines are nearly identical an you can upgade the firmware from 4.1 to 5.1)

for the PCIE card go for an Angelbird
https://www.angelbird.com/prod/wings-px1-1117/?category=1

it will run super cooler

 

[Earl Urley]

Angelbird wants $23 for S+H, bringing its total cost to $80 or so, LOL.

Right now I just use Lycom DT-120s ($20 or so on Amazon) and use Macs Fan Control to turn up the PCI slot fan to stay at a certain temperature.

Also I have mini-heat sinks with thermal pads and I just identify what chip is the hottest with an infrared temperature gun, usually the voltage regulator, and stick the heat sink on that and I'm good. The RAM itself hardly gets warm enough (IMHO, YMMV) to warrant heat sinks but go for it if you have spares.

There's also the HighPoint 7101A but you might LOL even louder at a price point of $400 or so for it, but it will give you the fastest access to your SSD, provided you put it in one of the x16 slots.

 

[tsialex]

Angelbird wants $23 for S+H, bringing its total cost to $80 or so, LOL.

Right now I just use Lycom DT-120s ($20 or so on Amazon) and use Macs Fan Control to turn up the PCI slot fan to stay at a certain temperature.

Also I have mini-heat sinks with thermal pads and I just identify what chip is the hottest with an infrared temperature gun, usually the voltage regulator, and stick the heat sink on that and I'm good. The RAM itself hardly gets warm enough (IMHO, YMMV) to warrant heat sinks but go for it if you have spares.

There's also the HighPoint 7101A but you might LOL even louder at a price point of $400 or so for it, but it will give you the fastest access to your SSD, provided you put it in one of the x16 slots.

Bought Angelbird Wings PX1 on Adorama eBay store, no shipping, $59.90.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Angelbird-...1977903154?epid=691190907&hash=item5b43b42432

 

[Squuiid]

+1 for Angelbird Wings PX1, definitely the way to go. Especially necessary for the SM951 which runs pretty hot. I use a single heatsink on the SSD controller of each XP941 though. That's sufficient I find.

As for Apple's SSUAX and SSUBX, these are the best I think:
2013-2014 MacBook Pro +Air SSD to PCI-e 4X adapter

 

[Earl Urley]

That's great, then, thanks for letting us know! Watch 'em all sell out..

 

[Squuiid]

That's great, then, thanks for letting us know! Watch 'em all sell out..

4 available / 4 sold

 

[crjackson2134]

+1 for Angelbird Wings PX1, definitely the way to go. Especially necessary for the SM951 which runs pretty hot. I use a single heatsink on the SSD controller of each XP941 though. That's sufficient I find.

As for Apple's SSUAX and SSUBX, these are the best I think:
2013-2014 MacBook Pro +Air SSD to PCI-e 4X adapter

I have that one, and a nearly new 512GB SSUBX. Transfer rates in that pic posted in the adds are really slow, obviously not an SSUBX.

I need to sell this thing and get another 970 Pro to replace it.

I'm starting to hate my SATA 2.5" bay mounted SSD's.

It's freaking slow as molasses once you get used to NVMe. I'm booting Mojave on one, and don't even like to boot to it because of the difference.

 

[campodoro74]

I’ve seen a number of TWO BLADE PCIe adapters and I trust exactly ZERO of them in my slots. I relented and ordered the 7101A. Looking for Friday’s arrival. The 970 Pro 512 arrived yesterday.

I have a cheap NVMe + SATA dual PCI adapter from Amazon and it works just fine. Connected the SATA port from the PCIe adapter to MB to get the SATA SSD drive to work and patched the firmware to boot from the other NVMe SSD. All good.

Did try to install Mojave beta but it wanted to update the firmware; not sure if I can patch it again afterwards.

Did you 7101A arrive ? Doesn't it need PCI bifurcation to work?

 

[crjackson2134]

Did you 7101A arrive ? Doesn't it need PCI bifurcation to work?

Yes, I installed it a couple of days after that post. It's extraordinarily fast. 3200+ GB/s.

It uses a new PCIe 3 PLX switch that connects at 8 GT/s

 

[MarkC426]

Apologies, I havn’t read all these threads.
Is there not a point where there is a bottleneck in the system even if the ssd is blazing fast read/write (saw a post about 5700mb speed)?

Just pondering on an update......currently have Sonnet tempo with one ssd, was going to add another in raid, to increase to 700mb

Don’t know much about all these nvme etc....

Edit: the other question is do I really need that much speed (for writing animation render frames)?

 

[MarkC426]

Anyone have any advice on this, is the extra 200mb/s worth it, or would you not notice any difference unless you where working with 4k+ video files or similar?

 

[handheldgames]

Anyone have any advice on this, is the extra 200mb/s worth it, or would you not notice any difference unless you where working with 4k+ video files or similar?

Going from a traditional SATA SSD to a PCIe ssd, most workflows benefit from the additional speed. Considering the constant I/O, Video editing workflows should see a nice speed increase.

While the boost in performance is optional, many Mac Pro enthusiasts have made the jump PCIe SSD’s.

With that said, I’ve had the original PCIe 2.0 Amfeltec Squid that can deliver up to 5900 MB/s with 4 ssd’s maxed out at 1500mb/sec each. It’s novel 2 sided design allowed the card to fit in half height applications, although it crowded adjacent cards, thwarting proper ssd cooling.

I’ve moved on to the PCIe 3.0 Highpoint SSD7101-a, a four slot m.2 adapter that unlocks PCIe 3.0 SSD performance for the cMP, doubling the performance of a single NVMe SSD to more than 3000 MB/sec. Two 970pros in the Highpoint setup can easily match 4 in the original Amfeltec Squid.

While there will be Naysayers, a fast SSD with the right controller can easily transform your Mac Pro’s SSD performance matching or even beating what the iMac Pro can deliver.

 

[MIKX]

I would never go back to SATA II as my High Sierra boot drive, in fact there are now no SATA II drives inside my 4,1>5,1 cMP. I have been booting 10.13.6 from a Samsung 960 EVO M.2 formatted to HFS+ for about three months now.
Gilles & Dosdude2 ( and others ) have given us something that Apple in their wisdom saw fit to deny us.

The fact that 5,1 cMP's can install Hi Sierra & Mojave seems to say that some Apple engineers also too love the cMP and .. they appear to have been listening to our bug reports.

The Highpoint 7101A while still being expensive is definitely the way to go. I WILL be getting one. I still recall paying AU$ 1,000 for ONE megabyte of RAM for my Amiga A4000T !

My current PCIe M.2 adapter yields 1389mb/s write & 1,480mb/s read . . that is way better then SATA II 100mb.sec any day and double the speed of the Sonnet Tempo. The only bottleneck I can see is having to transfer data from SATA II drives to PCIe AHCI/NVme M.2 drives.

EDIT : ( forgot to insert "M.2' )
PCIe M.2 to PCIe M.2 SSD's is the way to go.

Who knows . . we may soon be able to fully use USB 3.0 sooner then we thought.

In my current cMP setup ( see my sig ) I no longer think of my 4,1 as a 9 year old PC. It feels good for another 9 years


My next purchase will be a late model 5,1 cMP

 

[crjackson2134]

I've got several SSD's of every variety in my system. After moving to the High Point SSD7101-A, I loath to even boot into an SATA SSD.

No comparison regardless of what the naysayers tell you. My 4 expansion bays are now slots located on the NVMe RAID carrier.

 

[tsialex]

My next purchase will be a late model 5,1 cMP

No need to buy a new one. It's just some bytes changed in the firmware

Send me your dump, I'll upgrade it to the mid-2012 standard (Base_21).

 

[MIKX]

No need to buy a new one. It's just some bytes changed in the firmware

Send me your dump, I'll upgrade it to the mid-2012 standard (Base_21).

Thank you, Yes, I will.

RE : Buying a 5,1 as next purchase : Two cMP's are better than ONE. . . plus I'll use the 4,1>5,1 to experiment with Mojave & 10.15.x. Also, I very much like the fact that the 5,1 doesn't use de-lidded CPU's

 

[handheldgames]

Thank you, Yes, I will.

RE : Buying a 5,1 as next purchase : Two cMP's are better than ONE. . . plus I'll use the 4,1>5,1 to experiment with Mojave & 10.15.x. Also, I very much like the fact that the 5,1 doesn't use de-lidded CPU's

Regarding the standard cpu sockets in the 5,1 dual tray, it makes it too easy to swap off the shelf CPU's. Which is a GOOD thing.

... My 4 expansion bays are now slots located on the NVMe RAID carrier.

That's the best analogy yet.

 

[matthewpomar]

I’ve moved on to the PCIe 3.0 Highpoint SSD7101-a, a four slot m.2 adapter that unlocks PCIe 3.0 SSD performance for the cMP, doubling the performance of a single NVMe SSD to more than 3000 MB/sec. Two 970pros in the Highpoint setup can easily match 4 in the original Amfeltec Squid.

Hi, are you saying that by using the Highpoint SSD7101-a one can get full, non-throttled performance from a modern NVMe SSD (e.g. 3,500MB/s vs 1,400MB/s) from each individual SSD?

Since the Mac Pro's hardware is limited to PCIe 2.0, the absolute maximum GB/s for each of 4 SSD is 2GB/s (x16 @ PCIe 2.0 is 8GB/s).

Thanks.

 

[handheldgames]

Hi, are you saying that by using the Highpoint SSD7101-a one can get full, non-throttled performance from a modern NVMe SSD (e.g. 3,500MB/s vs 1,400MB/s) from each individual SSD?

Since the Mac Pro's hardware is limited to PCIe 2.0, the absolute maximum GB/s for each of 4 SSD is 2GB/s (x16 @ PCIe 2.0 is 8GB/s).

Thanks.

Yes. Modern PCIe 3.0 M.2 NVMe SSD's, like the 970 pro, operate at close to full PCIe 3.0 speeds with the Highpoint ssd7101-a in a 4,1 or 5,1.

Roughly... x8 PCIe 2.0 = x4 PCIe 3.0

 

[matthewpomar]

Yes. Modern PCIe 3.0 M.2 NVMe SSD's, like the 970 pro, operate at close to full PCIe 3.0 speeds with the Highpoint ssd7101-a in a 4,1 or 5,1.

Roughly... x8 PCIe 2.0 = x4 PCIe 3.0

Thanks for the prompt reply. So if there are two NVMe SSDs in the card, do they operate at x8 PCIe 2.0? If there are four NVMe SSDs in the card, then each surely only get x4 PCIe 2.0 since there's only 16 lanes to begin with, right?

Also, if you don't mind, is this card best installed in PCIe slot 2?

 

[tsialex]

Thanks for the prompt reply. So if there are two NVMe SSDs in the card, do they operate at x8 PCIe 2.0? If there are four NVMe SSDs in the card, then each surely only get x4 PCIe 2.0 since there's only 16 lanes to begin with, right?

Also, if you don't mind, is this card best installed in PCIe slot 2?

The PLX switch manages that, you only see throughput decrease if you use ALL 4 blades at the same time.