PCIE M.2 NVMe on MacPro

[tsialex]

more like double the price

Don't use NVMe drives with adapters without heatsink, you will cook the blade easily. The first time Spotlight indexes your drive, you will have thermal throttling. NVMe drives are hot and need thermal management, Apple only have for OEM drives, so you need to use a heatsink when non OEM blades are installed in a Mac Pro.

A Startech adapter plus a decent heatsink will cost the same price of a kryoM.2.

 

[combatphotog]

Don't use NVMe drives with adapters without heatsink, you will cook the blade easily. The first time Spotlight indexes your drive, you will have thermal throttling. NVMe drives are hot and need thermal management, Apple only have for OEM drives, so you need to use a heatsink when non OEM blades are installed in a Mac Pro.

A Startech adapter plus a decent heatsink will cost the same price of a kryoM.2.

Thank you alex, that makes more sense.

 

[zackkmac]

Needing help. Just bought a Kryo M2 and HP EX920 1TB, installed in the top x4 slot (also tried the one below it) and am running 10.14.15 on 144.0.0.0.0 ROM (2010 5,1 system), but the drive still shows as external. I apologize if this is a repetitive question.

 

[crjackson2134]

Needing help. Just bought a Kryo M2 and HP EX920 1TB, installed in the top x4 slot (also tried the one below it) and am running 10.14.15 on 144.0.0.0.0 ROM (2010 5,1 system), but the drive still shows as external. I apologize if this is a repetitive question.

That’s normal. It is external to the cMP’s integral chipset (SATA controller).

What problem are you having?

Yes, it’s a bit repetitive, and a 5 sec. search would have revealed this for you, but that’s okay.

If you really need to alter this, follow the thread below
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/innie-a-fix-for-pci-drives-seen-as-external.2136229/

 

[zackkmac]

That’s normal. It is external to the cMP’s integral chipset (SATA controller).

What problem are you having?

My apologies. I guess I had a moment and thought the recent updates allowing the cMP to boot from NVMe also meant they would show as internal.

I did find "Innie" which makes them show as internal, but I guess I'll need to dig up my stock GPU to be able to disable SIP for it.

 

[crjackson2134]

I did find "Innie" which makes them show as internal, but I guess I'll need to dig up my stock GPU to be able to disable SIP for it.

Unless there is a specific need, why bother?

 

[Mac_User 0101]

Don't use NVMe drives with adapters without heatsink, you will cook the blade easily. The first time Spotlight indexes your drive, you will have thermal throttling. NVMe drives are hot and need thermal management, Apple only have for OEM drives, so you need to use a heatsink when non OEM blades are installed in a Mac Pro.

Do you have a particular heatsink that you personally favor? And how important is it to remove the stickers on the m.2? Most companies claim that they are thermally conductive but I'm skeptical about that.

 

[tsialex]

Do you have a particular heatsink that you personally favor? And how important is it to remove the stickers on the m.2? Most companies claim that they are thermally conductive but I'm skeptical about that.

Good heatsinks are over $20, with $35 you can buy a kryoM.2 model that already have an excellent heatsink.

Don't remove the stickers, it will void the warranty.

 

[MarkC426]

£30 in uk amazon.......

 

[ye1hunter]

I just want to thank everyone on these forums for their helpful information over the years.

Currently running 10.14.5 - 144.0.0.0.0 on a 2012 5,1 with original Nehalem Quad 3.2 (w 3565), 24 gigs of ram.
1TB Intel 660p via kryoM.2 in slot one, showing as x4 and averaging almost 1,500 Mb/s read and write.
Booting from 250GB Samsung 970 EVO (not plus) via kryoM.2. in slot two, showing as x2 and averaging around 750 Mb/s.
1 TB Crucial MX500 is in SATA II sled (backup drive), and maxing the 3Gb/s
Sapphire PULSE 8gb RX 580 in slot 1.

I accidentally installed 10.14.5 before I updated from 140.0.0.0.0, meaning I had to do the whole process from scratch.

Confirmed booting from NVME PCIE in 140.0.0.0.0 and 145.0.0.0.0
Boot time was waaaaaaay slower in 140.xx than SSD in SATA II. With 145.xx, boot time is merely about half that as SSD in SATA II.

OS and Firmware/boot rom install was done with SAMSUNG 830 as startup drive and MSI 7950 with flashed MAC EFI to 1080p monitor via displayport 1.1 . After install, used SuperDuper to clone startup drive to NVME and Bob's your uncle.

Everything is running snappier. This feels like 6 or 7 years ago when I swapped the startup drive with an SSD and installed a software raid 0 of two Crucial M4 SSD's on a pair of PCIE cards.

For posterity, 7950 could push HiDPI 60hz 1080p to a 27" 4k monitor (SwitchResX) with BIOS switched to PC mode (MAC EFI can't do over DP1.1). As I was buying up components, I saw how low price the 580 is, so I gave it whirl. TBH, the nvme ssd boot disk seems to have helped stability in HiDPI to 4k the most in standard operations. The 580 merely completes the experience. I've been moving hundreds of gigabytes of data around the past two days. Flawless victory.

I have not done music/video editing in years; so, no comment on that performance. However, my mac is operating snappier than snaps.

Again, thanks to all.

 

[avatar1349]

Good heatsinks are over $20, with $35 you can buy a kryoM.2 model that already have an excellent heatsink.

Don't remove the stickers, it will void the warranty.

Just installed a 970 Pro and got a significant improvement, which brings me for my 1st question to you, Alex.
Does a kryoM.2 model do the same or almost the same as a High Point SSD7101A-1. The reason I ask is that the
High Point card here in the Netherlands is almost $640 which is quiet a stiff price.

btw I'm 70 years young so do a lot of reading to keep up with the present technology ...... lol

 

[ye1hunter]

Just installed a 970 Pro and got a significant improvement, which brings me for my 1st question to you, Alex.
Does a kryoM.2 model do the same or almost the same as a High Point SSD7101A-1. The reason I ask is that the
High Point card here in the Netherlands is almost $640 which is quiet a stiff price.

btw I'm 70 years young so do a lot of reading to keep up with the present technology ...... lol

That highpoint is a 16 lane PCIE 3 unit that takes 4 nvme drives setup as a RAID. The kyro accepts one NVME, and is 4 lane PCIE 3. Someone esle will have to comment on the numbers you can get with the highpoint.

 

[Earl Urley]

I have a kryo, it will do nothing to increase the speed, it'll stay in the 1400-1700 MB/sec R/W range as it has no fancy multiplexing / gymnastical chips to give you anything more. $400 card vs. $50 card, gee what am I missing.

 

[tsialex]

Just installed a 970 Pro and got a significant improvement, which brings me for my 1st question to you, Alex.
Does a kryoM.2 model do the same or almost the same as a High Point SSD7101A-1. The reason I ask is that the
High Point card here in the Netherlands is almost $640 which is quiet a stiff price.

btw I'm 70 years young so do a lot of reading to keep up with the present technology ...... lol

It's a little complicated to understand.

Let's say you bought a WD M.2 SSD that is PCIe 3.0 x2 (x2 = 2 lanes). With your Mac Pro 5,1 and kryoM.2 adapter (or any adapter without a PCIe switch) you will get around 700 to 750MB/s since the slot is PCIe 2.0 and the M.2 blade use only 2 lanes. Don't matter if the adapter is x4, the M.2 blade is connected to and use just 2 lanes.

With a Samsung 970 Pro, it's a PCIe 3.0 M.2 blade that uses 4 lanes, you will get around 1500MB/s with an adapter installed in the Mac Pro PCIe 2.0 slots. Don't matter if the slot is x16, the M.2 blade is connected to and use just 4 lanes.

Any adapter without a PCIe 3.0 switch, will be limited by PCIe 2.0 maximum throughput per lane:

• PCIe 3.0 x2 M.2 blade installed on a PCIe 2.0 slot = ~750MB/s
• PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 blade installed on a PCIe 2.0 slot = ~1500MB/s

With a card that uses a PCIe 3.0 switch that does the magic of transforming 16 PCIe 2.0 lanes into 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes, like HighPoint SSD7101-A, you will get the maximum throughput from the 970 Pro, around 3000MB/s and you can install 4 of them at the same time, getting around 6200MB/s total throughput.

Some switched cards use only 8 lanes and connect just two M.2 blades, like the IO Crest IO-PCE2824-TM2 (aka Syba SI-PEX40129). The total throughput for x8 cards is limited to around 3100MB/s.

 

[avatar1349]

It's a little complicated to understand.

Let's say you bought a WD M.2 SSD that is PCIe3.0 2x (2x = 2 lanes). With your Mac Pro 5,1 and kryoM.2 adapter (or any adapter without a PCIe switch) you will get around 700 to 750MB/s since the slot is PCIe 2.0 and the M.2 blade use only 2 lanes. Don't matter if the adapter is 4x, the M.2 blade is connected and uses just 2 lanes.

With a Samsung 970 Pro, it's a PCIe 3.0 M.2 blade that used 4 lanes, you will get around 1500MB/s with an adapter installed in the Mac Pro PCIe 2.0 slots. Don't matter if the slot is 16x, the M.2 blade is connected and uses just 4 lanes.

Any adapter without a PCIe 3.0 switch, will be limited by PCIe 2.0 maximum throughput per lane:

• 2x M.2 blade = ~750MB/s
• 4x M.2 blade = ~1500MB/s

With a card that uses a PCIe 3.0 switch that does the magic of transforming 16 PCIe 2.0 lanes into 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes, like HighPoint SSD7101-A, you will get the maximum throughput from the 970 Pro, around 3000MB/s and you can install 4 of them at the same time, getting around 6200MB/s total throughput.

Some switched cards use only 8 lanes and connect just two M.2 blades, like the IO Crest IO-PCE2824-TM2 (aka Syba SI-PEX40129). The total throughput for 8x cards is limited to around 3100MB/s.

Thanks so much for your answer Alex; this makes perfectly sense to me. I don't think its complicated at all .... lol The way you explained it is absolutely crystal clear. I taught myself java and C++, so that why it makes a lot of sense. (Regarding the level of understanding)
Wanna teach myself cocoa, but I take my time for that
Just wanna put you in the limelight for all the advice and helping out to ALL the people in these Forums; For me its my "daily bread" (as a matter of speaking) Thanks again

 

[Orionator]

It's a little complicated to understand.

Let's say you bought a WD M.2 SSD that is PCIe3.0 2x (2x = 2 lanes). With your Mac Pro 5,1 and kryoM.2 adapter (or any adapter without a PCIe switch) you will get around 700 to 750MB/s since the slot is PCIe 2.0 and the M.2 blade use only 2 lanes. Don't matter if the adapter is 4x, the M.2 blade is connected and uses just 2 lanes.

With a Samsung 970 Pro, it's a PCIe 3.0 M.2 blade that used 4 lanes, you will get around 1500MB/s with an adapter installed in the Mac Pro PCIe 2.0 slots. Don't matter if the slot is 16x, the M.2 blade is connected and uses just 4 lanes.

Any adapter without a PCIe 3.0 switch, will be limited by PCIe 2.0 maximum throughput per lane:

• 2x M.2 blade = ~750MB/s
• 4x M.2 blade = ~1500MB/s

With a card that uses a PCIe 3.0 switch that does the magic of transforming 16 PCIe 2.0 lanes into 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes, like HighPoint SSD7101-A, you will get the maximum throughput from the 970 Pro, around 3000MB/s and you can install 4 of them at the same time, getting around 6200MB/s total throughput.

Some switched cards use only 8 lanes and connect just two M.2 blades, like the IO Crest IO-PCE2824-TM2 (aka Syba SI-PEX40129). The total throughput for 8x cards is limited to around 3100MB/s.

Ok Alex,

I've been hearing about the NVMe drives being bootable and I could really use that. Plus I just read through the 14 pages in this thread...

So let me get this straight: Samsung 970 is NVMe and will work at partial speed on a kyroM.2 (probably like 1500 I think I saw). And it will be bootable (provided the bottoms are flashed). So all of this is like a $200 upgrade. That combination for that speed seems like a great deal. Am I missing anything? Seems too good to be true...

Thanks to anyone who wants to reply. And thanks to everyone for all of the great information on here.

BTW all of this stemmed from trying to get faster transfer speeds out of my SD card to my computer drive. It took like 30 minutes to transfer 30 gigs... not OK. Got a USB 3.1 pcie card and have improved that transfer rate to 90 MB/a but cant get faster. Talking to San disk on Monday about why their own reader won't improve performance.

Anyway, thanks everyone.

Ben

 

[Orionator]

What's the difference between the MZ-V7P512BW and the MZ-V7P512E? I found that the E is the business model but why would I pay $30 more for it on Amazon? Should it theoretically last longer?

 

[AidenShaw]

Let's say you bought a WD M.2 SSD that is PCIe3.0 2x (2x = 2 lanes). With your Mac Pro 5,1 and kryoM.2 adapter (or any adapter without a PCIe switch) you will get around 700 to 750MB/s since the slot is PCIe 2.0 and the M.2 blade use only 2 lanes. Don't matter if the adapter is 4x, the M.2 blade is connected and uses just 2 lanes.

With a Samsung 970 Pro, it's a PCIe 3.0 M.2 blade that used 4 lanes, you will get around 1500MB/s with an adapter installed in the Mac Pro PCIe 2.0 slots. Don't matter if the slot is 16x, the M.2 blade is connected and uses just 4 lanes.

Minor point - the official terminology is PCIe 3.0 x2, not 2x.

 

[tsialex]

Samsung 970 is NVMe and will work at partial speed on a kyroM.2 (probably like 1500 I think I saw). And it will be bootable (provided the bottoms are flashed).

Yes.

So all of this is like a $200 upgrade. That combination for that speed seems like a great deal. Am I missing anything? Seems too good to be true...

No, works exactly as the first post says.

 

[Orionator]

Yes.

No, works exactly as the first post says.

Right. But on the steps included in the first post are no longer valid if you have bootrom 144.0.0.0.0, correct?

 

[tsialex]

Right. But on the steps included in the first post are no longer valid if you have bootrom 144.0.0.0.0, correct?

Sorry, first post of the Blade SSDs - NVMe & AHCI thread.

This thread was resurrected I don't know why. All info pertinent of NVMe drives and MP5,1 are on the blade thread.

 

[Orionator]

Sorry, first post of the Blade SSDs - NVMe & AHCI thread.

This thread was resurrected I don't know why. All info pertinent of NVMe drives and MP5,1 are on the blade thread.

Great, another 35 pages to read through...

Thanks Alex.

 

[Orionator]

What's the difference between the MZ-V7P512BW and the MZ-V7P512E? I found that the E is the business model but why would I pay $30 more for it on Amazon? Should it theoretically last longer?

Just called Samsung. The BW model was sold to retailers and the E model was sold to manufacturers. The guy on the phone told me either was OK to use. He also told me that there is an AM model (designating America). He said the ones I would want to steer away from would be the AU and EU or CH models as those are made in their designated areas (can you guess which is which?) and that if I ever needed to open a warranty claim, I would have to do so with that region. As I am in North America, I think I'll stick with the cheaper BW model.

Hope this helps someone further down the road.

Ben

 

[countershading]

Don't use NVMe drives with adapters without heatsink…

Just got this SSD used adapter with 2 non-NVMe blades, works fine in cMP 5.1.

Is this also going to overheat or just NVMe?

OWC Mercury Accelsior 240GB 820 MB/s

 

[tsialex]

Just got this SSD used adapter with 2 non-NVMe blades, works fine in cMP 5.1.

Is this also going to overheat or just NVMe?

OWC Mercury Accelsior 240GB 820 MB/s
View attachment 845215

I don't know about yours, but I overheated a 970Pro five minutes after power-up, while Spotlight was indexing. Some AHCI PCIe drives start thermal throttling very easily too, like SM951-AHCI.

Since most of the year we are over 30ºC down here with some summer days near 40ºC, I personally wouldn't use any PCIe drives without a heatsink, not even for testing. You should use DriveDX and check your temps, warm drives have less endurance and fail sooner.