PCIE M.2 NVMe on MacPro

[expede]

Hi there!

My cold boot time from press of the botton to login screen 65-70 sec.

/Per

Hi,

can someone tell me how long does your Mac needs from hearing the start sound till you see the desktop if you boot from a NVMe drive?

[doublepost=1532611259][/doublepost]Hi!

Did you do a Firmware upgrade on your 4.1 (2009) or your 5.1 (2010)? Did you change the starup disk in preferences? Is it a fresh install or is it a clone?

/Per

I install SSD View attachment 767702 View attachment 767704

on Mac Pro 2009 5.1

and not boot from this ssd

 

[Ram242]

Hello expede,

there must be some thing wrong. If I boot my MacPro 4.1 from a internal SSD (3GB/s) it takes 42 Sec.
It takes around 20 Seconds till I here the start sound and after 25 sec I see the boot screen (Apple).

So I expected a lower time on a NVMe drive.

 

[expede]

I do not know! Depends on your machinery, how many HD you have, graphic card, what kind of RAM and stuff like that. If you look in this forum you will find startup time on several minutes (cMP 6.1). So, 20 sec does not sounds bad, but do not worry, it is the performance that counts to how long it is (the star up time, I mean)

/Per

Hello expede,

there must be some thing wrong. If I boot my MacPro 4.1 from a internal SSD (3GB/s) it takes 42 Sec.
It takes around 20 Seconds till I here the start sound and after 25 sec I see the boot screen (Apple).

So I expected a lower time on a NVMe drive.

 

[bookemdano]

I've read from many people that NVMe is really of no benefit as a boot drive. As to why it's slower, might have something to do with the hack that allows the cMP to boot from NVMe in the first place.

 

[handheldgames]

PRE-CHIME Boot times are MOSTLY effected by...

RAM. 16GB ~ 12 seconds pre-chime. 64GB ~ 26 seconds pre-chime
Adding storage volumes does not seem to effect pre-chime timings.
A secondary SATA III controller may delay pre-chime (not tested)
​

POST-CHIME boot times are MOSTLY effected by....

Booting from NVME with additional AHCI/SATA Express PCIe Storage.
The NUMBER of storage volumes
Video card in slot #2. A reproducible 3-5 second lag/beach ball happens in login process.
​

BOOT TO LOGIN SCREEN (with 16GBx1 RDIMM)

SATA II SSD is still the fastest to the login screen at 35 seconds from power button. After boot, OS behaves LAGGY compared to 970 pro..
NVMe 970 pro SSD comes in second at 43 seconds from power button.

 

[armdn]

Hi,

can someone tell me how long does your Mac needs from hearing the start sound till you see the desktop if you boot from a NVMe drive?

On my mac is about 30 seconds. But i have 20 sec timer in rEFIt (ZFS drives on SAS is a bit slow initialized during "too-fast-boot").

 

[mrt209]

Is this the ssd I need to get for it to be bootable? https://www.ebay.com/itm/SM951-AHCI...Pre-installed-macOS-Sierra-10-12/263579239625

 

[expede]

Hi!

Why would you buy a PCIe crad with preinstalled OSX? And regarding the picture, it looks like an NVMe card. I have no experience regarding SM951 but some with Samsung EVO 960. And the first thing I needed to do was to change the Firmware on my cMP 5.1. And then I did a fresh install of OSX on in it. But maybe I´m wrong here. Can this SM951 boot without Firmware upgrade? The boot choice was made in bootdisk in preferences. Am I barking at the wrong tree?

Best regards

/Per

Is this the ssd I need to get for it to be bootable? https://www.ebay.com/itm/SM951-AHCI...Pre-installed-macOS-Sierra-10-12/263579239625

 

[tsialex]

Hi!

Why would you buy a PCIe crad with preinstalled OSX? And regarding the picture, it looks like an NVMe card. I have no experience regarding SM951 but some with Samsung EVO 960. And the first thing I needed to do was to change the Firmware on my cMP 5.1. And then I did a fresh install of OSX on in it. But maybe I´m wrong here. Can this SM951 boot without Firmware upgrade? The boot choice was made in bootdisk in preferences. Am I barking at the wrong tree?

Best regards

/Per

The AHCI version of SM951 boots on Mac Pro without any modification, fully supported.

Any AHCI M2 PCIe SSD boots without firmware mod on a Mac Pro.

 

[expede]

I see. I learn every day. Thanks tsialex! Then I fully support the buy.

/Per

The AHCI version of SM951 boots on Mac Pro without any modification, fully supported.

 

[tsialex]

I see. I learn every day. Thanks tsialex! Then I fully support the buy.

/Per

Even fully supported, it's not economically wise to buy it. I bought a new 512GB SM951 AHCI for HP notebooks on February for US$ 245 + shipping. Zero working hours on SMART, a really new one in the sealed packaging. To pay $420 for maybe a used one…

Today you can get a NVMe one with similar specs for less than what I payed then.

 

[mrt209]

Even fully supported, it's not economically wise to buy it. I bought a new 512GB SM951 AHCI for HP notebooks on February for US$ 245 + shipping. Zero working hours on SMART, a really new one in the sealed packaging. To pay $420 for maybe a used one…

Today you can get a NVMe one with similar specs for less than what I payed then.

What would you recommend I get? I’d like to replace my boot drive with the fastest SSD available. I’m not very informed when it comes to stuff like this, but from reading various threads it seems like SM951 AHCI is the only bootable option although it got discontinued and is hard to find for a decent price. Thanks

 

[tsialex]

What would you recommend I get? I’d like to replace my boot drive with the fastest SSD available. I’m not very informed when it comes to stuff like this, but from reading various threads it seems like SM951 AHCI is the only bootable option although it got discontinued and is hard to find for a decent price. Thanks

How much space you need and how much you wanna spend? Do you really need the fastest option, like 4 PCIe SSDs on a RAID board or you want the fastest single SSD?

Do you want a out of the box solution or you are capable of installing a new firmware on your Mac Pro?

 

[mrt209]

Looking to add 1 SDD with 512gb or 1 TB. Would prefer plug and play but would be ok installing new firmware as long is I don’t have to reinstall it every time there’s an OS X update. If I could spend less than $400-500 that would be great. Thanks a lot

 

[tsialex]

Looking to add 1 SDD with 512gb or 1 TB. Would prefer plug and play but would be ok installing new firmware as long is I don’t have to reinstall it every time there’s an OS X update. If I could spend less than $400-500 that would be great. Thanks a lot

When I bought mine, February, I bought the 512GB SM951-AHCI (then $245 on eBay) + Angelbird Wings PCIe adaptor (then $59 on eBay). If I was gonna buy it again, I’d still buy the Angelbird Wings, it’s the best PCIe adaptor, but I’d buy the Samsung 970EVO 1TB.

If you want a 1TB or bigger SSD, your only option is NVMe. The bigger AHCI ones are 512GB.

With the 970EVO you have to add the NVMe driver every time Apple updates the firmware, 5 times since the High Sierra betas started last year. But since High Sierra minor versions are over, we will get only security updates now on, without firmware upgrades. But it’s possible that we can get new firmware upgrades on Mojave.

If you don’t want to run Mojave now, I think it’s safe to go for a NVMe SSD. You will need to update to the current firmware (0089) and add the NVMe driver to it.

If you want to run Mojave betas/install it on day one, it’s wiser to get a AHCI one.

 

[mrt209]

When I bought mine, February, I bought the 512GB SM951-AHCI (then $245 on eBay) + Angelbird Wings PCIe adaptor (then $59 on eBay). If I was gonna buy it again, I’d still buy the Angelbird Wings, it’s the best PCIe adaptor, but I’d buy the Samsung 970EVO 1TB.

If you want a 1TB or bigger SSD, your only option is NVMe. The bigger AHCI ones are 512GB.

With the 970EVO you have to add the NVMe driver every time Apple updates the firmware, 5 times since the High Sierra betas started last year. But since High Sierra minor versions are over, we will get only security updates now on, without firmware upgrades. But it’s possible that we can get new firmware upgrades on Mojave.

If you don’t want to run Mojave now, I think it’s safe to go for a NVMe SSD. You will need to update to the current firmware (0089) and add the NVMe driver to it.

If you want to run Mojave betas/install it on day one, it’s wiser to get a AHCI one.

How does it work after I do a OSX update if I get the 970EVO, is the disk no longer bootable, meaning do I need to boot off another drive? Thanks a lot

 

[tsialex]

How does it work after I do a OSX update if I get the 970EVO, is the disk no longer bootable, meaning do I need to boot off another drive? Thanks a lot

You have to boot from another disk and reinstall the NVMe driver on the BootROM. This will happen if/when Apple update the firmware for Mac Pro with a minor version of Mojave.

Apple did not update the Mac Pro firmware between October 2010 and August 2017. Only APFS support and Spectre microcode updates made them make newer versions of Mac Pro BootROM.

 

[mrt209]

You have to boot from another disk and reinstall the NVMe driver on the BootROM. This will happen if/when Apple update the firmware for Mac Pro with a minor version of Mojave.

Apple did not update the Mac Pro firmware between October 2010 and August 2017. Only APFS support and Spectre microcode updates made them make newer versions of Mac Pro BootROM.

I bought the PX1 and 970EVO, works great. Don't think I'll use it as boot drive though, a bit too complicated to get it working for me

 

[MIKX]

On my Samsung M.2 NVMe 960 EVO from cold start to Hi Sierra 10.13..6 is about 28 seconds.
I've just ordered a 970 Pro 512 gb.

So . . . of course I will now have to order a HighPoint 7101A 4 blade PCIe card.

Are there any GOOD M-type M. 2 TWO BLADE PCIe adapters out there ?

 

[Ludacrisvp]

On my Samsung M.2 NVMe 960 EVO from cold start to Hi Sierra 10.13..6 is about 28 seconds.
I've just ordered a 970 Pro 512 gb.

So . . . of course I will now have to order a HighPoint 4 blade PCIe card.

Are there any GOOD M-type M. 2 TWO BLADE PCIe adapters out there ?

I’ve only seen combo cards. One running as Sata and one as PCIe.

 

[MIKX]

DELETED ; Wrong thread

 

[crjackson2134]

On my Samsung M.2 NVMe 960 EVO from cold start to Hi Sierra 10.13..6 is about 28 seconds.
I've just ordered a 970 Pro 512 gb.

So . . . of course I will now have to order a HighPoint 7101A 4 blade PCIe card.

Are there any GOOD M-type M. 2 TWO BLADE PCIe adapters out there ?

How long from the chime to desktop? I feel like button press to chime doesn’t really count since it’s POSTing and every one has various amount of memory, PCIe, and SATA devices.

Just curious...

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.

 

[Earl Urley]

Just a word about NVMe performance in general.. When I was using Apple's SSD option (it is an OEM Samsung 830 variant installed in bay 1 with a weird heat sink surrounding it) I used to dread launching Apple Mail or Outlook (have to use both for work purposes.) Sometimes it'd be 2-5 minutes (I have a huge mail database) waiting for either one to stop beachballing during launch. Moving it to a Velocity Solo X2 card helped a little bit but made for longer boot times.

Running off just a DT-120 / 970 Pro combo, I now only need to wait 6-10 seconds to launch Mail or Outlook and get back mouse control. To me, that made the relatively risky manuever of injecting the DXE driver, then flashing the 5,1 firmware totally worth it.

PhotoShop feels zippier and I hardly wait for previews anymore. Fortnite loads super quick, as opposed to taking forever at the SATA II speeds that the Apple SSD operated at.

Edit: still mulling over that Highpoint 7101A card.. guess it might make things go even faster..

 

[mrkapqa]

Is it possible to convert a SM9xx Nvme drive into a AHCI (maybe in Windows) Firmware?

 

[tsialex]

Is it possible to convert a SM9xx Nvme drive into a AHCI (maybe in Windows) Firmware?

No, PCB/components are different. Look at the photos on Anandtech SM951-NVMe review.

You can add the NVMe DXe on your Mac Pro.