MP All Models PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI

[w1z]

Please excuse my rambling post following:

I like that drive but I do not run a boot drive on my 7101A-1, and I am uncertain of the benefits for doing so in comparison to running off a SATA SSD drive (which is what I am doing now). I've thought about testing the benefit by removing my RAID and trying the boot drive on one of the slots, using one of my two 2 TB drives, on what would be an "was-RAIDed".

I also read somewhere that there is a particular slot on the 7101A-1 that is better cooled, hence better for the OS. Although I am also unsure if an OS would need more cooling than if the drive was being used for video work, which IMO works drives harder than an OS.

Also, I wouldn't be worried about the sector size. It's performance that counts, and these drives are far more complex than just sector size. Although a note about performance - in the future, type 4 drives - which can benefit from PCIe Type 4 slots - will eventually become the norm. I've also read here that the Western Digital SN850 is very fast on our setups - as would be the Samsung 980 Pro (presuming the Samsung will work as it should on our cards). But those solutions are pretty costly IMO.

You're good brother, I'll elaborate -

It all depends on one's use-case scenario - for me, the iops and faster 4k reads/writes do matter as the performance difference is not negligible when comparing NVMe to Sata SSDs for OS and other uses or Apple PCIe drives to non-4kn drives, it just can't be ignored especially if one is trying to squeeze every bit of performance out of these old machines.

I also posted about the middle slots getting better cooling on the 7101A, which hasn't changed, so I keep the OS and other heavily used drive installed in the middle slots while Windows and TM are installed in slots 1 and 4 (outer slots)

This will probably be the last upgrade to the cMP before moving on to a new apple silicon Mac Pro.

I look forward to your feedback on the P31.

Cheers

 

[Melbourne Park]

You're good brother, I'll elaborate -

It all depends on one's use-case scenario - for me, the iops and faster 4k reads/writes do matter as the performance difference is not negligible when comparing NVMe to Sata SSDs for OS and other uses or Apple PCIe drives to non-4kn drives, it just can't be ignored especially if one is trying to squeeze every bit of performance out of these old machines.

I also posted about the middle slots getting better cooling on the 7101A, which hasn't changed, so I keep the OS and other heavily used drive installed in the middle slots while Windows and TM are installed in slots 1 and 4 (outer slots)

This will probably be the last upgrade to the cMP before moving on to a new apple silicon Mac Pro.

I look forward to your feedback on the P31.

Cheers

Thanks.

My approach also is a bottleneck analysis. My manufacturing background I guess (in my early days).

Of course, SATA is a huge bottleneck. With the 7101A-1, the bottleneck isn't so easy to recognise. If the App uses a lot of the CPU, then the 16 channel PCI slot would help things ... but if the bottleneck is data shifting on the drives, then they matter. IMO cache would assist in the OS, but not much with big file movement. And of course, on new Mac Pro, presuming it has PCIe 4 slots, then a PCIe gen 4 card NVME would work much quicker ... but then, one would only benefit if one had I think a gen 4 slot NVME RAID card ... I think with Highpoint, that would be a "75xx" series card ... but then, if one had a few spare PCIe gen 4 slots, and only 4 paths wide too (due to the cards bottleneck on paths) then I would guess that a RAID card wouldn't be necessary, because the bottleneck would have shifted off the drives to somewhere else!!!

I'm still guessing about the benefits of such P31 card. I haven't bought it yet! I don't need it right now. And for the OS, 1 TB is enough. But I don't want to pay for 2/3rds of a 2TB card, and get just 1 TB. That 1 TB price crosses my value line. and a P31 costs me $Au221; a Samsung 970 Pro $Au250, and the WD version the same. While a WD Black SN750 costs $Au160.

But if your getting an M Pro, - as I will if they have a cheapish one which I am a bit dubious about - then I'd say get a Gen 4 card, like a Samsung 980 Pro or a WD Black SN850, and buy a low capacity Apple drive in the new M Mac Pro, and use the Samsung or WD gen 4 cards for your OS in the M M Pro. Hmm ... I haven't read that the M Mac Pro is referred to as an MMPro. And a mini Mac Pro (please give us one with a PCI slot) the MMMPro.

Maybe Mars could sponsor Apple ... I need to stop here ...

 

[Melbourne Park]

It's a SATA M.2 (B-key blade) and NVMe M.2 (M-key blade) card, not a dual NVMe M.2 card.

For the SATA M.2 blade to work, you need to connect the card to one of the Mac Pro SATA ports.

Dual M.2 PCIE Adapter for SATA or PCIE NVMe SSD with Advanced Heat Sink Solution,M.2 SSD NVME (m Key) and SATA (b Key) 22110 2280 2260 2242 2230 to PCI-e x 4 Host Controller Expansion Card

Dual M.2 PCIE Adapter for SATA or PCIE NVMe SSD with Advanced Heat Sink Solution,M.2 SSD NVME (m Key) and SATA (b Key) 22110 2280 2260 2242 2230 to PCI-e x 4 Host Controller Expansion Card

www.amazon.com

That's it alright. And darn - its the almost the same cheap price I paid for it. If it works, it still seems good value, because of the heat sink(s). I'd could test it, but might it damage my NVME if this cheap (bu very nice looking) card is faulty? I also realise I could not put an OS on it without a heat sink ... and also, testing it would overheat the card without the heat sink. So I suspect its not sensible to try out the card unless I meant to leave it there. And I have two spare slots in my RAID card.

 

[manielli]

Hi everyone,

I have installed a 980 Pro with UGREEN's PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD adapter in my Mac Pro 5,1 and it looks like it falls back to PCIe 1.0 and the read/write speeds are around 750MB/s. My 970 Evo read/write speeds were around 1500MB/s with another PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD adapter. The 980 Pro read/write speeds are still around 750MB/s on that older PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD adapter. I have researched quite a bit and haven't found any PCIe adapter that explicitly mention support for Mac Pro 5,1 except for OWC ACCELSIOR 1M2. Has anyone tried a 980 Pro with this OWC adapter with a Mac Pro 5,1? Thanks for the help in advance.

 

[tsialex]

Hi everyone,

I have installed a 980 Pro with UGREEN's PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD adapter in my Mac Pro 5,1 and it looks like it falls back to PCIe 1.0 and the read/write speeds are around 750MB/s. My 970 Evo read/write speeds were around 1500MB/s with another PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD adapter. The 980 Pro read/write speeds are still around 750MB/s on that older PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD adapter. I have researched quite a bit and haven't found any PCIe adapter that explicitly mention support for Mac Pro 5,1 except for OWC ACCELSIOR 1M2. Has anyone tried a 980 Pro with this OWC adapter with a Mac Pro 5,1? Thanks for the help in advance.

No dumb M.2 to PCIe adapter (without a PCIe switch) will work for that. Only PCIe switched adapters (see the first post) will automatically and correctly configure a PCIe v4.0 blade to work with a MacPro5,1 PCIe v2.0 slots.

You can always try to manually set it to PCIe v2.0, see @joevt scripts for that.

Highpoint 7101A - PCIe 3.0 SSD performance for the cMP

I am not sure. Try this: 1) download pcitree_fast.zip (it should unzip and create a pcitree_fast folder in the ~/Downloads folder) 2) run the following commands: cd ~/Downloads/pcitree_fast chmod 744 fast.sh chmod 744 pcitree.sh xattr -d com.apple.quarantine fast.sh xattr -d...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[tsialex]

Bad news, SSD prices were already soaring in the last few weeks and now with today's news about WD/Kioxia manufacturing blunder prices are going to rise even more.

SSD prices could spike after Western Digital loses 6.5 billion gigabytes of NAND chips

The production issues could impact SSD pricing.

www.theverge.com

 

[manielli]

No dumb M.2 to PCIe adapter (without a PCIe switch) will work for that. Only PCIe switched adapters (see the first post) will automatically and correctly configure a PCIe v4.0 blade to work with a MacPro5,1 PCIe v2.0 slots.

You can always try to manually set it to PCIe v2.0, see @joevt scripts for that.

Highpoint 7101A - PCIe 3.0 SSD performance for the cMP

I am not sure. Try this: 1) download pcitree_fast.zip (it should unzip and create a pcitree_fast folder in the ~/Downloads folder) 2) run the following commands: cd ~/Downloads/pcitree_fast chmod 744 fast.sh chmod 744 pcitree.sh xattr -d com.apple.quarantine fast.sh xattr -d...

forums.macrumors.com

Thank you for the advice. I have a Sonnet SSD M.2 4x4 PCIe Card FUS-SSD-4X4-E3 which I had purchased a couple of years ago and I had put up for sale because it didn't support double sided NVMe SSDs, and just now, after your post I realized that I can use it for this purpose even though I am having it at a x4 PCIe slot. The speeds are back at ~1500MB/s read/write with the 980 Pro. Over time I can probably add more 980 Pros .

 

[macsoundsolutions]

On the Box or maybe the invoice from when you purchased it or on the drive itself

I think I finally figured out my issue and its not the 970 plus NVMe drive after all. It is a Titan Ridge Pro Tools issue as it is also happening with my old ACHI boot drive. For some reason even though I am not using a thunderbolt drive, when I boot up and start a pro tools session running off my Sandisk extreme pro connected to the Titan Ridge, Pro Tools locks up and the finder disappears, then I force quit pro tools and reboot and then launch pro tools and open the session and all is ok, but when I reboot the USB C drive I am using with the Titan Ridge isn't mounted, and I have to unplug and plug it to get it to mount before launching pro tools. So its almost like using a thunderbolt drive, you have to cold boot and reboot to get it to mount and use it. I have to try a cold boot and play a pro tools session off my internal drives next but I bet that it will run fine without the need to reboot. It is a Titan Ridge Pro Tools calamity not the 970 Evo Plus. Damn what a pain!

 

[tsialex]

I think I finally figured out my issue and its not the 970 plus NVMe drive after all. It is a Titan Ridge Pro Tools issue as it is also happening with my old ACHI boot drive. For some reason even though I am not using a thunderbolt drive, when I boot up and start a pro tools session running off my Sandisk extreme pro connected to the Titan Ridge, Pro Tools locks up and the finder disappears, then I force quit pro tools and reboot and then launch pro tools and open the session and all is ok, but when I reboot the USB C drive I am using with the Titan Ridge isn't mounted, and I have to unplug and plug it to get it to mount before launching pro tools. So its almost like using a thunderbolt drive, you have to cold boot and reboot to get it to mount and use it. I have to try a cold boot and play a pro tools session off my internal drives next but I bet that it will run fine without the need to reboot. It is a Titan Ridge Pro Tools calamity not the 970 Evo Plus. Damn what a pain!

You are also having crash reports? TB constant crashes can corrupt the NVRAM, since part of the crash/PanicInfoLog is saved inside the NVRAM and you just need a VSS store with too little space available and some crashes to corrupt the BootROM.

 

[macsoundsolutions]

You are also having crash reports? TB constant crashes can corrupt the NVRAM, since part of the crash/PanicInfoLog is saved inside the NVRAM and you just need a VSS store with too little space available and some crashes to corrupt the BootROM.

So after all the crap I went through it turned out to be an issue with Pro Tools in that it does not like when you have two hard drives mounted with the same name, in my case "Macintosh hd" but it was not giving me an error message"
instead it would just become unresponsive. I opened a different session days later on an internal sata drive and I got the message "AAE Error 2" So I looked it up and that was the fix, as soon as I ejected the duplicate drive no more lock ups. Now I have the 970 Evo Plus installed in pcie slot 3 with Big Sur on a 500 gig partition and 1.5 terabyte scratch disk partition, the Titan Ridge in slot 4 and all is good. Long story short, don't have two drives with the same name mounted when using pro tools

 

[joevt]

don't have two drives with the same name mounted when using pro tools

Not very pro if it can't handle that.

 

[macsoundsolutions]

Not very pro if it can't handle that.

Agreed

 

[Bggale]

HighPoint has a new NVMe series of cards with hardware based RAID. Oddly, they are only PCIe x8, and there is no mention of Mac compatibility:

SSD6200 Series NVMe Host RAID Controllers

HighPoint SSD6200 Series NVMe Host RAID Controllers

highpoint-tech-8746408.hs-sites.com

 

[macsoundsolutions]

Just an update: I now have the Samsung 2T 970 Evo Plus NVMe running fine in slot 3 of my 2009 5,1. And the Titan Ridge in Slot 4. I have Big Sur 11.6.4 installed on a 500 gig partition on the 970 and a 1.5 terabyte partition for running Pro Tools sessions and FCPX, so far its been good, and i just installed two 5690s from 5680s. Not much gain there but they were free and without IHS so I felt compelled to install them. I guess I could add a bit more ram as I only have 24 gigs but seems to be enough really. I also have Monterey installed on a SSD in bay one with Opencore 0.7.8. I don't really notice much difference between running the OS of the NVMe or the SSD, infact Monterey may boot a bit faster off the SSD than Big Sur off the 970.

 

[Matty_TypeR]

I thought I would try one of these StarTech X8 PCI express Duel M.2 Pcie adapters in my Mac Pro 5.1 with a single blade and they work very well offering nearly twice the speed over a dumb Pcie adapter. will be fitting another blade to it next week.



At just £124 in some places and Mac compatible I thought good value with good speed increase over a dumb Pcie adapter.

Part number PEX8M2E2 StarTech.com

 

[GlynH]

I glanced at this some time ago but dismissed it because my heart was set on the HighPoint SSD7101A, Sonnet M.2 4x4 Silent or OWC Accelsior but they're all over double the cost @£400 so after your post I revisited the StarTech PEX8ME2 and liked what I saw.

I know StarTech as a brand having used their cables, docks, adaptors etc. over the years.

Not sure where you saw it for £124 but Amazon has it for £152 next day direct from StarTech themselves which is around half the £284 plus shipping it is listed on their own website!

Although speed wise potentially it's not up there with the £400+ group (does that really matter in a non-RAID 5,1?) its still double my current 1400MB/Sec on each Samsung blade in dual Sabrent adaptors taking up two spaces in PCIe slots 3 & 4.

I can put the StarTech in slot 2 where it should take advantage of x16 freeing up both x4 slots currently occupied by the Sabrents and the small form factor shouldn't impact on the Quadro K5000 underneath in Slot 1 and because it has no fan it won't contribute to noise either.

So that's 5 boxes ticked for me and so long as its stable and causes no issues which should rear its head pretty quickly as my 5,1 is rock solid I should be a happy camper.

It arrives tomorrow! ?

Would be interested in progress so please keep us up to date. I will try to do the same.

Just need to figure out the best cooling method for the blades themselves now so would be open to suggestions and I'm hoping there will be enough room between the StarTech and K5000 to allow for a decent solution. I'll probably compare with & without heatsink just for peace of mind.

Currently the blades in the Sabrent adaptors are both reading 37c and ISTR when the 970 Pro was in a Supageek adaptor with no heatsink the temperature was 2-10c higher with a maximum of 47c recorded which is still a long way off the 81/82c max listed for the Samsung blades although I wouldn't like to see it within 25c of the top limit.

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

 

[trifero]

I thought I would try one of these StarTech X8 PCI express Duel M.2 Pcie adapters in my Mac Pro 5.1 with a single blade and they work very well offering nearly twice the speed over a dumb Pcie adapter. will be fitting another blade to it next week.



At just £124 in some places and Mac compatible I thought good value with good speed increase over a dumb Pcie adapter.

Part number PEX8M2E2 StarTech.com

I have the same one, similar speeds. So happy with it.

 

[Matty_TypeR]

These are the heat sinks I use on my blade, self adhesive thermal tape, stuck onto the top of the blade. they work very well.



And yes the starTech works very well considering its cost compared to SSD 7101A which I believe can do 3000mbs on a single blade, so saving £250 + with a startech makes sense to me also.

 

[GlynH]

Thanks Matty,

Those heatsinks look quite tall...do they not impact the adjacent PCIe slot at all?

They look very similar the ones I tried on one of my Pi's where they achieved a temperature increase of 0.5c!

Doing a search for slim heatsink led me to something like this;

Gelid SubZero

Regards,
-=Glyn=-

 

[Matty_TypeR]

Here they are fitted to my blade, plenty of room under the GFX card as you can see, and they sit on the parts that warm up. With a long heatsink as you posted a lot of it doesn't touch anything that gets hot, with these they sit on the hot parts and take heat upwards away from the blade and get cooled by PCI fan also.

 

[satcomer]

I just saw a mini review on Amfeltec PCI Express for 6 6M.2 ....! this might help with speed!

 

[GlynH]

Here they are fitted to my blade, plenty of room under the GFX card as you can see, and they sit on the parts that warm up. With a long heatsink as you posted a lot of it doesn't touch anything that gets hot, with these they sit on the hot parts and take heat upwards away from the blade and get cooled by PCI fan also.

Thanks for that Matty. Ah now I get it. You have the StarTech in Slot 1 and your Radeon in Slot 2?

I plan to leave my K5000 where it is in Slot 1 and put the StarTech in Slot 2.

One of the reasons I liked the StarTech was it seemed much shorter than the Highpoint for example which means it should fit nicely above my K5000 without impacting the airflow from the single fan located towards the front of the card.

From your photo it seems the StarTech ends not too far forward of the PCIe retaining bar?

The fan opening on my K5000 appears to start further back so leaving it completely unobstructed by the StarTech above it.

Poor quality photo I know but it gives you an idea;



This way of course I get to keep slot 3 above it unobstructed leaving me 2 slots clear not just one.

That's why I was looking for slim heatsinks for the blades so as not to impact on slot 3 above it or the ASM2824 heatsink behind it.

Not sure what you mean by the longer heatsink not touching anything that gets hot as they are designed to be in contact with the whole blade not just at 3 points along its surface and is how the heatsink in the Sabrents work for example and heatsinks in general in contact with the largest surface area from my experience

Also don't those taller heatsinks seem to impact the airflow across the ASM2824 chip behind them?

I don't have any immediate plans to populate slots 3 & 4 just yet although I do have a Sonnet USB3 card that I could put back in if I ever run out of USB ports on the 5,1 although that seems unlikely as I am only using one for a KVM at the moment and using the KVM as a hub to share 3 other USB devices such as scanner, Contour Suttle Pro v2 and the USB sense lead from the APC UPS.

I will run the blades without heatsinks for a short while just to monitor temperatures as when I bought the machine the supplier had a single blade on a Supageek card without a heatsink and temperatures were only 2-10c above what they are now in those Sabrents.

I can feel a cool breeze on the back of my hand from the PCI fan that never rises above tickover @800rpm wafting across the slots above the K5000 but am mindful that when worked hard the ambient temperature will increase with the additional heat coming up from the K5000 and the blades working harder than normal.

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

 

[GlynH]

I just saw a mini review on Amfeltec PCI Express for 6 6M.2 ....! this might help with speed!

I looked at the Amfeltec Squid some time ago - looks good but for me it was physically too long for what I wanted to do with it.

This one could have fitted the bill though and designed for Mac Pro although released way back in 2015;

Amfeltec Gen 2

Hmmm...short card for 2 blades now and room to expand with 2 more later all in one slot?

Might end up returning the StarTech...

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

 

[trifero]

These are the heat sinks I use on my blade, self adhesive thermal tape, stuck onto the top of the blade. they work very well.



And yes the starTech works very well considering its cost compared to SSD 7101A which I believe can do 3000mbs on a single blade, so saving £250 + with a startech makes sense to me also.

I use this in mines. No problem in moths.

Disipador de calor de aluminio, disipador de calor de refrigeración, almohadillas térmicas para M.2 2021 PCI-E NVME SSD, novedad de 2280 - AliExpress 7

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

es.aliexpress.com

 

[macsoundsolutions]

I have the same one, similar speeds. So happy with it.

It has to be in PCIe slot ##2 in the 5,1 to get those speeds right? My RX700XT eats into slot two so I can't use it. Only slot 3 is available and its a 4X slot. I have a Titan Ridge in Slot 4.