MP All Models PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI

[mrkapqa]

@w1z thank you for the suggestion, i am considering a purchase, but since the drives in question cost here in europe atm around double the samsung drives, i do doubt that the performance boost is that big it would still make sense to choose it over the 970 evo pluses, for non-professional users.
a bit longer boot-delay is not an issue for me, what counts is reliability and performance for every day use-tasks.

would these P31 Gold drives also help when using Mojave?

i understand, that whenever i would buy a Lycom DT-130 and populate both drive slots on the card with a two fast NVME then i could get around 2750 for read/write, whenever i would boot into one of those disks, which would be really a nice bump, since atm i am only at around AHCI pcie speeds for the BigSUR and SATA III speeds for the Mojave disk (since on a Sonnet Tempo Pro) .

EDIT: planning also eventually to buy a Parallels Pro perpetual license; was it difficult to adapt the virtual disk for use with 4KN use?
best of wishes.

 

[kinless]

Go with a P31 Gold or P41 Platinum Sk Hynix blade, convert the drive to use 4Kn LBA sector then either do a clean install and migrate or clone (I did a clean install). I've used the referenced Samsung drives, top of the line models, but have reassigned them as time machine backup and scratch drives because of 20+ second boot delay and lack of 4Kn. Currently using the P41 Platinum 2TB as my primary drive and I wish I had bought it earlier, night and day difference.

4Kn format, which Apple uses with their drives, will provide you a noticeable bump in random read/write speeds and you'll notice this when booting into macOS, loading apps, opening the Applications and other heavily populated folders and having the apps' or files' icons fully loaded before scrolling... Overall, you'll have a snappy experience with macOS.

This also applies to virtual machines with a bit of undocumented virtual disk tweaking (I'm using Parallels for Mac Pro) as most if not all virtualization software use 512 LBA sector format with no option to create 4Kn virtual drives.

With non-Samsung drives, you won't experience the prolonged boot delay when booting into macOS. Windows is not impacted.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Initially I ordered the Sabrent Rocket 2TB which is in hand, except that was before I came across an article warning about sudden failures after some months and shoddy customer support which is corroborated by a number of angry commenters, so that makes me super apprehensive about using it and left it unopened.

Don’t know how I didn’t come across your post before, so I‘ll probably return the Sabrent and go for the P31 Gold 2TB instead. Reviews look admirable and no long-term red flags have surfaced. This would be used as a 5,1 boot drive for Monterey via OCLP. I wanted something that ticked all the boxes (2TB, 4Kn support, no boot delay) so this blade sounds perfect. OWC Accelsior 1M2 card will be driving it.

 

[mrkapqa]

Hello , I noticed one issue on My Mac Today, hope this is the right place to post:

1. BiG Sur is installed on NVME 970 Evo Plus on an no/name PciE Adapter.
it was installed via OCLP USB Stick, but OpenCore runs on Martin LO.

The issue is, the Mac would go to sleep, but not properly, eg. it would darken the displays, but still consume around 230+Watt.

Is this a common issue with NVME or do I have a faulty setup with BigSur and OpenCore?

on the same Mac, a Mojave Disk on Sata SSD, lets the Mac get properly to sleep, where it consumes 80+ Watts (other devices are connected).


Thanks for the help.

 

[hwojtek]

There is no NVMEfix.kext in Martin's package, so you might have just answered your own question...

 

[mrkapqa]

@hwojtek thanks for the heads up,
but i am thinking the OCLP USB install in combo with Martin LO Package messed it;
a Dosdude1 Catalina replaced the BigSur, and good to go. Now the computer is able to rest as it should again;
also, VMWare Fusion is still compatible with the MacPro5,1 on Catalina, so hope to be settled for a while.

 

[radug]

Has anyone tested one of these in a mac pro 5,1 ? I imagine they work fine, at pcie 2.0 speeds ?
(and they come in 4TB as well )

Western Digital WD Black AN1500 1TB RGB NVMe PCIe 3.0​

Realise I'm reviving an old message, but for anyone else wondering (or googling/searching like I did) if the WD_Black AN1500 works in a cMP 5,1 the answer is yes.

Installed it after the required firmware upgrade (included by @tsialex as part of the BootROM reconstruction, highly recommend his service!) and it worked directly out of the box. Installed macOS High Sierra on it from a USB installer, it picked it up as a valid destination no issue (formatted as APFS).

Why did I buy it?​

Found a deal on Amazon.de for an almost-brand new (returned purchase) 1TB one for just €110 (August 2023).
For comparison, a Samsung/Crucial 1TB are around 90-ish new, then add another 30 for a PCIe-NVMe adaptor and it comes out to same price.
Was wondering (due to its original high price) if it might have a similar controller to the Highpoint cards people recommend (around €450) that can go beyond 1500MB/s but didn't do research on it and turns out that's not the case.

Benchmarks​

I've tested it in all 3 PCIe slots above the GPU and it worked in all of them, no difference in performance.
Here's some benchmark images for the curious :

And the drive info :

 

[mrkapqa]

hello , i have one question please,

installed the OpenCore first on a HDD (M. Lo package 0.9.4) , and then installed just plain Monterey via USB stick, no OCLP, no root fixes afterwards, everything seems just fine, but now the NVME reports being installed with "x2 lane" and i am getting only half the expected speeds.

sorry for disturbing

 

[Macschrauber]

hello , i have one question please,

installed the OpenCore first on a HDD (M. Lo package 0.9.4) , and then installed just plain Monterey via USB stick, no OCLP, no root fixes afterwards, everything seems just fine, but now the NVME reports being installed with "x2 lane" and i am getting only half the expected speeds.

View attachment 2256354View attachment 2256355

sorry for disturbing

Whats your firmware Version? Guess you miss the Update where it sets the PCIe Bus to 4x.

 

[tsialex]

Whats your firmware Version? Guess you miss the Update where it sets the PCIe Bus to 4x.

Seems you are mistaking the PCIe defaulting to PCIe v1.0 with all non Apple cards before 138.0.0.0.0 with the lane quantity. It´s something else, like a bad adapter card, since all 4 lanes are configured correctly for all firmware releases.

Btw, if installed to the slots 3 and 4, even MP51 firmwares correctly configure PCIe v2.0 to all cards becouse of the backplane PCIe switch, the issue was always with PCIe slots 1 and 2.

 

[mrkapqa]

thank you,
the card did previously function fine, with speeds reporting to pcie 2.0 throughputs for x4 lane (on slot 4), around 1450 read and write.

so my guess is, that by just installing monterey "plain" i am missing some nvme fix or something?
or maybe, as tsialex suggest, the adapter went bad?

could it be, since previously on the same NVME, had Big Sur via OCLP installed, that the EFI on NVME persisted (did not get deleted) when i formatted the partition afterwards for plain install of Monterey, and is causing now conflict with martin LO package OpenCore settings hence messing up NVME pcie link width (x2 instead of x4) ?

 

[mrkapqa]

Whats your firmware Version? Guess you miss the Update where it sets the PCIe Bus to 4x.

System Firmware Version: 9144.0.9.3.0

 

[Macschrauber]

System Firmware Version: 9144.0.9.3.0

that's the spoofed version. Read it either with a supported system or with the Dumper (link in my signature).

 

[mrkapqa]

¬macschrauber, thanks, may look into it later, seems complicated.

put the nvme adapter+drive into a proper mp5,1, after previously applying OCLP
it shows there another System Firmware Version

System Firmware Version: 9999.999.999.999.999


but now the proper link width is negotiated, x4, with proper speeds.

am i right then in assuming that with Martin Lo 0.9.4 only i am missing NVME something on my OpenCore configuration? The other MacPro is a 4,1 to 5,1 and functioning well otherwise.

Sorry for hijacking.

 

[mrkapqa]

ok, problem solved, maybe the x2 width link was due to unproper seating of the card,
after re-inserting it into the macpro4,1/5,1 it was first not recognized, after reseating the card, now everything seems function just fine, the proper speeds, and sleep works also.
now i have 2 efi at bootpicker (probably Martin Lo version + OCLP version), but with either of them getting the x4 link width. my apologies, so long, case closed.

 

[Espionage724]

For some reason, there is zero information online about whether the SK Hynix P31 Gold NVMe drives comes factory default with 512 emulation or 4K native sector format. Not on their website, in the PDF Manual for their Drive Manager utility, nor in their Product Brief.

I only found one post on overclock.net that may indicate the factory default is 4K native as the user got a "mismatched sector size from 512 to 4096" error message when attempting to clone to their new 1TB SK Hynix P31 Gold using Macrium Reflect in Windows.

Either way, there is one blog post I found which confirms the SK Hynix P31 Gold NVMe does indeed support 4K native sector format, though the performance is only marginally better than 512e, in Windows 10 at least.

I was searching around earlier and saw this post linking to my blog, but that post no longer exists. The Hynix P31 1TB I bought new on Amazon came with LBA mode 0 (512) out-the-box.

I didn't notice a difference in any OS (W10, W11, Linux ext4, F2FS, and XFS) speed-wise between 512 and 4K modes. I ran into issues with some software and 4k sectors on Windows and keep 512 there, and switch between 512 and 4K on Linux just to see if I can notice anything. I keep some brief notes on my drive-wipe wiki page.

I don't know how it relates to macOS, but I noticed on an ASUS PRIME-X470 motherboard that if that P31 was in LBA 1 (4k) mode, it wouldn't show up in the BIOS under legacy.

 

[kinless]

I was searching around earlier and saw this post linking to my blog, but that post no longer exists. The Hynix P31 1TB I bought new on Amazon came with LBA mode 0 (512) out-the-box.

I didn't notice a difference in any OS (W10, W11, Linux ext4, F2FS, and XFS) speed-wise between 512 and 4K modes. I ran into issues with some software and 4k sectors on Windows and keep 512 there, and switch between 512 and 4K on Linux just to see if I can notice anything. I keep some brief notes on my drive-wipe wiki page.

I don't know how it relates to macOS, but I noticed on an ASUS PRIME-X470 motherboard that if that P31 was in LBA 1 (4k) mode, it wouldn't show up in the BIOS under legacy.

Thanks for your post and all the various reference links. I have the P31 Gold 2TB in hand and am prepping to clean install Monterey this weekend (no data cloning or anything like that). From the SK Hynix website it looks like there’s no firmware update for the 2TB (only 512MB and 1TB) so assuming it’s shipped with the latest.

I’m pretty new getting into the weeds of NVMe formatting, but it sounds like Monterey is recent enough to not worry about 4Kn compatibility issues. I have yet to determine if the drive is in 4k mode, which from the wiki looks like can be checked and changed in native Windows 10 via command line. I may occasionally run some older VMs (Win 7, XP), but I assume sector compatibility will be handled at the application level by VMWare Fusion. Not sure if anyone can confirm, or if it’s better to leave those on a 512-sectored drive.

 

[amarmot]

Hey, does anyone here understand why PCIe expansion cards for Mac Pro 5,1 (OWC Accelsior 4M2) with 4 blades are limited to 8x lanes (2 lanes per blade)? The 1M2, which has 1 blade, uses 4 lanes (4 lanes per blade).

 

[tsialex]

Hey, does anyone here understand why PCIe expansion cards for Mac Pro 5,1 (OWC Accelsior 4M2) with 4 blades are limited to 8x lanes (2 lanes per blade)? The 1M2, which has 1 blade, uses 4 lanes (4 lanes per blade).

PCIe switch choice, most low cost adapters have a PCIe switch upstream of 8x only, like the ASMedia ASM2824. Even with the ASM2824, each blade gets 4x lanes, since there are enough downstream lanes.

 

[amarmot]

So it's just a matter of cost? Or are there a technical reason that there are no chips with 16 lanes upstream?

 

[tsialex]

So it's just a matter of cost? Or are there a technical reason that there are no chips with 16 lanes upstream?

There are several that have and work with a Mac Pro, just look at the Top Performance section of this thread first post.

 

[amarmot]

Thanks! Very helpful. I see that Highpoint now produces this: "Highpoint Rocket 1104 4-Port PCIe Gen3 x16 M.2 NVMe Controller with Silent Cooling (Broadcom PEX8747) - Windows/Linux/macOS/VMWare Compatible, No-Bifurcation Required" Any word on this for the Mac Pro 5,1?

 

[mrkapqa]

hello ,

the lycom dt-130 is offering bit good speed bump was hoping for,

however got also early on a shutdown due to sleep/wake issue.


maybe someone more professional here can read the log and find the error (could be related to opencore) since i am using opencore + bigsur (officilìly nonsuporrted on 5,1)


thank you very much.

Ubuntu Pastebin

pastebin.ubuntu.com

 

[MrScratchHook]

hello ,

the lycom dt-130 is offering bit good speed bump was hoping for,

however got also early on a shutdown due to sleep/wake issue.


maybe someone more professional here can read the log and find the error (could be related to opencore) since i am using opencore + bigsur (officilìly nonsuporrted on 5,1)


thank you very much.

Ubuntu Pastebin

pastebin.ubuntu.com

sleep is very broken with opencore, i didnt see where you mention which mac you have, but opencore doesnt help sleep issues..the mac pro is notorious for sleep problems

 

[mrkapqa]

sleep is very broken with opencore, i didnt see where you mention which mac you have, but opencore doesnt help sleep issues..the mac pro is notorious for sleep problems

i dont know if it is related to OpenCore , since the Operating System is MacOS BigSur and i noticed there is no no slider available in energy options any longer for putting Computer to Sleep at certain time interval; surely this has to be an "apple" innovation, somehow;

sleep functions otherwise, when i press "sleep" button in "Apple Menu", but the computer would not go to sleep if left on its own (OpenCore + BigSur), and it is a Mac Pro 4,1 FWed 5,1.

 

[MrScratchHook]

i dont know if it is related to OpenCore , since the Operating System is MacOS BigSur and i noticed there is no no slider available in energy options any longer for putting Computer to Sleep at certain time interval; surely this has to be an "apple" innovation, somehow;

sleep functions otherwise, when i press "sleep" button in "Apple Menu", but the computer would not go to sleep if left on its own (OpenCore + BigSur), and it is a Mac Pro 4,1 FWed 5,1.

View attachment 2270450

i believe you need to have all the boxes checked to have the slider option enabled. once enabled turn slider to never and uncheck everything again