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MP All Models PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
mattspace said:
Looks like Bombich has checked out of the bootable clone option - though Superduper! still lists it as viable.



Only problem is you can't control which screen it goes to, and it shows up sideways on one of my portrait displays 😅.



Or go to something that's more standard and a little less black-box. APFS seems to bring a lot of the complications of modern filesystems, without some of the best features (eg bitrot protection, last i checked).
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I'll have a look at SuperDuper. It used to be my go to back in the day. They did give a reason for it, something about Apple changing the architecture.
I only have one screen usually so I should be sorted on the verbose front.
Unfortunately. APFS is here to stay. Id have to assume that on balance it must be better than HFS.
 
mattspace said:
Looks like Bombich has checked out of the bootable clone option - though Superduper! still lists it as viable.
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I'm still using CCC to make clones. I last used it to clone Sonoma 14.3 - worked like a champ👍🏻 I abandoned Super Duper a couple of years ago, when it could not make clones and Shirt Pocket didn't seem to give a darn about it. CCC is now my GoTo cloning tool.

Lou
 
flowrider said:
I'm still using CCC to make clones. I last used it to clone Sonoma 14.3 - worked like a champ👍🏻 I abandoned Super Duper a couple of years ago, when it could not make clones and Shirt Pocket didn't seem to give a darn about it. CCC is now my GoTo cloning tool.

Lou
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Is that for a proper legacy bootable clone?
 
I bought this single-blade PCIe 3.0 X16 card hoping to get close to 2700MB/s read/write speeds utilizing slot 2 on my cMP 5,1, but my Samsung 970 EVO+ is only getting ~1500MB/s. Same drive on a PCIe 3.0 x4 card in slot 4 was already giving ~1500MB/s. I must be misunderstanding something because I thought a PCI 3.0 x16 card in slot 2 would do better than that. Any insight would be appreciated.

PCI-NVME3x16.png
 
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bwm1974 said:
I bought this single-blade PCIe 3.0 X16 card hoping to get close to 2700MB/s read/write speeds utilizing slot 2 on my cMP 5,1, but my Samsung 970 EVO+ is only getting ~1500MB/s. Same drive on a PCIe 3.0 x4 card in slot 4 was already giving ~1500MB/s. I must be misunderstanding something because I thought a PCI 3.0 x16 card in slot 2 would do better than that. Any insight would be appreciated.

View attachment 2354930
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M.2 blades are x4, the other 12 lines are connected to nothing.
 
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bwm1974 said:
Thanks for the fast reply. So, for example, would the Samsung 970 EVO+ still only give ~1500 r/w on something like this Highpoint Rocket 1104F ?
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Read the first post in this thread. The "PCIe x8 & x16 switch cards" section discusses how a PCIe bridge chip (such as the PEX8747 of the Highpoint Rocket 1104F) can connect one or more fast and narrow devices (such as a 8 GT/s x4 Samsung 970 EVO+) to a slow and wide slot (such as the 5 GT/s x16 slot of a Mac Pro). The NVMe device can work as PCIe 3.0 8 GT/s x4 without loosing performance because of the PCIe bridge chip. Without a PCIe bridge chip, the device cannot exceed the PCIe 2.0 5 GT/s link rate per lane of the PCIe slot.
 
joevt said:
Read the first post in this thread. The "PCIe x8 & x16 switch cards" section discusses how a PCIe bridge chip (such as the PEX8747 of the Highpoint Rocket 1104F) can connect one or more fast and narrow devices (such as a 8 GT/s x4 Samsung 970 EVO+) to a slow and wide slot (such as the 5 GT/s x16 slot of a Mac Pro). The NVMe device can work as PCIe 3.0 8 GT/s x4 without loosing performance because of the PCIe bridge chip. Without a PCIe bridge chip, the device cannot exceed the PCIe 2.0 5 GT/s link rate per lane of the PCIe slot.
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Thanks for the explanation. I had mistakenly assumed that a single blade PCIe 3.0 x16 would function with speeds comparable to x16 "switch" cards as I've only seen "switch" cards with multiple NVME slots. FWIW, I'm awaiting delivery of the Highpoint Rocket 1104F. I'll put the 970 EVO+ on it and 3 2tb Sabrent Rocket Q4's configured as RAID0. I'm hoping I'll get ~2700 r/w on the 970 and ~6000 on the RAID0 with the 1104F.
 
bwm1974 said:
Thanks for the explanation. I had mistakenly assumed that a single blade PCIe 3.0 x16 would function with speeds comparable to x16 "switch" cards as I've only seen "switch" cards with multiple NVME slots. FWIW, I'm awaiting delivery of the Highpoint Rocket 1104F. I'll put the 970 EVO+ on it and 3 2tb Sabrent Rocket Q4's configured as RAID0. I'm hoping I'll get ~2700 r/w on the 970 and ~6000 on the RAID0 with the 1104F.
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How about reading the first post here, this is discussed there in detail. Btw, you can't boot from a RAID since High Sierra, you can boot from one of the blades and use the others for an array.
 
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bwm1974 said:
I have and, as I explained, I misunderstood something. Obviously.
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i recently bought an

Ableconn PEXM2-130 Dual M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD Adapter Card - PCI Express 3.0 x8 / x16 Support 2X M.2 NGFF (M-Key) PCIe NVMe SSD for Mac & PC (ASMedia ASM2824 Switch) - PCIe NVMe​

i put my 970 evo 2 tb in and got 2500read/2700write, i upgraded from a lycom dt 120 which was giving me about 1400/1500 read and write with the same 970 evo. im not technical at all with the numerations of things but the lycom cost me $25 and the abelconn cost me $150
 
amarmot said:
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?
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mattspace said:
Can anyone clarify the status of Samsung 990 / 990 Pro
Are all the problem issues above specific to PCI 2, ie if you put them in a switched adapter (Looking at Highpoint Rocket 1104) on a PCI 3 slot (7,1) it's all hunky-dory?
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mattspace said:
I haven't bought the PCI adapter yet, but I'm looking at the highpoint Rocker 1104F, or 1104.
I wonder if the Wiki (which presents them in happy green text) should be updated to show this.
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I installed the 1104F yesterday in slot 2 on Mid-2010 Mac Pro 5,1. No issues so far after only 24 hrs uptime of light use. Samsung 970 Evo+ 2tb boot Sonoma 14.3 via OpenCore and 3 Sabrent Rocket Q4 2TB as RAID0. Read/ Write speeds as expected -- approx 3GB/s for the boot drive and approx 6 GB/s for the Raid0. I'd consider the fan on the card to be quiet. Sorry mattspace if this doesn't address your questions about 7,1 or Samsung 990, but wanted to include you since you mentioned this card.
 
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macpro 6,1 with WD SN750 2tb start problems

I have recently installed a WD SN750 2tb ssd into macpro 6,1
Successfully installed Monterey 12.7.3 then windows 10 on bootcamp partition.
Original apple ssd was running Monterey 12.7.3 before swapping

All was good for a short period including shutting down and restating.
Now when starting up I end up with the flashing folder with ? mark.
Starting using option key shows no mac or windows operating system
Starting disk utility from usb install shows no SSD at all. Same with disk utility with recovery mode

However if i start using reset PRAM, after the second chime Mac OS starts perfectly. I can select windows start up disk from system preferences and restart into windows.

But shutting down from either mac or windows the system will not restart nor is the ssd recognised in disk utility.
If WD SN750 is put into external enclosure it is recognised and can start into either mac or windows externally.

I am using sintech M.2 nVME ssd card adapter. I ordered 2 more to see if it was an issue with the adapter, but both the additional ones has the exactly the same problem.

Initially' some time ago' I had installed a samsung 980 pro 1 tb ssd in the same macpro 6,1 . No starting problems in either mac of windows bootcamp, but would not work well with Monterey but was ok with Catalina. But it was also not recognised in disk utility on usb. Swapped back to apple ssd to run Monterey

Updated OS to 12.7.4 on WD SN750. No change in issue

Has anyone come across this problem and is there a solution?
 
Kai5 said:
macpro 6,1 with WD SN750 2tb start problems

I have recently installed a WD SN750 2tb ssd into macpro 6,1
Successfully installed Monterey 12.7.3 then windows 10 on bootcamp partition.
Original apple ssd was running Monterey 12.7.3 before swapping

All was good for a short period including shutting down and restating.
Now when starting up I end up with the flashing folder with ? mark.
Starting using option key shows no mac or windows operating system
Starting disk utility from usb install shows no SSD at all. Same with disk utility with recovery mode

However if i start using reset PRAM, after the second chime Mac OS starts perfectly. I can select windows start up disk from system preferences and restart into windows.

But shutting down from either mac or windows the system will not restart nor is the ssd recognised in disk utility.
If WD SN750 is put into external enclosure it is recognised and can start into either mac or windows externally.

I am using sintech M.2 nVME ssd card adapter. I ordered 2 more to see if it was an issue with the adapter, but both the additional ones has the exactly the same problem.

Initially' some time ago' I had installed a samsung 980 pro 1 tb ssd in the same macpro 6,1 . No starting problems in either mac of windows bootcamp, but would not work well with Monterey but was ok with Catalina. But it was also not recognised in disk utility on usb. Swapped back to apple ssd to run Monterey

Updated OS to 12.7.4 on WD SN750. No change in issue

Has anyone come across this problem and is there a solution?
Click to expand...

Lot's of people reported issues with SN750 with MacPro5,1/6,1. First post should be edited and change the SN750 as one of the blades that have issues.

With WD blades, SN770 seems to works best with MacPro6,1, but not with MacPro5,1.
 
Kai5 said:
Hi
Can anyone confirm the the WD SN850x ssd will work in the Mac pro 6,1

It is more readily available and as far as I can find cheaper than the older WD SN750 ssd which is marked as good for compatibility. They both use DRAM while many of the other WD SN ssd´s mark as not comparable use HMB

Of the WD SN750 and the SN850x are there are slow boot times for Monterey or if the spinning beach all is encountered during the operation of Monterey

Thanks
Click to expand...
Yep, please see my post from last year: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread....2146725/page-140?post=32677918#post-32677918
 
Just want to chime in with another recommendation for the WD Black SN770 2TB. I purchased it after reading the guide and a few posts in this thread, but since the guide says "unknown" I figured more positive testimony was worthwhile.

I don't get anywhere near the rated 5150MB/s inside the trash can as expected. My read speed is a little over 1200 MB/s and my write speed varies between the 700's and 800's. Regardless, I'm quite happy with it and with the machine in general. As for temperature, it seems to live at around 40c while my GPUs are around 50 and my CPU reads in the low 60's.
 
The latest version of the Sonnet 4x4 M.2 PCIe card is passively cooled, but has a long portion of extra PC board extending beyond the end of the heat sink. Does anyone know what this is for? Or if it can just be cut off to shorten the board? In slot 2 of a Mac Pro 5,1, it blocks cooling of blower-style graphics cards (for seemingly no reason).
I learned today that the most recent version of this card no longer has this overhanging board. So... never mind!
 
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Reporting hardware failure of a Highpoint R1104 after 6 months in a Mac Pro 5,1 Slot 2. It is fast, but only has passive cooling, and ran very hot in my system.
 
amarmot said:
Reporting hardware failure of a Highpoint R1104 after 6 months in a Mac Pro 5,1 Slot 2. It is fast, but only has passive cooling, and ran very hot in my system.
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Yeah, the 1104 is really better suited to being used in the 7,1 where you have the full-case front to back airflow.

*edit* I sortof forgot about the PCI fan in the cMP, but I still suspect the solid slot cover on those cards is inherently problematic, whereas a lot of the Apple cards for the 7,1 have mesh slot-covers.
 
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amarmot said:
Reporting hardware failure of a Highpoint R1104 after 6 months in a Mac Pro 5,1 Slot 2. It is fast, but only has passive cooling, and ran very hot in my system.
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So one with this setup better rise the PCI Fan with a tool like MacsFanControl, maybe by the base of the blade temperature, if readable.
 
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