$99 was when no one had stock of the PX1, seems the production is equal to the demand now and for maybe two or three months you can get Angelbird Wings from eBay sellers at around $45.
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MP All Models PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI
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PX1 is $60 at B&H right now, don’t know where you’re seeing $100 retail:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1215140-REG/angelbird_wpx1_fwkf_wings_px1_pcie_x4.html
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1215140-REG/angelbird_wpx1_fwkf_wings_px1_pcie_x4.html
I noticed it too on Amazon-there was a rush on supply (probably due to the popularity you guys work in spreading the good work of the NVMe upgrade, LOL) and prices got crazy for a week or so. Has anyone tried any of the risers with heatsinks?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Computer-Interface-Adapter-Expansion-Card-Led-M-2-NVMe-SSD-NGFF-To-PCIE-3-0-X16/123479883806?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
I much prefer the Angelwings design of passively using the forced air of the PCIe Fan to cool it, but this might get me operational until I can afford it-a second Lycom was my other thought.
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Not anymore. My post from last month:
My transaction, slow as it was, worked out well. The price from US suppliers has dropped. Amazon and Newegg carry the card.
Lou
No boot delay when it's pre-selected as the Startup Disk in Settings-and the Angelbirds advantage is in their heatsink design for heavily loaded drives (like large file I/O transfers or constant access like creative editing). My DT-120 w/ SM951 sits around 50 deg C which is just an OS drive-and I haven't notice any thermal throttling. If you are operating from and working on the same NVMe drive-the Angelbirds would be more likely to handle any heat generated better by sustained workloads.
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That's great, thanks. The PCIe bay on MPs is pretty well ventilated and if there were ever any throttling, I expect a heatsink could be stuck on the M.2 stick for a few quid.
One other thing - can the Bootcamp panel (version 6, for the iMac Pro) see macOS OK when it's on a PCIe drive, in order to boot back into it? I expect so, but details like this can be dealbreakers. Bootcamp itself I'd keep on a SATA drive in a drive bay.
One other thing - can the Bootcamp panel (version 6, for the iMac Pro) see macOS OK when it's on a PCIe drive, in order to boot back into it? I expect so, but details like this can be dealbreakers. Bootcamp itself I'd keep on a SATA drive in a drive bay.
I tend to keep my Startup disk on High Sierra and use bootscreen to move between due to those same concerns (also Mojave was booting slowly cause of web-drivers not available yet/swapping for macOS)-but the few times I've used it in recent drive migrations I believe it was working. When I had Mojave installed it would sometimes bounce between HS and Mojave though on where the switch would land when selecting Reboot to OSX (it "preferred" HS when both drives were present in the machine). I've not specifically installed the iMac Pro's BC package though either-just most recent BC drivers in Apple Update in Win10.
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You need heatsink with NVMe drives, a 970PRO/EVO dissipate a lot more heat than a SM951 or other drives from the same generation. Don't use a recent NVMe drive without a heatsink, you will get thermal throttling just using normally.
Would the 970 EVO be worth the extra money on a cMP, compared to a second hand SM951 or similar? Given the limits of PCIe 2.0.
SM951, even used, is costlier than a 970EVO. A 970EVO is faster at 4K transfers than a SM951, even a SM951-NVMe.
Forget total throughput, you rarely if ever need that. Look at 4K transfers and latency, it's what you will notice and use most. 4K transfers are not limited into a Mac Pro.
Is the 970 EVO the current sweet spot for price / performance?
Also, NVMe drives are typically put on PC motherboards (even the back). If using an AIO cooler, there may not even be much direct airflow. Are these modern drives regularly throttling then? Seems strange they don't include heatsinks, for use in desktops.
Also, NVMe drives are typically put on PC motherboards (even the back). If using an AIO cooler, there may not even be much direct airflow. Are these modern drives regularly throttling then? Seems strange they don't include heatsinks, for use in desktops.
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I went with EVO 970 because all my SATA SSDs are Samsung and they've performed very well over the years. Had 840, 850 and 860 models in my Mac Pro at any time. The 1TB model was on sale when I purchased, so really made the decision easy. (Samsung also makes/made many of Apple's factory supplied units.)
Crucial P1 may be the cheapest 500GB and 1TB models out there right now, with the Intel 660P a close second. Unsure if they both work with Mac Pro and never really looked into them seriously. Check the published table/notes for compatibility.
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That is why the PX1 adapter is a good deal - it includes the thermal pads and heatsink. At $60 for a brand new unit. I personally don't want to mess around with the system drive. Saving $20-25 on an adapter was not on the top of my priority list for this purpose. I'm glad other units work and people report success, but many of them do need heatsinks added. (Not sure if everyone is aware of that.)
sorry for the late reply, I been super extra busy, let me see how can I put into words with my broken down spanglish, lol
ok I ran a benchmark with all 8 drives but it seems like I'm hitting the ceiling between the 5 and 6th drive
but I'm sure is just that I don't have the new or latest kexts drivers for that card, they haven't come out yet
because I go over 20,000 in windows and I do have the app and drivers for windows 10
also I'm using disk utility to create the raid and not high point app that let me chooses a higher stripe size than disk utility
but in order for me to use that app I need the new drivers, the app and the drivers has not been release yet
I don't think that there is a limitation on Mac OS or Mac OS file system, HFS+ or APFS
I know that windows NTFS has a limitation of 2 gb in copy paste operation which it makes using theses drives in raid0 totally useless
for windows you can simply use 2 drives in standard non raid mode and copy paste from one drive to the other
the only advantage that you might have is faster read speed but many of those apps don't even take advantage of the extra speed, most apps goes as fast as a single SSD drive, but I'm sure things will get bit faster in the future
anyway I just wanted to share that
here is a benchmark test with just 6 drives because adding 7 or 8 didn't made any difference in writing speed in Mac OS
but this is only for the reason that I already explained, I have a i9 7960x CPU so I'm sure is not a CPU bottleneck
I also overclocked the CPU just to verified that possibility and still had the same results
I hit copy one second earlier but it also finished one second earlier so that is a minute
check this out, this is with 6 drives in raid0
I'm sure it will go higher or faster once high point releases the app and the driver
https://mega.nz/#!8zARGazY!qJR20uHL_14YnjTDzhPQgV0Mpv3SY6kzo2Rr0ec61dM
this is just with one card and 4 drives in raid0
I know is the old version of Aja and not the latest, I will download the latest later
when highpoint releases the kexts and app for SSD7102 then I will try with all 8 drives to see if the speed increased
ok I ran a benchmark with all 8 drives but it seems like I'm hitting the ceiling between the 5 and 6th drive
but I'm sure is just that I don't have the new or latest kexts drivers for that card, they haven't come out yet
because I go over 20,000 in windows and I do have the app and drivers for windows 10
also I'm using disk utility to create the raid and not high point app that let me chooses a higher stripe size than disk utility
but in order for me to use that app I need the new drivers, the app and the drivers has not been release yet
I don't think that there is a limitation on Mac OS or Mac OS file system, HFS+ or APFS
I know that windows NTFS has a limitation of 2 gb in copy paste operation which it makes using theses drives in raid0 totally useless
for windows you can simply use 2 drives in standard non raid mode and copy paste from one drive to the other
the only advantage that you might have is faster read speed but many of those apps don't even take advantage of the extra speed, most apps goes as fast as a single SSD drive, but I'm sure things will get bit faster in the future
anyway I just wanted to share that
here is a benchmark test with just 6 drives because adding 7 or 8 didn't made any difference in writing speed in Mac OS
but this is only for the reason that I already explained, I have a i9 7960x CPU so I'm sure is not a CPU bottleneck
I also overclocked the CPU just to verified that possibility and still had the same results
I hit copy one second earlier but it also finished one second earlier so that is a minute
check this out, this is with 6 drives in raid0
I'm sure it will go higher or faster once high point releases the app and the driver
https://mega.nz/#!8zARGazY!qJR20uHL_14YnjTDzhPQgV0Mpv3SY6kzo2Rr0ec61dM
this is just with one card and 4 drives in raid0
I know is the old version of Aja and not the latest, I will download the latest later
when highpoint releases the kexts and app for SSD7102 then I will try with all 8 drives to see if the speed increased
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Yeah, I've had the 830, 840 and 850 (all EVO) too, and they've all been fine (after they fixed the 840's firmware at least).
The PX1 is quite pricey in the UK (£60 on Amazon); others have mentioned the kyroM.2 (£44.50 on Amazon) and seem pleased with it. Shame its heatsink fins are perpendicular to the airflow, but doubt it makes much difference in practice.
These all seem a bit overpriced though, for a passive adapter. I suspect something like this would do fine: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adwits-Exp...=merchant-items&ie=UTF8&qid=1547567055&sr=1-2, or perhaps this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07JW7CZ3L/ref=psdc_949408031_t4_B07H32HPJ7
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I ordered a similar one to the riser-type from China for a few US dollars just to take a look at it-but it's likely only going to hit 20 Gbps due to no apparent switch. The 32 Gbps is probably referring to PCIe 3.0 host speeds.
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Hi Reindeer, got a link? Did it arrive yet?
I'm not interested in PLX-equipped boards anyway, as they all seem to cost £200+. Also, the 4K small-file stuff typical of most workloads is all in the 100MB/s region for all SSDs. Crystalmark benches only show the 970 EVO as being about 1.5x faster than my 850 EVO in this regard, so I'm in two minds whether I'll see much difference over a SATA II drive tbh. Though may get one anyway for the extra SSD capacity.
Literally, just ordered it just a shot in the dark on some questionably marketed equipment, LOL, since NVMe's are natively only x4. It's the same one I asked about:
But as you can see-my plan is to eventually get to the PX1, so if you can start there you'd be sitting nice, IMO. (Since I'm not expecting full 32Gbps throughput with this, but will be pleasantly surprised if it does somehow like parallel channels?!).
And as far as speeds go-you will notice a difference more in file handling of 1GB+ file much more easily.
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Stop dreaming.
A PCIe 2.0 slot has 500MB/s per lane. A 4 lane device have 2000MB/s before overhead, so a PCIe 3.0 4x SSD installed into a PCIe 2.0 4x or 16x slot only have 1500MB/s available. Don't matter if you install a SSD into a 16 lanes slot, it continues to use only 4 lanes since it's a 4x device.
Only PCIe 3.0 switches can combine the bandwidth of the 16 lanes from slot 1 or 2 into total bandwidth and overcome the 1500MB/s offering a PCIe 3.0 4x connection to one or more SSDs. Bandwidth can't be created, but can be rearranged and that's the switch work and why we get more than 1500MB/s when using a PCIe 3.0 switch.
I'm not dreaming. I explained that it's not going to reach anything beyond PCIe 2.0 x4-but only that if somehow there is something not stated due to the language barrier (like a switch, but why would a single NVMe have one?, and so cheap? not likely). I understand that theres a 99% chance that it's only referring to PCIe 3.0 x4 throughput speeds which doesn't apply to genuine Mac Pro 5,1, and why it's a complete shot in the dark that it's anything other than a simple pass-through x4 20 Gbps card-just as we had spoke about prior. It's worth the $4 US dollars to find out, IMO-and why I'm doing it. Don't anyone else waste your money-it might not even register in the system.
He said he doesn't want a PLX switch-I don't have this item yet to determine what it's throughput is truly, but if I was a gambling man I'd say PCIe 2.0 x4 or 20 Gbps if its not DOA when it gets here.
Not trying to step on your toes-trying to prevent you from having to answer every question twice. Again, he doesn't want a switch card, and your point is understood by me.
EDIT- Found the same design at Newegg on-sale and shipping from the US, with all specs confirmed by a seller and it is a simple pass through but advertised to work with our cMP's:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6V87HX5336&Description=pcie expansion&cm_re=pcie_expansion-_-9SIA6V87HX5336-_-Product
I much prefer the PX1's heatsink-its superior, but I'd much rather come back to upgrading it later once I have a better GPU to push it and then use this to replace my Lyman for the heatsink capability.
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hi not sure what you guys are trying to accomplish but i can say that i tested silverstone ecm21 with mac os high sierra, mojave and windows 10 and is bootable and doesn’t requires any drivers, 100% plug and play and it works OOTB, i tested 960 evo and 970 pro and it works just fine, also the card is only like 20 dollars, so is a good price, hope this helps, of course to archive maximum speed or performance you need a pci-e 3.0 port but it will also works on a pci-e 2.0 port but at lower speeds, only if the drive that you buy can saturate a pci-e 2.0 port, most newest or latest nmve drives can easily saturate a pci-e 2.0 slot, but you can run a sata m.2 at full speed because is slower than a nvme drive and it won’t saturate a pci-e 2.0 slot
but a nmve drive is a bit too much for a pci-e 2.0 slot and is better to use a pci-e 3.0 slot, if you are going to use a nvme drive, you can also use a nvme drive on a pci-e slot 2.0 but you won’t be able to reach the maximun speed that the drive has to offer simply because the pci-e 2.0 will bottleneck the nvme drive
but a nmve drive is a bit too much for a pci-e 2.0 slot and is better to use a pci-e 3.0 slot, if you are going to use a nvme drive, you can also use a nvme drive on a pci-e slot 2.0 but you won’t be able to reach the maximun speed that the drive has to offer simply because the pci-e 2.0 will bottleneck the nvme drive
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I figured you had a custom build with the speeds you posted earlier when you said it was one card! LOL
I'm just trying to find the cheapest switch card that gets me to 32 Gbps-single NVMe would be awesome, and why I'm the dreamer. Which I most certainly am-I can't deny it.
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yes i have a hackintosh
i said only with one card because i had both cards on raid0 using all 8 drives getting almost 22 gb on read speed and almost 20 gb on write speed, but that was in windows then later i started using one card for mac and another card for windows untill high point releases the kexts drivers for that card, so then i can go back to use all 8 drives and both cards but in mac os because i don’t like windows, but i can’t get the maximum speed of both cards on mac os because i still don’t have the app for it on mac os
once i get the driver and the app
most likely i can go up to 500 gigs per minute with all 8 drives and both cards working at maximum speed
can’t wait for highpoint, they told me in in the first quarter of 2019
regards
note
for nvme drives the ecm21 is recomended but for sata m.2 drives then the person needs to buy the ecm20 model which offer support for both, sata m.2 and nmve m.2
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To hammer this home, my current temps are:
SM951 AHCI in a PX1 - 107.6° F
970Pro in a I/O Crest - 114.8° F
The temp Range for the SM951 is 32° F to 158° F and for the 970Pro it's 41°F to 177.8° F
Lou
Hi Lou, does the I/O Crest card have a heatsink? Do you consider a peak of 177°F / 80°C hot for NAND chips / controllers in any case? It's a bit toasty, but wouldn't be too worrisome if we were talking about a CPU or GPU, for example.
41°F is just 5°C though, which seems very unlikely for a machine that's indoors and turned on. Something more like 86°F / 30°C sounds reasonable there, surely?
From my point of view, the cheap card with the heatsink that myself / Reindeer linked to is certainly a 4x card, just using the 16x slot for mechanical support. The point though is that I can do without the LEDs and 400% markup; something that simply routes the SSD traces to the PCIe slot and includes *any* heatsink is likely more than adequate (unless the build quality is very poor).
41°F is just 5°C though, which seems very unlikely for a machine that's indoors and turned on. Something more like 86°F / 30°C sounds reasonable there, surely?
From my point of view, the cheap card with the heatsink that myself / Reindeer linked to is certainly a 4x card, just using the 16x slot for mechanical support. The point though is that I can do without the LEDs and 400% markup; something that simply routes the SSD traces to the PCIe slot and includes *any* heatsink is likely more than adequate (unless the build quality is very poor).