MP All Models PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI

[zedex]

Besides the MicroCenter $98 special, here are some other Phison E12 SSDs that will all perform about the same, all can currently be picked up with 1TB for $150 or less. The MicroCenter version is rated at a very high 1600 TBW (terabytes written) lifespan and comes with a three year warranty. Other vendors are rating them with similarly high TBW, and many like Sabrent are offering even longer 5 year warranties.

Silicon Power P34A80
Addlink S70
Sabrent Rocket
Corsair MP510
Patriot Viper VPN100
MyDigitalSSD BPX Pro

A big thanks to @atonaldenim for itemising the "high compatibility" purchasing options in the NVMe SSD space. I purchased the Sabrent Rocket (1TB) about 6 weeks ago and it is EXCEPTIONAL. This model is pre-formatted as 4Kn or 4096 bytes per sector. In my own opinion this makes the SABRENT ROCKET the best SSD choice at TWICE the price. Why? You can use it to host and boot macOS 10.12.6 or expressed another way your preferred release of macOS on NVMe is 3 not 2 (any disk pre-formated as 512Kb limits you to choosing between macOS 10.13 or macOS 10.14).

Hopefully others find this information useful - NVMe is a miracle but being boxed in to a choice between "High Sierra or Mojave" is an unwelcome proposition for many of us. As I see it - the most recent macOS releases for cMP owners started showing small problems (APFS as standard, minor hardware conflicts and general disdain for third-party KEXTs) in macOS 10.13 and far bigger and uglier problems plagued the 'new and improved' promise of macOS 10.14 (Mojave).

So just know this - you can have a super stable, relatively recent macOS running on your treasured work of art (the cMP!) with NVMe speeds. It happened for me in the form of a SABRENT ROCKET NVMe SSD - BUT perhaps just as important to know is that someone else out their has likely purchased one of the other drives in the list provided by the previous poster (atonaldenim) and I'm eager to know if any of these other brands are shipped in a default 4Kn LBA configuration..?

I can get the ball rolling straight away by confirming that the Toshiba XG5 works well in a cMP but DOES NOT come preconfigured in 4Kn (mine was 512b formatted).

Please add to this work and those of the OP (@MisterAndrew + @tsialex ) and identify every NVMe SSD option that is shipped in the 4Kn (4096 bytes per sector) disk format.

The SABRENTs are not easy to source for me in Australia - I would desperately love to know whether I have other options with NVMe purchasing - any help would be deeply appreciated (and of great interest to other forum members as well i think).

 

[atonaldenim]

A big thanks to @atonaldenim for itemising the "high compatibility" purchasing options in the NVMe SSD space. I purchased the Sabrent Rocket (1TB) about 6 weeks ago and it is EXCEPTIONAL. This model is pre-formatted as 4Kn or 4096 bytes per sector. In my own opinion this makes the SABRENT ROCKET the best SSD choice at TWICE the price. Why? You can use it to host and boot macOS 10.12.6 or expressed another way your preferred release of macOS on NVMe is 3 not 2 (any disk pre-formated as 512Kb limits you to choosing between macOS 10.13 or macOS 10.14).

Hopefully others find this information useful - NVMe is a miracle but being boxed in to a choice between "High Sierra or Mojave" is an unwelcome proposition for many of us. As I see it - the most recent macOS releases for cMP owners started showing small problems (APFS as standard, minor hardware conflicts and general disdain for third-party KEXTs) in macOS 10.13 and far bigger and uglier problems plagued the 'new and improved' promise of macOS 10.14 (Mojave).

So just know this - you can have a super stable, relatively recent macOS running on your treasured work of art (the cMP!) with NVMe speeds. It happened for me in the form of a SABRENT ROCKET NVMe SSD - BUT perhaps just as important to know is that someone else out their has likely purchased one of the other drives in the list provided by the previous poster (atonaldenim) and I'm eager to know if any of these other brands are shipped in a default 4Kn LBA configuration..?

I can get the ball rolling straight away by confirming that the Toshiba XG5 works well in a cMP but DOES NOT come preconfigured in 4Kn (mine was 512b formatted).

Please add to this work and those of the OP (@MisterAndrew + @tsialex ) and identify every NVMe SSD option that is shipped in the 4Kn (4096 bytes per sector) disk format.

The SABRENTs are not easy to source for me in Australia - I would desperately love to know whether I have other options with NVMe purchasing - any help would be deeply appreciated (and of great interest to other forum members as well i think).

That's interesting to hear @zedex about the 4K sectors on the Sabrent Rocket 1TB, I was considering that drive. I see some posts on Amazon and reddit that confirm what you're saying. Glad it's working well for you!

As far as the Inland Premium sector size, I'm not really sure how to tell. I ran a report in DriveDx and it seems to report 512B sectors, see attached screenshot. I'm guessing this wouldn't be a good option for you anyway as I don't think MicroCenter has great shipping options outside the USA.

EDIT: But diskutil info lists the device block size as 4096 bytes. So, I don't know quite what this means. 4K sectors with 512B emulation?

Cheers!

 

[Miscellaneous]

I’m not sure if this is the correct thread to ask this but where might I be able to find more information regarding the Apple Mac Pro (Late 2013) SSD PCIe Specification? I have been advised that the Apple Mac Pro only supports up to PCIe 2.0 x2?

I am planning to upgrade my internal storage using a Sintech-NGFF2013-C adapter and a Samsung 970 EVO NVME SSD.

Thanks!

 

[Earl Urley]

Make sure that whatever Phison E12-based solution you get has the ECFM 12.2 firmware on it.

The 12.1 firmware has issues with thermal throttling that are fixed in 12.2.

Link to that firmware is best found after doing a search, pretty sure someone posted it.

Was able to easily update it by putting the SSD in a USB-C to NVMe enclosure, hooking it up to a Win7 machine, and running the updater.

 

[crjackson2134]

Make sure that whatever Phison E12-based solution you get has the ECFM 12.2 firmware on it.

The 12.1 firmware has issues with thermal throttling that are fixed in 12.2.

Link to that firmware is best found after doing a search, pretty sure someone posted it.

Was able to easily update it by putting the SSD in a USB-C to NVMe enclosure, hooking it up to a Win7 machine, and running the updater.

I have the addlink s70 1TB NVMe that uses the the Phison E12 controller.. It has the 12.1 firmware as seen below. How would I proceed to flash this device with the 12.2 firmware revision? Any links leading to the needed flash utility and firmware update that works with this NVMe would be appreciated.

 

[Earl Urley]

Okay, here is the direct link, it's on a Japanese website:

here

BACK UP YOUR DATA if you have any on the SSD to be updated, this may be a destructive update. I've used this to update an Inland Premium and a Sabrent Rocket.

Updater worked for me on a Windows 7 machine, patched to recognize NVMe devices (Windows 10 will have this rolled in) Just this file is necessary, firmware is integrated into flasher.


Translation of the Japanese readme:

About PG2VN Firmware update tool
Required conditions for rewriting: Windows 10 environment
* Be careful about the execution *
Please run the Firmware update tool at your own risk.
If rewriting fails, it may not be recognized and may not be recovered / available.
--- Procedure ---
1. Please unzip the downloaded file.
2. Run the extracted executable file (.exe) with administrator privileges.
3. If Windows Protecter is protected, please click on the detailed information.
Then press the run button.
4. The user account control screen is displayed.
Allow apps from this unknown publisher to make changes to the device? When
It will come out, please press "Yes".
5. 5 files are created.
6. The firmware tool starts automatically as it is.
7. Press the Rescan button in the Device column.
The old firmware version SSD is displayed.
8. Make sure that the Function column is DLMC. (Do not press the RUN button at this time)
9. Make sure that the Action selector in the Parameter column is "activated at the next reset".
10. Press Run in the Function column.
11. Firmware will be updated.
12. When the Tool finishes writing the Firmware, you will be prompted to shut down and restart your PC.
Please shut down without closing the Tool window.
13. Turn off the PC, wait for a while and then restart it.
14. If successful, the Firmware version will be ECFM 12.2.


Obviously, if you run the updater and it shows you have ECFM 12.2 already, DON'T UPDATE.

 

[crjackson2134]

Okay, here is the direct link, it's on a Japanese website:

here

BACK UP YOUR DATA if you have any on the SSD to be updated, this may be a destructive update. I've used this to update an Inland Premium and a Sabrent Rocket.

Updater worked for me on a Windows 7 machine, patched to recognize NVMe devices (Windows 10 will have this rolled in) Just this file is necessary, firmware is integrated into flasher.


Translation of the Japanese readme:

About PG2VN Firmware update tool
Required conditions for rewriting: Windows 10 environment
* Be careful about the execution *
Please run the Firmware update tool at your own risk.
If rewriting fails, it may not be recognized and may not be recovered / available.
--- Procedure ---
1. Please unzip the downloaded file.
2. Run the extracted executable file (.exe) with administrator privileges.
3. If Windows Protecter is protected, please click on the detailed information.
Then press the run button.
4. The user account control screen is displayed.
Allow apps from this unknown publisher to make changes to the device? When
It will come out, please press "Yes".
5. 5 files are created.
6. The firmware tool starts automatically as it is.
7. Press the Rescan button in the Device column.
The old firmware version SSD is displayed.
8. Make sure that the Function column is DLMC. (Do not press the RUN button at this time)
9. Make sure that the Action selector in the Parameter column is "activated at the next reset".
10. Press Run in the Function column.
11. Firmware will be updated.
12. When the Tool finishes writing the Firmware, you will be prompted to shut down and restart your PC.
Please shut down without closing the Tool window.
13. Turn off the PC, wait for a while and then restart it.
14. If successful, the Firmware version will be ECFM 12.2.


Obviously, if you run the updater and it shows you have ECFM 12.2 already, DON'T UPDATE.

Thanks much... I'll boot into win10 and see what happens. It is a backup ssd so I don't care if data is destroyed. I have 3 more copies already....

 

[Earl Urley]

Even with the patch, you still need to be careful when doing copies of super large files unless you have some sort of cooling in place.

I run one in a rMBP with a thermal pad that makes contact with the bottom case of an rMBP, and I have another in a Mac Pro in a Lycom DT-120 with some Raspberry Pi sized thermal mini-heat sinks stuck on the controller chip only; there's some weird ancedotal evidence on YouTube that says the NAND runs better when warmer, but it's a second-hand nameless quote.

 

[crjackson2134]

Even with the patch, you still need to be careful when doing copies of super large files unless you have some sort of cooling in place.

I run one in a rMBP with a thermal pad that makes contact with the bottom case of an rMBP, and I have another in a Mac Pro in a Lycom DT-120 with some Raspberry Pi sized thermal mini-heat sinks stuck on the controller chip only; there's some weird ancedotal evidence on YouTube that says the NAND runs better when warmer, but it's a second-hand nameless quote.

It's mounted in a High Point SSD7101A with active cooling, so no problem there...

Wow! It happened so fast I thought something went wrong... Also, it was non-destructive in my case

 

[Earl Urley]

Well, that's just great! Glad it worked out for you!

 

[tsialex]

I’m not sure if this is the correct thread to ask this but where might I be able to find more information regarding the Apple Mac Pro (Late 2013) SSD PCIe Specification? I have been advised that the Apple Mac Pro only supports up to PCIe 2.0 x2?

I am planning to upgrade my internal storage using a Sintech-NGFF2013-C adapter and a Samsung 970 EVO NVME SSD.

Thanks!

MP6,1 have the same PCIe 2.0 as MP5,1.

The M.2 socket is PCIe 2.0 x4, what Apple call PCIe Gen2 2GB/s on the System Block Diagram, but since it shares bandwidth with the GPU and is behind a PCIe switch, you have a little less throughput than a PCIe 3.0 blade installed into the MP5,1 PCIe 2.0 x4 slots. So, it's less than the usual 1450MB/s of a MP5,1.

 

[flowrider]

As in earlier posts, I have an I/O crest card with 2 Samsung 970 Pro SSDs. Anyway I received my RX 580 today and was in the process of updating to Mojave, and things started getting wonke. I actually updated to Mojave last night, in anticipation of getting the card.

The install over High Sierra seemed to be going fine. But when I started to do work, I would get random crashes. I even got a large warning (½ the screen) saying my Adobe software was bogus, it is not. And when that screen appeared everything froze. Totally unusable. I erased the disk and tried to clone High Sierra back on from another SSD using SuperDuper. It failed 3 minutes in. Tried erasing the SSD again, this time no luck. Tried another SSD on the I/O Crest, same behavior. Both SDSDs can' t be bad?

I pulled the card out, and noticed the thermal pad for the chip mounted on the card had slipped off and slid down the board. I removed the pad and let it cool, then reapplied the pad over the chip. Everything went fine. I cloned HS again and installed Mojave over it, and all is well.

I have ordered some thermal tape and pads (1 mm) from Amazon. Hope I chose the correct thickness. When the pads come in, I plan on replacing the original pad.

Just posting in case this behavior happens to anyone else with an I/O Crest card.

Lou

 

[yukdave]

I don't remember anyone testing this blade.[/QUOTE]

My Mac Pro boots from a ($100 US) Crucial P1 1TB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD - CT1000P1SSD8 as my boot drive using a Kingshare Dual M.2 PCIe Adapter, M.2 NVME SSD (M Key) or M.2 SATA SSD (B Key) 2280 2260 2242 2230 to PCI-e 3.0 x4 in SLOT 4

Black Magic shows about 1490MB's Read/1490MB's Write
*Max Speed of the 4x PCIe 2.0 slot

Firmware: (144.0.0.0.0)
MAC OS: High Sierra 10.13.6
2009 Mac Pro 4,1/5,1 Dual X5690

 

[Miscellaneous]

MP6,1 have the same PCIe 2.0 as MP5,1.

The M.2 socket is PCIe 2.0 x4, what Apple call PCIe Gen2 2GB/s on the System Block Diagram, but since it shares bandwidth with the GPU and is behind a PCIe switch, you have a little less throughput than a PCIe 3.0 blade installed into the MP5,1 PCIe 2.0 x4 slots. So, it's less than the usual 1450MB/s of a MP5,1.

Hi tsialex!

Thanks for that, I received the Sintech ST-NGFF2013 adapter a few days ago. I’ve mistakenly ordered the short black adapter, i.e not the longer recommended “C” version.

However, I’ve installed it into my Mac Pro (Late 2013) 6,1 with a 1TB Samsung EVO 970 NVMe and Akasa M.2 heatsink.

BlackMagic Disk Speed Test is showing around 1400 MB/s Read & Write speeds.

It’s early days but everything is working great and have had zero issues so far.

Thanks Again Guys!

 

[Giovanni.ciaciara]

I don't remember anyone testing this blade.

My Mac Pro boots from a ($100 US) Crucial P1 1TB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD - CT1000P1SSD8 as my boot drive using a Kingshare Dual M.2 PCIe Adapter, M.2 NVME SSD (M Key) or M.2 SATA SSD (B Key) 2280 2260 2242 2230 to PCI-e 3.0 x4 in SLOT 4

Black Magic shows about 1490MB's Read/1490MB's Write
*Max Speed of the 4x PCIe 2.0 slot

Firmware: (144.0.0.0.0)
MAC OS: High Sierra 10.13.6
2009 Mac Pro 4,1/5,1 Dual X5690[/QUOTE]


Hi yukdave, informations for you m.2 configuration, is bootable with Mojave in Mac Pro 2012?
Thank's

 

[Socket]

Hello!
I need a minimum of 4 TB for my video editing works. At the moment, i don't need a startup disk...So, what is the better (and cheaper) solution (controller+ 2x2 TB SSD or 4x1 TB SSD?) to have these 4 TB on blade disks, and only one PCI slot?
I don't need >3000 speed, also 1500 is good enough for me, but I'm trying not to spend more than 500$. What are your suggestions? Thanks!

 

[Alexr13]

As in earlier posts, I have an I/O crest card with 2 Samsung 970 Pro SSDs. Anyway I received my RX 580 today and was in the process of updating to Mojave, and things started getting wonke. I actually updated to Mojave last night, in anticipation of getting the card.

The install over High Sierra seemed to be going fine. But when I started to do work, I would get random crashes. I even got a large warning (½ the screen) saying my Adobe software was bogus, it is not. And when that screen appeared everything froze. Totally unusable. I erased the disk and tried to clone High Sierra back on from another SSD using SuperDuper. It failed 3 minutes in. Tried erasing the SSD again, this time no luck. Tried another SSD on the I/O Crest, same behavior. Both SDSDs can' t be bad?

I pulled the card out, and noticed the thermal pad for the chip mounted on the card had slipped off and slid down the board. I removed the pad and let it cool, then reapplied the pad over the chip. Everything went fine. I cloned HS again and installed Mojave over it, and all is well.

I have ordered some thermal tape and pads (1 mm) from Amazon. Hope I chose the correct thickness. When the pads come in, I plan on replacing the original pad.

Just posting in case this behavior happens to anyone else with an I/O Crest card.

Lou

Hi Lou,

I've read a lot in this forum prior to buying an I/O Crest card.

Unfortunately, it seems that the card isn't working properly. I've seen 2 other people who have exactly the same problem as yours. (Posts #729 #752 to #759 and so on...)

I have the exact same issue. But I only have one blade inside. I've bought a Samsung 970 Pro and the I/O crest card. I cleaned my mac pro 5.1 (with Mojave 10.14.5 boot rom 144 updated) and it was recognized straight away. Everything was working fine. Until I tried to clone my SATA SSD to the 970 pro.
It worked for 10 secondes and then my Mac started to freeze and reboot. I then tried another PCI slot: Same. I then tried to use a riser to get more airflow from my GPU, it worked a little bit longer but froze after 2-3mn... I then increased my fans speed to get everything cooler but it only increased the time before it freezes again... Nothing works properly.

I've contacted the support and they seem useless. I bought it from Amazon and I'll return the product as it's not yet fully usable... @tsialex was thinking about bad cards but we are now a few to have one then... If you read users comments in Amazon, some also have the same problem. I'm not sure that the I/O crest card is reliable...

 

[flowrider]

^^^^Did you check for thermal pad slippage? The problem mine had. As I posted, I have since replaced the pad. I bought what I thought were new pads, but they turned bout to be copper heat sinks. I stacked the heatsinks on the top of the enclosure (cold plate?) above the chip. I then used thermal tape to further secure them. My fix (4 days ago) seems to be working. I have had no issues since.

Lou

 

[tsialex]

Hi Lou,

I've read a lot in this forum prior to buying an I/O Crest card.

Unfortunately, it seems that the card isn't working properly. I've seen 2 other people who have exactly the same problem as yours. (Posts #729 #752 to #759 and so on...)

I have the exact same issue. But I only have one blade inside. I've bought a Samsung 970 Pro and the I/O crest card. I cleaned my mac pro 5.1 (with Mojave 10.14.5 boot rom 144 updated) and it was recognized straight away. Everything was working fine. Until I tried to clone my SATA SSD to the 970 pro.
It worked for 10 secondes and then my Mac started to freeze and reboot. I then tried another PCI slot: Same. I then tried to use a riser to get more airflow from my GPU, it worked a little bit longer but froze after 2-3mn... I then increased my fans speed to get everything cooler but it only increased the time before it freezes again... Nothing works properly.

I've contacted the support and they seem useless. I bought it from Amazon and I'll return the product as it's not yet fully usable... @tsialex was thinking about bad cards but we are now a few to have one then... If you read users comments in Amazon, some also have the same problem. I'm not sure that the I/O crest card is reliable...

Unfortunately seems IO-Crest cards are not near as reliable as Highpoint and Amfeltec ones, we know about just one SSD7101-A DOA here, while various IO-Crest (and the rebadged cards) failed.

 

[Alexr13]

Thanks for your quick answer guys

@flowrider Yes I did! The support even asked me if I removed the blue plastic from the Pads LOL
It seems like everything is in place, I even asked the support to get new pads but they only have one kind of them!
I only bought it 3 weeks ago and I want something to fully work as I bought it brand new... I'm afraid to have more problems in the future.

@tsialex Yes that's my plan, I'm going to get a refund from the I/O crest card and spend a little bit more with the Highpoint.
I'll just wait for longer to buy the second blade
The only problem is Amazon' Prime day.. LOL Today the 970 EVO 1TO is half price in France (149€) !

 

[orph]

the Crucial CT1000P1SSD8 P1 1TB is on sale on amazon UK at the moment for £77
(has a 5 year warranty which is nice)

Iv not looked into NVME for mac pro 5.1 before and just want to ask if that’s a good option/price and if anyone can recommend a PCIE card for it (that i can get on amazon UK).

Or is there a better option some one can suggest?

 

[jbarley]

the Crucial CT1000P1SSD8 P1 1TB is on sale on amazon UK at the moment for £77
(has a 5 year warranty which is nice)

Iv not looked into NVME for mac pro 5.1 before and just want to ask if that’s a good option/price and if anyone can recommend a PCIE card for it (that i can get on amazon UK).

Or is there a better option some one can suggest?

This card is as good as any, easy to install, massive heat sink with excellent heat dispersion qualities.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Computer-k...for+M.2&qid=1563288693&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmr0

 

[orph]

is heatsink needed on the low end nvme drives? (more out of interest than anything)
that card looks good, thanks for the recommendation.

any one have any feelings on the drive, is it a good option or is there a better one?

 

[countershading]

…I purchased the Sabrent Rocket (1TB) about 6 weeks ago and it is EXCEPTIONAL.…

Which Adapter/Heatsink can you recommend?

 

[yukdave]

Firmware: (144.0.0.0.0)
MAC OS: High Sierra 10.13.6
2009 Mac Pro 4,1/5,1 Dual X5690

Hi yukdave, informations for you m.2 configuration, is bootable with Mojave in Mac Pro 2012?
Thank's[/QUOTE]

Yes, I just changed video cards and upgraded to Mojave and it works great as my boot drive in my Mac Pro 2009 4,1 upgraded to 5,1 firmware.