I ordered it January 20th. Afraid I don't know how to tell what warehouse it came from, but it shipped same day delivery and I'm in LA, so I assume it came from a warehouse here in LA.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
MP All Models PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI
- Thread starter MisterAndrew
- WikiPost WikiPost
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
I ordered it January 20th. Afraid I don't know how to tell what warehouse it came from, but it shipped same day delivery and I'm in LA, so I assume it came from a warehouse here in LA.
The one I've mentioned in a thread or two is by Micro Connectors. It can be bought for about $20 (at Fry's for example). I deliberately bought that one because it has a PCIe slot cover attached to it. The GODSHARK and QNINE are designed for 1U servers, where the motherboard is horizontal and the PCIe cards are vertical. I suspect putting one of those in a standard tower where the motherboard is vertical and the PCIe cards are horizontal would put some strain on the PCIe connector and motherboard. Thus I wanted one I could screw into (or attach to) the slot opening. That'd provide additional support for the card.I got that same part Virtuoso mentioned, but branded by QNINE (see link below). It comes with decent thermal pads in three different thickness, don't over stuff it. It's nice in the Mac Pro because you don't have to take a blank out for it. My 2TB 970 Pro Plus still hits 50 Celsius when copying for over 5 minutes.
QNINE [Upgraded] NVME Adapter with Heat Sink, High Performance PCI Express 3.0 x4 to M.2 PCIe SSD (Key M) Card, Support PCIe x4 x8 x16 Slot
QNINE [Upgraded] NVME Adapter with Heat Sink, High Performance PCI Express 3.0 x4 to M.2 PCIe SSD (Key M) Card, Support PCIe x4 x8 x16 Slotwww.amazon.com
On the other hand, I do like the GODSHARK and QNINE models because the heatsink is screwed to the PCB board instead of just stuck on the NVMe blade as with other cheap adapters. (The one by Micro Connectors also is screwed down.) So that's a plus in my opinion. However, for the reason mentioned I personally prefer a card with an attached PCIe slot cover.
As a final comment, the Micro Connector card does have a little bit of LED lighting -- the manufacturer name is presumably illuminated. I don't care if it is since I can't see it, and it'd be very minor even if I could.
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
The QNINE adapter PCB has a thick full length x16 slot, and the whole adapter, drive and aluminum heatsink weigh almost nothing. The height of the adapter is only about that of one M.2 width, so there is very little torque generated. I think there is zero cause for concern for the motherboard slot's safety.
By comparison, because of the Mac Pro's case design, the case doesn't actually provide much vertical support for this HighPoint PCIe card. When you tighten down the special brackets and slot covers you can still wiggle the card up and down and observer about an 1/8th inch of vertical travel. So the motherboard's slot is still supporting most of the weight of the HighPoint card. I'm not worried about either, PCIe slots on motherboards are remarkably durable.
With Lycom DT-129 is the same. When i add only Lycon to PCIe without SSD it's work fine.
I bought the KyroM.2Evo for my Mac Pro 4,1->5,1 and it's a joy to use it. Now i need a 500gb M.2 that will rock. In this Thread there is a lot to read about the Samsung EVO M.2. But there are so many out there that i am still confused. I would like to speed up my RAW editing with many files up to 100mb and progrssing Photoshop data up to 4gb. Here are my questions:
- As far as i understand, all Samsung M.2 Evo Pro don't work for booting (Mojave). What about the Plus one?
- Do i even need a Plus EVO because of my old baby doesn't support the theoretical speed?
- What 250-500gb blades do you prefer for system or/and temp drive?
- PCI Slots juggling: I have a Radeon RX580 in Slot 1 System info report it use x16 (Lanes?). The Kyro2 is on Slot2 and the system info say it use x4. And a additional USB 3 Controller is on slot 4 with x1. Good setup?
- The harddrives, including two SSD and one large HDD are on the usual Sata slots. Does the Sata bus interact with the PCI bus?
- Is it better to use two Kyro.M2 to swap Data or is a PCI to Sata and vise versa still good enough?
Thanks in advance and to be not the usual taker i would like to give. Ask me anything about Photo, Photoshop, RAW, Bridge, etc.... I am a professional and editor of many books, articles and such things for a lot of years.
Thanks a lot in advanced!
- As far as i understand, all Samsung M.2 Evo Pro don't work for booting (Mojave). What about the Plus one?
- Do i even need a Plus EVO because of my old baby doesn't support the theoretical speed?
- What 250-500gb blades do you prefer for system or/and temp drive?
- PCI Slots juggling: I have a Radeon RX580 in Slot 1 System info report it use x16 (Lanes?). The Kyro2 is on Slot2 and the system info say it use x4. And a additional USB 3 Controller is on slot 4 with x1. Good setup?
- The harddrives, including two SSD and one large HDD are on the usual Sata slots. Does the Sata bus interact with the PCI bus?
- Is it better to use two Kyro.M2 to swap Data or is a PCI to Sata and vise versa still good enough?
Thanks in advance and to be not the usual taker i would like to give. Ask me anything about Photo, Photoshop, RAW, Bridge, etc.... I am a professional and editor of many books, articles and such things for a lot of years.
Thanks a lot in advanced!
^^^^First off there is no such thing as an Evo Pro. There is the 970 Evo, the 970 Evo Plus and the 970 Pro. All the current SSDs mentioned will work in Mojave on a 5,1 cMP with the latest firmware. But, the Evo Plus may need a firmware update. Some of the early models of the 970 Evo Plus had firmware that was not compatible with the Mac OS. All 970 Evo and 970 Pros will work on a 5,1 with the latest FW.
Lou
Lou
Last edited:
Just wanted to leave this here, now that I got everything working.
Mac Pro (2019)
-macOS version 10.15.2
-3.2 GHz 16-Core Intel Xeon W
-96 GB 2933 MHz DDR4
HighPoint NVMe RAID Controller SSD7101A-1
-Kext Version 1.1.9
-4x Sabrent 2TB ROCKET NVMe PCIe M.2 2280
-RAID 0, Stripe size 64KB (Sector size 4KB), Apple_HFS
Mac Pro (2019)
-macOS version 10.15.2
-3.2 GHz 16-Core Intel Xeon W
-96 GB 2933 MHz DDR4
HighPoint NVMe RAID Controller SSD7101A-1
-Kext Version 1.1.9
-4x Sabrent 2TB ROCKET NVMe PCIe M.2 2280
-RAID 0, Stripe size 64KB (Sector size 4KB), Apple_HFS
Don't get crazy on a single m2-to-PCIe adapter and card. Despite any advertising or specs to the contrary, the *fastest* it will go is 1500 MBps. If you want faster than that you'll need a switched PCIe card. Prices for 1TB NVMe SSD start at about US$110. 500GB cards are a little more than 1/2 of that.
Don't take this the wrong way, but 0.1-4GB is nothing to a PCIe-based NVMe SSD. So your Photoshop work should be much more fun to work with.
I purchased a 1TB HP EX920 several months ago. Does 1450-ish MBps in an inexpensive Riitek adapter.
I have yet to see anything on whether to have "cache" drives with NVMe. They are an order of magnitude faster in terms of IOPS, and have essentially zero access latency - this is usually the reason for having multiple "spindles." But, I was recently copying files from my NVMe to other, SATA-2 and NAS connected drives. According to Activity Monitor I was getting a sustained 670MBps in total drive write performance. So there is *something* to be said about sharing the load. No idea if it will affect PS performance, though. Note that I work in video, and regularly copy library and assets (100+ GB) to/from the NVMe.
Don't take this the wrong way, but 0.1-4GB is nothing to a PCIe-based NVMe SSD. So your Photoshop work should be much more fun to work with.
I purchased a 1TB HP EX920 several months ago. Does 1450-ish MBps in an inexpensive Riitek adapter.
I have yet to see anything on whether to have "cache" drives with NVMe. They are an order of magnitude faster in terms of IOPS, and have essentially zero access latency - this is usually the reason for having multiple "spindles." But, I was recently copying files from my NVMe to other, SATA-2 and NAS connected drives. According to Activity Monitor I was getting a sustained 670MBps in total drive write performance. So there is *something* to be said about sharing the load. No idea if it will affect PS performance, though. Note that I work in video, and regularly copy library and assets (100+ GB) to/from the NVMe.
I’m going to have to respectfully and factually disagree. I’ve got a couple of single m.2 NVMe PCIe cards with 1TB Samsung EVO+ blades installed and I’m hitting over 3000MBps under stress using Blackmagic. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding what you are saying, so please clarify?
[edit] I’m going to guess you are talking about an older system based on PCIe 2. My system is a 2019 Mac Pro with PCIe 3.
Last edited:
In which case I must respectfully agree! 🙂
It’s an important point that getting a nice speedy new NVMe drive and putting it into an older system is not going to allow people to use it to its full potential. Even putting it in a card with a switch won’t help unless multiple blades are set up as RAID 0.
Now that the 2019 Mac Pro has been released, common threads like this one can get confusing due to the mixture of systems. Thanks for the clarification.
Finally we have the real reason Apple innovated into the trash can. Couldn't make any mistake with that one. No
I think it's in slot 2. And I have a tiny little spacer wedged between it and the RX580 next to it, just to ensure the fans don't hit.
[automerge]1579982865[/automerge]
Unless I am missing something, I think you are looking at this from a very different perspective. @kittiyut and I are not particularly interested in fully utilizing and taking maximum performance of the NVMe. If overall performance is improved, it could be a PCIe-powered squirrel wheel for all I care. I *am* interested in maximizing the performance of my 4/5,1 cMP. Using a NVMe SSD is 3-5 times faster than a SATA SSD, for roughly the same price.
I daresay one could look at *any* system and point to parts or whole and declare: unfulfilled potential!
Last edited:
Yeah, i know. But i use a Test M.2 i bought in the past. But it has a ridiculous slow write speed. Since everything else works, like the new KyroM2, even booting, i just want to boost it somehow. I ordered a Samsung MZ-V7E500BW 970 EVO 500 GB from Amazon Germany yesterday. I hope i get a bit, not more expected, punch for my daily work. Thanks a lot for all your info and to the crowd here to let stranger feels like a pro. 
Yep! Oh, wait. We're now up to Thunderbolt 3, which changes all the add-on performance numbers...
Speaking of that, I stumbled across this gem. Nothing like retconning USB specs! Truly the lunatics are running asylum. As a fun exercise, imagine what'll happen when we move to PCIe 4. USB 3.2 Gen 2x2? I don't think that means what you think it means... I know! It'll be renamed USB 3.3 Gen 2x.5x2! That's two retconned Gen 2 channels running at half speed under PCIe 4 in order to hold to the defined 20Gbps data rate. Yeah. That's the ticket! Then USB 3.3 Gen 2x2 becomes 40Gbps under PCIe 4, unless they decide to "retire" that and use USB 3.3 Gen 3x2 instead, i.e. 2 PCIe 4 lanes each running at 20Gbps, which they obviously can't call Gen 2 because that'd confuse people...
What about this card ?
I don't think so. Take a look at the product manual. From Section 3-3, "Additional Settings", it looks like the card requires bifurcation support.
You guys are so not helpful, I bought this card after watching a video from Photoshopcafe
PCIe 22110,2280, 2260, 2242)
and this for the memory Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD 1TB - M.2 NVMe Interface Internal Solid State Drive with V-NAND Technology (MZ-V7S1T0B/AM)
PCIe 22110,2280, 2260, 2242)
and this for the memory Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD 1TB - M.2 NVMe Interface Internal Solid State Drive with V-NAND Technology (MZ-V7S1T0B/AM)
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
So you haven't done much reading here, right? Your first clue should have been the ridiculously low price. You don't get much for that kind of money.