MP All Models PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI

[andyherman]

Added more info to the Don't Buy Section of the first post:

Don't buy PCIe adaptors list:​

Any multiple M.2 blades card from ASRock/Asus/Gigabyte/MSI that don't have a PCIe 3.0 switch and requires a motherboard with PCI Express Lane Partitioning support, also know as bifurcation support, like the cards listed on the table below.

It's already confirmed that MP7,1 PCIe slots are behind a 96-lane PEX8796 PCIe switch, so no PCI Express Lane Partitioning support for 2019 Mac Pro, and the same requirements for PCIe M.2/U.2 adapters as MP5,1 are valid, the only difference is that 2019 Mac Pro slots are PCIe 3.0.

Being crystal clear, 2019 Mac Pro don't support cheap multiple M.2 adapters that require motherboard bifurcation support and only the first blade of the four is recognised.

Adapter:	Motive for not working:
Aplicata Quad M.2 NVMe SSD PCIe x16 Adapter	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
ASRock Ultra Quad	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
Asus Hyper M.2 x16 Asus Hyper M.2 x16 v2	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation). Confirmed working for one blade, not working for more than one.
Dell Ultra-Speed Drive Quad NVMe M.2 PCIe x16 Card	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
GIGABYTE Aorus PCIe x16 M.2	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
GIGABYTE CMT2014, CMT4032 and CMT4034	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
HP Z Turbo Drive Quad Pro	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
MSI Xpander-Aero	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
Squid PCIe Gen 3 Carrier Board for 4 M.2 SSD modules (M-key ) (full or half-height bracket) SKU-086-B4	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
SuperMicro AOC-SLG3-8E2P	fried @handheldgames Mac Pro
Synology M2D18	it's a ~$200 PCIe 2.0 switch card with SATA + M2 that tops at 1500MB/s

I bought an ASUS Hyper M.2 X16 PCIe 3.0 Expansion Card a while ago (before I got my 7,1) so can't return the ASUS now (I hadn't seen the posts re: the bifurcation issue when I bought the card). I installed a Sabrent Rocket M.2 and the Asus card in the new Mac Pro when I got the 7,1 last Friday (no other m.2 cards installed). Finder and Disk Utility both recognized the Sabrent Rocket M.2 in the Asus card.

The 7,1 came with Catalina 10.15.1. I just updated to Catalina 10.15.3 yesterday and now neither Finder or Disk Utility list the Sabrent Rocket/ASUS V2. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

Catalina 10.15.4 was just released so I'm debating rolling back to 10.5.1 or updating to 10.5 4 to see if that solves anything . . .

 

[AidenShaw]

so I'm debating rolling back to 10.5.1 or updating to 10.5 4

I don't think that Leopard supports the MP7,1

 

[andyherman]

I don't think that Leopard supports the MP7,1

Sorry, I misspoke as I meant 10.15.1.

So I got through to Apple support as I tried rolling back to 10.15.1 and it was a fiasco.

After going through the Time Machine backup to 10.15.1, I tried logging on and just got a continually spinning disk. After @ 10 minutes it was still spinning so I had to do a "hard restart" and same thing happened. After 15 minutes or more of the spinning disk, I called Apple support. He had me go through a bunch of options (run repair disk, reset nvm something or other, etc.) - bottom line is nothing worked. The Support rep suggested trying to restore a different Time Machine backup, which I just now finished and now NONE of my apps work (the Sabrent Rocket SSD IS now showing up again in Finder) but EVERY program I try to start freezes - Chrome (got an error message when Chrome tried to start), Word, Excel, Photolab, you name it and all of the other programs just continually bounce up and down in the Dock, but nothing happens. Also, NONE of the emails on the server are showing up in Mail (all of the emails I exported out of Mail from my Early 2009 Mac Pro and imported to Mail are there, but none of the "current" emails on the server are showing up - there were over 700).

Support is now closed so I'll either have to try to delete all of the installed programs and re-install them, try another Time Machine backup, which will probably be a waste of time, or try getting in touch with them tomorrow.

Incredibly infuriating . . . (I'm working on my Early 2009 Mac Pro now).

 

[tommy chen]

sorry, but since months there are several entries here describing
that the asus card and some sabrent blades do not work properly
under macOS in a macpro.

 

[andyherman]

sorry, but since months there are several entries here describing
that the asus card and some sabrent blades do not work properly
under macOS in a macpro.

I rolled the Mac Pro back to X.15.1 and have my Sabrent SSD back.

 

[Martys1]

Hi all, at this moment I'm using a Samsung 970 EVO in my cMP 4.1 -> 5.1 with a Lycom DT-120 card and I'm also using this drive as systemdrive. I'm looking to replace the adapter by the Syba Si-PEX40129 because it will support 8 lanes thus providing more speed to the SSD. But besides the much higher transfer speeds for larger files, will it actually speed up my Mac's day -to -day performance (assuming that the OS runs properly). Im doubting because most of the times I do not read/write big files with this system, but rather small files. Does anyone have experience with that?

 

[mikas]

If there is a difference, I bet you won't notice it.

I use 2 Mac Pro 5,1s daily. The other is equipped with Kryo M.2 and Samsung 970 EVO+ 1TB and the other one with Syba IOCrest and Samsung 970 EVO 1TB. There is no noticable speed difference to be observed with my work flows. I do CAD, BIM, 3D stuff mostly. I do output video from my programs at times, but don't actually do any video editing there SSD throughput speed might be of bigger help.

Even between ordinary Sata SSD and NVMe there is not so much of a difference to be noticed 90% of the time.

 

[Martys1]

If there is a difference, I bet you won't notice it.

I use 2 Mac Pro 5,1s daily. The other is equipped with Kryo M.2 and Samsung 970 EVO+ 1TB and the other one with Syba IOCrest and Samsung 970 EVO 1TB. There is no noticable speed difference to be observed with my work flows. I do CAD, BIM, 3D stuff mostly. I do output video from my programs at times, but don't actually do any video editing there SSD throughput speed might be of bigger help.

Even between ordinary Sata SSD and NVMe there is not so much of a difference to be noticed 90% of the time.

Ok thanks for your reply! This was exactly the input I was looking for. I will skip the Syba card for now then.

 

[tsialex]

Hi all, at this moment I'm using a Samsung 970 EVO in my cMP 4.1 -> 5.1 with a Lycom DT-120 card and I'm also using this drive as systemdrive. I'm looking to replace the adapter by the Syba Si-PEX40129 because it will support 8 lanes thus providing more speed to the SSD. But besides the much higher transfer speeds for larger files, will it actually speed up my Mac's day -to -day performance (assuming that the OS runs properly). Im doubting because most of the times I do not read/write big files with this system, but rather small files. Does anyone have experience with that?

This is totally workflow related. Some people have IO bound workflows that benefit with greater bandwidth. While most people are not constrained by bandwidth, it's clearly noticeable when you work with video, big databases or VMs.

There are other considerations to take care of before bandwidth. A full SSD will behave constrained and will be severely write speed limited. Most times, a bigger SSD will behave a lot faster than a SSD with more bandwidth, all other parameters identical. Another thing to be careful is the NAND type, TLC NAND will take more time to write as the cells are being wear out, a new SSD will be faster to write than a mid-life one, all other parameters identical.

So, it's not just so simple as it appears at the first glance.

 

[showtimetx]

I was wanting to upgrade my Mac Pro 6,1 2013 Mac Pro to a 2TB drive. I wanted to confirm from someone that might have already done this that it will work and you get full performance? Which 2TB drive would you suggest?

Thank You

 

[Martys1]

This is totally workflow related. Some people have IO bound workflows that benefit with greater bandwidth. While most people are not constrained by bandwidth, it's clearly noticeable when you work with video, big databases or VMs.

There are other considerations to take care of before bandwidth. A full SSD will behave constrained and will be severely write speed limited. Most times, a bigger SSD will behave a lot faster than a SSD with more bandwidth, all other parameters identical. Another thing to be careful is the NAND type, TLC NAND will take more time to write as the cells are being wear out, a new SSD will be faster to write than a mid-life one, all other parameters identical.

So, it's not just so simple as it appears at the first glance.

Hi Tsialex, tnx for your response!
I'm doing music with this Mac so I guess I don't need high bandwith for that. I was actually hoping to get faster boot times, app response etc by installing an NVMe SSD as boot disk.
I split the 970 EVO (1TB) into two 512GB partitions, one for OS and one for data. Both disks have sufficient space left (data partition ~15%, OS partition ~30%) THE 970 is just over one year old.

The reason I asked about upgrading the adapter card is because I experience a slow system response, like the Mac first has to think before it reacts. For example while opening a folder or starting an app. I checked activity monitor and CPU (2x Intel X5690) is idle for over 95-97% all the time, no CPU spikes whatsoever and besides 2 small audio control related apps, there are no startup items that I selected. The Mac has 64 GB of Ram loaded (8x8GB) and Ram is almost unused as well. I also checked the drive's health with DriveDX, but no issues found. So I was hoping that a faster SSD interface might solve the problem a bit.

 

[tsialex]

Hi Tsialex, tnx for your response!
I'm doing music with this Mac so I guess I don't need high bandwith for that. I was actually hoping to get faster boot times, app response etc by installing an NVMe SSD as boot disk.
I split the 970 EVO (1TB) into two 512GB partitions, one for OS and one for data. Both disks have sufficient space left (data partition ~15%, OS partition ~30%) THE 970 is just over one year old.

The reason I asked about upgrading the adapter card is because I experience a slow system response, like the Mac first has to think before it reacts. For example while opening a folder or starting an app. I checked activity monitor and CPU (2x Intel X5690) is idle for over 95-97% all the time, no CPU spikes whatsoever and besides 2 small audio control related apps, there are no startup items that I selected. The Mac has 64 GB of Ram loaded (8x8GB) and Ram is almost unused as well. I also checked the drive's health with DriveDX, but no issues found. So I was hoping that a faster SSD interface might solve the problem a bit.

More bandwidth will never solve latency problems. Btw, latency will be a little greater with a NVMe drive being a endpoint of a PCIe switch - minimal but will be greater and it's measurable with benchmarks.

 

[kohlson]

I was actually hoping to get faster boot times

The first SSD I installed was a SATA in the optical bay. IIRC it would take about 35 seconds or so from POST chime to desktop screen. (Note that other factors, like the amount of memory you have, affect how long POST takes to successfully complete, as signaled by a chime.)
About 8 months ago I put in an NVMe SSD on a single PCIe card. Boot times increased, now probably closer to 50 seconds or so. This was not unexpected, as many others on MR stated the same experience.
If those seconds matter to you, get yourself a small SATA SSD.

 

[Gr1f]

anyone tried one of these in a Mac Pro 5,1?
Sabrent-Rocket-Internal-Performance-SB-ROCKET-1TB

 

[bsbeamer]

Depends on adapter being used, but there are reports of Sabrent Rocket NVMe working with MP5,1.
This note might be helpful: https://sonnettech.com/support/downloads/manuals/M2_compatibility.pdf

 

[Gr1f]

Depends on adapter being used, but there are reports of Sabrent Rocket NVMe working with MP5,1.
This note might be helpful: https://sonnettech.com/support/downloads/manuals/M2_compatibility.pdf

Thanks, this is the adapter:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07FN3YZ8P/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I had tried a WD Blue SN550. It seemed to be clashing with other internal drives And as was pointed out isn't listed as supported in the Wiki.

 

[Gr1f]

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).

OK cool, i found a reasonably priced Sabrent on amazon that I will try instead of the WD Blue 550 that seems to not work. I'll report back findings.... thanks for update!

 

[ECJ]

I just installed 2x 2TB Sabrent Rocket blades on a Syba IOCrest, on my 4,1->5,1. Getting 2600-2800 for reads and writes. Which is unreal as that's the same range as my 16" MBP.

 

[kanepes]

Hi Alex! Reading this section of the forum, I understand that you are the right person to ask some questions. I understand that we are all busy people, so I will try to explain my problem briefly.
I am a master of video processing and my work so far has been 4.1 > 5.1 Mac Pro 2009, which has the specifications below. Until now, I was satisfied with working with this machine, but with the advent of technology, cameras were purchased that produce much larger files, and now my computer refuses to work with them. I understand that one of the main problems is that I have too slow disks and to increase the read / write speed I have bought 3 pieces of Samsung evo 970 discs - one for material, one for software and a third for scratch etc. But now the question arises - which M.2 NVMe adapter for PC to PC should I buy? I would also like to ask if any special steps are required to install this adapter. I assume it will be necessary to switch to one graphics card and think about the Sapphire Radeon Pulse RX 580. What is your opinion on all this? Thank you in advance for your answer. Sorry, for my bad English.

 

[djsash]

I made some changes to the first post:

NVMe boot support and Mac Pro year models:
​

Mac Pro year model:	Model Identifier:	NVMe boot support:
2006 Mac Pro / Original Mac Pro	MP1,1	not possible to inject NVMe EFI module, can't run Sierra/High Sierra. Supports natively PCIe AHCI blades.
2007 Mac Pro / Mac Pro (8-Core)	MP2,1	not possible to inject NVMe EFI module, can't run Sierra/High Sierra. Supports natively PCIe AHCI blades.
Early 2008 Mac Pro	MP3,1	possible but risky procedure, need to inject APFS/NVMe EFI modules inside the BootROM and run 10.12/10.13*. Supports natively PCIe AHCI blades. Alternatively, you can also use rEFInd from another drive to bootstrap the injection of the EFI modules at boot time.
Early 2009 Mac Pro	MP4,1	use MP5,1 firmware and update to at least 140.0.0.0.0 and 10.12/10.13*. Supports natively PCIe AHCI blades.
Mid 2010 Mac Pro	MP5,1	upgrade to BootROM 140.0.0.0.0 or newer, current one is 144.0.0.0.0, and install 10.12/10.13* to have full native NVMe support.
Mid 2012 Mac Pro	MP5,1	upgrade to BootROM 140.0.0.0.0 or newer, current one is 144.0.0.0.0, and install 10.12/10.13* to have full native NVMe support.
Late 2013 Mac Pro	MP6,1	upgrade to BootROM MP61.0120.B00 or newer, current one is 133.0.0.0.0, and install 10.12/10.13* to have full native NVMe support. Needs a 12+16 adapter to use standard M.2 blades.
2019 Mac Pro	MP7,1	native support, can boot from AHCI or NVMe blades/drives when external booting is enabled with Startup Security Utility.

* 10.12 only supports 4Kib / sector M.2 blades and U.2 drives while 10.13 and newer macOS releases supports both 4Kib /sector and 512 bytes / sector M.2 blades and U.2 drives.

Don't buy PCIe adaptors list:​

Any card from ASRock/Asus/Gigabyte/MSI that don't have a PCIe 3.0 switch and requires a motherboard with PCI Express Lane Partitioning support, also know as bifurcation support, like the cards listed on the table below.

It's already confirmed that MP7,1 PCIe slots are behind a 96-lane PEX8796 PCIe switch, so no PCI Express Lane Partitioning support for 2019 Mac Pro, and the same requirements for PCIe M.2/U.2 adapters as MP5,1 are valid, the only difference is that 2019 Mac Pro slots are PCIe 3.0.

Being crystal clear, 2019 Mac Pro don't support cheap adapters that require motherboard bifurcation support.

Adapter:	Motive for not working:
Aplicata Quad M.2 NVMe SSD PCIe x16 Adapter	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
ASRock Ultra Quad	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
Asus Hyper M.2 x16	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
Dell Ultra-Speed Drive Quad NVMe M.2 PCIe x16 Card	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
GIGABYTE Aorus PCIe x16 M.2	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
GIGABYTE CMT2014, CMT4032 and CMT4034	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
HP Z Turbo Drive Quad Pro	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
MSI Xpander-Aero	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
Squid PCIe Gen 3 Carrier Board for 4 M.2 SSD modules (M-key ) (full or half-height bracket) SKU-086-B4	requires motherboard PCI Express Lane Partitioning support (aka bifurcation)
SuperMicro AOC-SLG3-8E2P	fried @handheldgames Mac Pro
Synology M2D18	it's a ~$200 PCIe 2.0 switch card with SATA + M2 that tops at 1500MB/s

Can you please give a list of such pcie cards that will work without any issue on mackintosh? Either x2 or x4 NVMEs can be loaded.
Thanks
Thanks

 

[tsialex]

Can you please give a list of such pcie cards that will work without any issue on mackintosh? Either x2 or x4 NVMEs can be loaded.
Thanks
Thanks

Don't get me wrong, but this is a Mac Pro forum and Mac Pros have very different needs than a hackintosh.

I can't help you with that, it's better to ask this question on a hackintosh forum.

 

[seefees]

Hello,
I just bought this awful pcie sata card:

QNINE PCIe SATA Karte 4 Port mit 4 SATA Kabeln, PCI Express SATA Controller Erweiterungskarte, 6 GBS SATA 3.0 PCIe Karte ohne Raid, Boot als Systemfestplatte, Unterstützung für HDD oder SSD

QNINE PCIe SATA Karte 4 Port mit 4 SATA Kabeln, PCI Express SATA Controller Erweiterungskarte, 6 GBS SATA 3.0 PCIe Karte ohne Raid, Boot als Systemfestplatte, Unterstützung für HDD oder SSD

www.amazon.de

I connect it with a crucial mx 500 ssd on the 3rd pci slot of my mac pro 5.1 running Mojave .

The hard disc is not visible but the pci slot recognises an AHCI controller is pluged in.

Do I need some extra drivers for the card or it is just not compatible with mac os?

I would appreciate an advice as a last chance before I send this card back .

 

[tsialex]

Hello,
I just bought this awful pcie sata card:

QNINE PCIe SATA Karte 4 Port mit 4 SATA Kabeln, PCI Express SATA Controller Erweiterungskarte, 6 GBS SATA 3.0 PCIe Karte ohne Raid, Boot als Systemfestplatte, Unterstützung für HDD oder SSD

QNINE PCIe SATA Karte 4 Port mit 4 SATA Kabeln, PCI Express SATA Controller Erweiterungskarte, 6 GBS SATA 3.0 PCIe Karte ohne Raid, Boot als Systemfestplatte, Unterstützung für HDD oder SSD

www.amazon.de

I connect it with a crucial mx 500 ssd on the 3rd pci slot of my mac pro 5.1 running Mojave .

The hard disc is not visible but the pci slot recognises an AHCI controller is pluged in.

Do I need some extra drivers for the card or it is just not compatible with mac os?

I would appreciate an advice as a last chance before I send this card back .

This is a thread about PCIe AHCI or NVMe SSDs, you are asking about SATA - find what is the SATA controller model of your card and try to find a thread about it.

 

[Cajon1]

hi guys, long time reader, first time poster here.
Firstly, just wanted to thank everyone for their informative posts particularly from tsailex and others that have given great info on upgrades to my MP 5,1 so thanks guys, very much appreciated!

I'm running into an issue however with the KryoM.2 card (2PCIe x 3.0 NOT the EVO model) fitted with a 2TB Samsung 970 EVO m.2 blade. The blade is being used for my sample libraries in Ableton Live, so Im not booting from it. The behaviour is that the card is causing the computer to restart at random, roughly every 15-30mins. With just the GPU installed (no other cards), the system seems to be working fine and the shutdowns are not happening. I've tried in the bottom 16 PCie slot and the 4 lane pcie slot with the same result.

Im hoping someone can give some advice as to how troubleshoot, and whether this is an indicator of a faulty blade/ card or if its something else, like a power supply issue?
When looking at how I've installed the blade into the card, there is the slightest of curves to the blade because of the thickness of the bottom thermal pad, but I dont imagine this to be an issue.

i've also recently fixed the northbridge heatsink bolts, so its def not related to that.

I've read a bunch of other threads to see if I've missed something simple, so thanks for your feedback guys.

System: macpro 5,1 mid 2010.
Mojave - clean install 10.14.6 (18G2022)
Bootrom-144.0.0.0.0
blade formatted as APFS, Guid partition

other slots are taken up with:
GPU= RX 560
Sonnet = Allegro usb 3.0 4 port

 

[seefees]

This is a thread about PCIe AHCI or NVMe SSDs, you are asking about SATA - find what is the SATA controller model of your card and try to find a thread about it.

Unfortunately there is no thread to explain if this model of SATA controller is compatible with macOs.
I apologize for the misplaced post.