MP All Models PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI

[complaxneoda]

From Intel drives:

- Optane D4800X 375 GB works perfectly also with 4Ksectors
- DC P3700 2 TB works perfectly also with 4Ksectors
- DC P4500 4 TB doesn't work at all - macOS says no drivers installed

does P3700 work on macOS with 4k sectors? I remember it is native 512. thank you.

 

[bluskiff99]

Any way to clone a drive so it also clones the recovery partition?

 

[orytek]

Any way to clone a drive so it also clones the recovery partition?

Carbon Copy Cloner does this.

Cloning Apple's Recovery HD partition | Bombich Software

bombich.com

 

[Spacedust]

does P3700 work on macOS with 4k sectors? I remember it is native 512. thank you.

Yes, it does. Just switch to 4K native sector using isdct (requires format and loosing all data on it). Same thing for P4800X. P4500/P4600 doesn't work all (no drivers).

 

[s.m.t.]

Happy to report that after several months without the fan in place, system is stable and NVMe temps staying below 35c...

still running fine without the fan installed...

 

[ECJ]

I want to say thanks to this thread for all the great information. I replaced my Syba IO Creat PEX-40129 with a Highpoint 7101a. Then added 2x 2TB Sabrent Rocket and 2x 2TB HP EX950 blades. With the two HPs in RAID, I'm getting some great speeds on 2009 4,1->5,1.

 

[Fcis]

I have a Mac Pro 5.1 currently running el capitan. I am planning to upgrade to macOS Mojave or Catalina. And I just bought a new Saphirre Radeon RX 580 and a 970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD but didn’t plug them yet in my Mac Pro.

I read I need to update the EVO plus firmware. Could anyone please advise me with the needed steps I need to follow to ultimately have Catalina installed on my EVO Plus on my Mac Pro 5.1 as I am confused on what steps to follow? Like I am not sure if I should upgrade to High Sierra first, then plug in my new Radeon RX 580 then install Mojave then Catalina then plug in the EVO plus or make a bootable USB to update the firmware of the EVO plus first then I am not sure, I am kind of confused. So I would appreciate your advice with the steps to follow to avoid redoing steps or messing things up. Thank you.

 

[tsialex]

I have a Mac Pro 5.1 currently running el capitan. I am planning to upgrade to macOS Mojave or Catalina. And I just bought a new Saphirre Radeon RX 580 and a 970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD but didn’t plug them yet in my Mac Pro.

I read I need to update the EVO plus firmware. Could anyone please advise me with the needed steps I need to follow to ultimately have Catalina installed on my EVO Plus on my Mac Pro 5.1 as I am confused on what steps to follow? Like I am not sure if I should upgrade to High Sierra first, then plug in my new Radeon RX 580 then install Mojave then Catalina then plug in the EVO plus or make a bootable USB to update the firmware of the EVO plus first then I am not sure, I am kind of confused. So I would appreciate your advice with the steps to follow to avoid redoing steps or messing things up. Thank you.

First step is to upgrade the Mac Pro firmware or you won't even see the M.2 blade. Only after you have BootROM 144.0.0.0.0 you think about the M.2.

Second, you probably won't have to upgrade your 970 EVO Plus if it was manufactured after the second half of September last year.

Read the first post of the thread below to know what to do. Read the first post here too.

MP5,1: What you have to do to upgrade to Mojave (BootROM upgrade instructions thread)

Please fully read this first post, you will probably find that you have one or more problems described into the various notes below. Mojave will only install if you have upgraded your BootROM to the current release and your Mac Pro have a Metal capable GPU*. If you are trying to install Mojave...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Fcis]

First step is to upgrade the Mac Pro firmware or you won't even see the M.2 blade. Only after you have BootROM 144.0.0.0.0 you think about the M.2.

Second, you probably won't have to upgrade your 970 EVO Plus if it was manufactured after the second half of September last year.

Read the first post of the thread below to know what to do. Read the first post here too.

MP5,1: What you have to do to upgrade to Mojave (BootROM upgrade instructions thread)

Please fully read this first post, you will probably find that you have one or more problems described into the various notes below. Mojave will only install if you have upgraded your BootROM to the current release and your Mac Pro have a Metal capable GPU*. If you are trying to install Mojave...

forums.macrumors.com

Thank you, so this takes me to my question here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/problem-upgrading-mac-pro-to-macos-high-sierra.2242546/

I have a bootable usb with High Sierra on it, when I reboot and open the installer I get the problem mentioned in my question. What shall I do? shall I use the disk utility in the installer to wipe the RAID Harddrives? If you could please advise.

 

[tsialex]

Thank you, so this takes me to my question here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/problem-upgrading-mac-pro-to-macos-high-sierra.2242546/

I have a bootable usb with High Sierra on it, when I reboot and open the installer I get the problem mentioned in my question. What shall I do? shall I use the disk utility in the installer to wipe the RAID Harddrives? If you could please advise.

Please read the post that I linked, you are asking things already answered there. Mojave don't support bootable RAID and you have to start from a clean install of High Sierra on a standard non-RAID disk.

​

- RAID & SATA III PCIe cards note:​

​

You can't upgrade your firmware if you are booting from a RAID array or from a SATA III card. Open your Mac Pro, remove all RAID controllers, PCIe SATA cards, disconnect all RAID drives and use a SATA drive connected into a backplane native SATA port. Keep it simple and use Apple defaults when upgrading Mac Pro firmware.​

​

Btw, Mojave don't boot from SoftwareRAID arrays or any hardware array that present to the OS as multiple disks.​

​

Sometimes people can't upgrade from PCIe AHCI and NVMe blades too, so use the same advice if you have any problems while upgrading the firmware.​

​

​

 

[Fcis]

Please read the post that I linked, you are asking things already answered there. Mojave don't support bootable RAID and you have to start from a clean install of High Sierra on a standard non-RAID disk.

​

​

Okay, thank you. Just to confirm, by saying this I should erase the Apple Raid disks, then boot from the USB High Sierra installer then choose the newly earased disks for the install right? Since they are the only disks I have in Okay, thank you. Just to confirm, by saying this I should erase the Apple Raid disks right? Since they are the only disks I have in it now. now.

 

[tsialex]

Okay, thank you. Just to confirm, by saying this I should erase the Apple Raid disks, then boot from the USB Catalina installer then choose the newly earased disks for the install right? Since they are the only disks I have in Okay, thank you. Just to confirm, by saying this I should erase the Apple Raid disks right? Since they are the only disks I have in it now. now.

You can't even install Catalina on a MP5,1, it's not supported and even if you hack/patch it, Catalina don't have the BootROM firmware upgrades needed for NVMe support with a MP5,1. Don't miss steps, each step exist for a reason.

Remove your RAID, erase the drive, then install High Sierra to it. Upgrade to Mojave, after you have BootROM 144.0.0.0.0 you will have access to the NVMe drive and you then can check the firmware if it's the current version compatible with macOS.

Read the first post of this thread, read the first post of the Mojave BootROM upgrade thread.

 

[Fcis]

You can't even install Catalina on a MP5,1, it's not supported and even if you hack/patch it, Catalina don't have the BootROM firmware upgrades needed for NVMe support with a MP5,1. Don't miss steps, each step exist for a reason.

Remove your RAID, erase the drive, then install High Sierra to it. Upgrade to Mojave, after you have BootROM 144.0.0.0.0 you will have access to the NVMe drive and you then can check the firmware if it's the current version compatible with macOS.

Sorry I meant High Sierra not Catalina (edited my post). Okay, so now I will boot from USB and use disk utility to earse the raid drives then run the installer and choose one of the earsed drives.

 

[rivangom]

Dear audience,
Anyone can tell me if this StarTech PEX4SFF8639 U.2 to PCIE controller and Intel DC P4510 1TB SSD any specific actions required to get this work?

I have this in my setup; cMP 5.1 2010 - 12 Core dual CPU INTEL XEON 5675 processor 3.06 GHz MacOS Mojave with Bootrom 144.0.0.0.0 - Vega64 slot 1, Sonnet Tempo SSD slot 2, StarTech PEX4SFF8639 slot 3, Inateck KT4004 PCIE USB 3 slot 4

The StarTech PCIE card is recognized but the Intel U.2 DC P4510 SSD not shown in disk utility.

Thanks for your feedback/advises.

Kind Regards,

 

[James Murray]

I have a 2009 Mac Pro with 5,1 firmware. It currently runs Mojave.

I also have four m.2 drives and I want to see if I can get an adapter to put them in the computer. I know the Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCI-E can support 4 m.2 drives and it's probably the fastest, but it's $400 and I can't afford that. What are some good alternatives? Is that that the only 4 slot m.2 PCI- card that works with an older Mac Pro? I was considering getting two 2 slot PCI-E adapters, but I only have one 16x PCI-E Slot available so if I do get two, one will have to go in a slower 4x slot. Plus I'm worried about overheating issues. Any recommendations?

 

[James Murray]

Here's one such card:

LQD4500 PCIe AIC SSD FHFL Honeybadger | Liqid, Inc

The Liqid Element LQD4500 FHFL PCIe AIC SSD Honeybadger features high storage capacity and extreme performance for demanding workloads.

www.liqid.com

Liqid to Demonstrate Element LQD4500 PCIe 4.0 x16 SSD: 32 TB At Up to 24 GB/s

www.anandtech.com

Eight M.2 slots and a PCIe 4.0 switch so it beats the Amfeltec six M.2. I wonder if it will work in a cMP? I wonder if it costs more than a 2019 Mac Pro?

I bought the Asus Hyper 4x and it didn't work in my 5.1 mac. But I need something like that.

 

[James Murray]

I have a 2009 Mac Pro with 5,1 firmware. It currently runs Mojave.

I also have four m.2 drives and I want to see if I can get an adapter to put them in the computer. I know the Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCI-E can support 4 m.2 drives and it's probably the fastest, but it's $400 and I can't afford that. What are some good alternatives? Is that that the only 4 slot m.2 PCI- card that works with an older Mac Pro? I was considering getting two 2 slot PCI-E adapters, but I only have one 16x PCI-E Slot available so if I do get two, one will have to go in a slower 4x slot. Plus I'm worried about overheating issues. Any recommendations?

Just want to add all 4 blades are Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500 GB

 

[joevt]

I have a 2009 Mac Pro with 5,1 firmware. It currently runs Mojave.

I also have four m.2 drives and I want to see if I can get an adapter to put them in the computer. I know the Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCI-E can support 4 m.2 drives and it's probably the fastest, but it's $400 and I can't afford that. What are some good alternatives? Is that that the only 4 slot m.2 PCI- card that works with an older Mac Pro? I was considering getting two 2 slot PCI-E adapters, but I only have one 16x PCI-E Slot available so if I do get two, one will have to go in a slower 4x slot. Plus I'm worried about overheating issues. Any recommendations?

Read the first post. Possible solutions exist under "PCIe x8 & x16 switch cards". They cost $$$ because they have a PCIe switch to allow using more than one SSD. You want a card with a PCIe switch and at least x8 PCIe lanes to get full performance from an NVMe (the switch converts the fast/narrow PCIe 3.0 x4 of the NVMe to slow/wide PCIe 2.0 x16 of your PCIe slot 1 or slot 2). You get no performance benefit using slot 3 or slot 4 or using a PCIe to single NVMe adapter in slot 1 or slot 2. But PCIe 2.0 x4 is still 3 times faster than a 2.5 inch SATA SSD.

 

[Fcis]

You can't even install Catalina on a MP5,1, it's not supported and even if you hack/patch it, Catalina don't have the BootROM firmware upgrades needed for NVMe support with a MP5,1. Don't miss steps, each step exist for a reason.

Remove your RAID, erase the drive, then install High Sierra to it. Upgrade to Mojave, after you have BootROM 144.0.0.0.0 you will have access to the NVMe drive and you then can check the firmware if it's the current version compatible with macOS.

Read the first post of this thread, read the first post of the Mojave BootROM upgrade thread.

I've now deleted the RAID, erased the Hard drives and installed High Sierra on one of the drives and it's working well. And upgraded my BootROM to 144.0.0.0.0. And I have installed also the Sapphire Radeon RX 580 and it is recognised. Now I placed my 970 EVO Plus ssd (production date 26/02/2020) in my PCI-e ssd card. I want now to use this new EVO plus as my macOS drive, do I use super duper to copy the macOS to the EVO SSD then erase the normal Harddrive?
And does using it in a specific slot makes it faster?

 

[James Murray]

Read the first post. Possible solutions exist under "PCIe x8 & x16 switch cards". They cost $$$ because they have a PCIe switch to allow using more than one SSD. You want a card with a PCIe switch and at least x8 PCIe lanes to get full performance from an NVMe (the switch converts the fast/narrow PCIe 3.0 x4 of the NVMe to slow/wide PCIe 2.0 x16 of your PCIe slot 1 or slot 2). You get no performance benefit using slot 3 or slot 4 or using a PCIe to single NVMe adapter in slot 1 or slot 2. But PCIe 2.0 x4 is still 3 times faster than a 2.5 inch SATA SSD.

I read the first post, but it looks like all of the budget cards listed only support one blade. I'm not concerned with full performance, right now I just need something that I can boot Mojave from (and possibly dual boot windows from as well). I have 4 Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500 GB blades so I'm hoping I can use two of them for Mojave and the other two for Windows 10.

Ideally, I'm looking for something like this, but that works for a 5,1 Mac Pro and costs around the same:
ASUS Hyper M.2 X16 PCIe 3.0 X4 Expansion Card V2 Supports 4 NVMe M.2 (2242/2260/2280/22110) Upto 128 Gbps for Intel VROC and AMD Ryzen Threadripper NV

The cheapest 4 blade card on that list is the OWC ACCELSIOR 4M2 which is still out of my price range.

If there are no budget 4 blade options for mac, will something like this work on my mac 5,1?
Dual M.2 PCIE Adapter for SATA or PCIE NVMe SSD with Advanced Heat Sink Solution,M.2 SSD NVME (m Key) and SATA (b Key) 22110 2280 2260 2242 2230to PCI-e 3.0 x 4 Host Controller Expansion Card

This only supports 2 blades but if I can get two of them I'll be able to use all 4. Since these cheaper ones are slower does it matter which PCI-E slot I put it in?

 

[complaxneoda]

Yes, it does. Just switch to 4K native sector using isdct (requires format and loosing all data on it). Same thing for P4800X. P4500/P4600 doesn't work all (no drivers).

Thank you! I successfully did it on my drives!

 

[joevt]

I read the first post, but it looks like all of the budget cards listed only support one blade. I'm not concerned with full performance, right now I just need something that I can boot Mojave from (and possibly dual boot windows from as well). I have 4 Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500 GB blades so I'm hoping I can use two of them for Mojave and the other two for Windows 10.

No, you need a card with a switch and switches are expensive.

Ideally, I'm looking for something like this, but that works for a 5,1 Mac Pro and costs around the same:
ASUS Hyper M.2 X16 PCIe 3.0 X4 Expansion Card V2 Supports 4 NVMe M.2 (2242/2260/2280/22110) Upto 128 Gbps for Intel VROC and AMD Ryzen Threadripper NV

That card doesn't have a switch - it requires a motherboard that supports PCIe bifurcation (no Macs support PCIe bifurcation).

The cheapest 4 blade card on that list is the OWC ACCELSIOR 4M2 which is still out of my price range.

It's the cheapest because it uses an Asmedia switch with 8 lanes instead of 16.

If there are no budget 4 blade options for mac, will something like this work on my mac 5,1?
Dual M.2 PCIE Adapter for SATA or PCIE NVMe SSD with Advanced Heat Sink Solution,M.2 SSD NVME (m Key) and SATA (b Key) 22110 2280 2260 2242 2230to PCI-e 3.0 x 4 Host Controller Expansion Card

This only supports 2 blades but if I can get two of them I'll be able to use all 4. Since these cheaper ones are slower does it matter which PCI-E slot I put it in?

It supports one NVMe blade and one SATA blade which requires a SATA connection to your computer. It won't work for you because all your blades are NVMe.

Here's a cheap 4 way switch. It's completely useless for NVMe if you want more then 400 MB/s for more than one blade. You can't cheap out on this.

SEDNA - PCI Express 1X Slots Riser / 4 Port Multiplier

Features and specifications : The perfect solution for expanding PCI-e support in crowded systems or on motherboards with limited or minimal PCI-e ports Compliant with PCI express 2.0 & 1.1 Specification 1-slot PCI-E 1X to 4 slot 1X riser card with high speed USB 3.0 cable. Support 4 high speed P...

www.amazon.com

 

[James Murray]

No, you need a card with a switch and switches are expensive.


That card doesn't have a switch - it requires a motherboard that supports PCIe bifurcation (no Macs support PCIe bifurcation).


It's the cheapest because it uses an Asmedia switch with 8 lanes instead of 16.

I see. Is it possible to dual boot mac OS and Windows from those drives? The OP says the Sonnet doesn't support windows so I assume no. But what about the Accelsior? I don't have a boot screen because I'm using a Radeon Saphire Pulse RX580 video card. Any steps for installing both windows and mac on this drive when you don't have a boot screen?

It supports one NVMe blade and one SATA blade which requires a SATA connection to your computer. It won't work for you because all your blades are NVMe.

Damn I already ordered this too. It says that it's mac supported and I do have two available sata slots in the HD bays. I'll see if it works before I try anything else. Maybe I'll get lucky.

Here's a cheap 4 way switch. It's completely useless for NVMe if you want more then 400 MB/s for more than one blade. You can't cheap out on this.

SEDNA - PCI Express 1X Slots Riser / 4 Port Multiplier

Features and specifications : The perfect solution for expanding PCI-e support in crowded systems or on motherboards with limited or minimal PCI-e ports Compliant with PCI express 2.0 & 1.1 Specification 1-slot PCI-E 1X to 4 slot 1X riser card with high speed USB 3.0 cable. Support 4 high speed P...

www.amazon.com

Not sure I like the idea of that big ugly logic board floating around in my mac. Might as well just get an external m.2 enclosure instead of that. Can you boot mac and windows from an external enclosure?

Thanks for all your help on this. I'm new to the whole mac pro thing.

 

[joevt]

I see. Is it possible to dual boot mac OS and Windows from those drives? The OP says the Sonnet doesn't support windows so I assume no. But what about the Accelsior? I don't have a boot screen because I'm using a Radeon Saphire Pulse RX580 video card. Any steps for installing both windows and mac on this drive when you don't have a boot screen?

How do you make a card that doesn't work in Windows? If a PC has UEFI and a UEFI NVMe driver, then it should just work. It should work in a Mac if it has new enough UEFI to boot Windows.
Without a boot screen, you need to be able to set the boot in macOS (use the bless command if Startup Disk preferences panel doesn't have the option). In Windows, the Boot Camp control panel may be useable, otherwise you can use the EasyUEFI app. I think there's a thread somewhere describing how to use Open Core to boot Windows "safely" using UEFI on old Mac. I think there's a thread somewhere describing how to get boot screen with rEFInd or Open Core (I'm not sure which or where - one can chain boot to the other). I haven't tried booting Windows with UEFI since my MacPro3,1 is too old for that - only Linux and macOS will boot properly using EFI on the Mac Pro3,1. I haven't tried getting a boot screen with a non-Mac GPU either.

Damn I already ordered this too. It says that it's mac supported and I do have two available sata slots in the HD bays. I'll see if it works before I try anything else. Maybe I'll get lucky.

It doesn't have a PCIe switch so you'll only get up to ~ 1500 MB/s. You'll need a cable to connect a SATA NVMe (but you don't have a SATA M.2, so nevermind). They come in various lengths. Some with one or two power connectors:
P22PM-15PF-7P-6IN SATA 22 Pin Male to 7 Pin SATA Cable with 15 Pin SATA Female Power Cable
P22PM-15PF-7P-12IN SATA 22 Pin Male to SATA 7 Pin and 15 Pin Female
P22PM-15PF-7P-18IN SATA 22 Pin Male to SATA 7 Pin and 15 Pin Female
P22PM-P8-S18IN SATA 22 Pin Male to SATA 7 Pin and 15 Pin Female - 18 and 8 Inches
P22PM-15PF-7P-1M SATA 22 Pin Male to SATA 7 Pin and 15 Pin Female 1 Meter
P22PM-15-7-S3 SATA 22 Pin Male to SATA III 7 Pin and 15 Pin SATA Female - 12 Inches
P22PM-2X15PF-7P-2IN SATA 22 Pin Male to SATA 7 Pin and 2 X 15 Pin SATA Female Connectors - 2"
P22PM-2X15PF-7P-6IN SATA 22 Pin Male to SATA 7 Pin and 2 X 15 Pin SATA Female Connectors - 6"

Not sure I like the idea of that big ugly logic board floating around in my mac. Might as well just get an external m.2 enclosure instead of that. Can you boot mac and windows from an external enclosure?

It was kind of a joke because 400 MB/s (4 Gbps) max would be a waste for an NVMe)

External enclosure should be fine for EFI boot (not legacy BIOS boot which is what you usually use to boot Windows on old Macs - where Windows disk needs to be connected to one of the internal drive bays). NVMe requires PCIe.

External SATA (6 Gbps) might be the least expensive way.

No one has made a USB 3.x booter (10 Gbps) for classic Mac Pro yet.

Thunderbolt (22 Gbps PCIe) doesn't work well enough for booting a classic Mac Pro but I guess it's not impossible. It might take as much work as creating a USB 3.x booter.

External PCIe is super expensive (there's a subset of products at B&H Photo - each manufacturer has their own website - I have the Dynapower USA Netstor NA255A 16 lane host (64 Gbps) with PCIe 3.0 switch connected to my MacPro3,1), or you can make your own with a cheap single lane riser (4 Gbps) like the one I linked or you can get 4 lane (16 Gbps) cables at ADT-Link. Only a product with a PCIe 3.0 switch with at least a 8 lane host adapter (32 Gbps) will give full performance from a PCIe 3.0 NVMe device (31.5 Gbps). There exist products with PCIe 4.0 switches - but I haven't seen anyone try that with an old Mac Pro yet - you would need an x16 host adapter (64 Gbps) to get full performance from a PCIe 4.0 NVMe device (63 Gbps) connected to a classic Mac Pro.

(Host bandwidth numbers assume Mac Pro PCIe 2.0 slot or PCIe 2.0 switch)

 

[Nauzikaa]

Anyone try Gigabyte Aorus RAID AIC SSD on Marvell 88NR2241?