MP 1,1-5,1 Power to optical bay replacement

[tek.prabu]

Hei!

I was wondering if it would be possible to replace the optical drive with something like a Startech 4-bay rack-backplane (with a PCIe SATA controller 6G to go with it).

However, I am a NOOB when it comes to wiring, etc and have no clue about how to provide power to such a unit.

1. Would it be possible to somehow split power from the SATA-II cable that feeds the 2 optical bays ?
2. Would splitting from the SATA-II cables provide enough power required by such a unit (2x 4-pin LP4)?
3. Is it possible to draw power from any other place inside the mac pro if not ?

I would like to see if I can get the drives operate at optimum 6G speeds.

 

[arw]

1. The product you linked already includes the matching power adapters. Just remove the small plastic pin on one side to make them fit into the Mac Pro's SATA Power+Data combo plug.

2. I am pretty certain the optical bay cable can provide power to four 2,5" HDDs but I have no hard values at hand. But as 2,5" drives can be powered via USB, the ampere @5V should not present any problems. IIRC there is no additional circuitry but 5V and 12V are directly connected to the main power rails via the PSU cable.

 

[h9826790]

Everything you said are possible, and it shouldn't be too hard to achieve. (As arw said, all you need to do should be just remove that plastic hook, then you can use the SATA ports in the optical bay to power this 4 bays enclosure)

However, may I know what you really want to achieve? And what's the performance you need / actual usage?

What I doubt is if this is the cost effective way to achieve what you are looking for.

 

[tek.prabu]

1. The product you linked already includes the matching power adapters. Just remove the small plastic pin on one side to make them fit into the Mac Pro's SATA Power+Data combo plug.

2. I am pretty certain the optical bay cable can provide power to four 2,5" HDDs but I have no hard values at hand. But as 2,5" drives can be powered via USB, the ampere @5V should not present any problems. IIRC there is no additional circuitry but 5V and 12V are directly connected to the main power rails via the PSU cable.

Oh! That is fantastic. Thank you very much. Just to confirm: I will be removing the plastic on the side where the black wire is to the left, correct ?

 

[kboller07]

Hei!

I was wondering if it would be possible to replace the optical drive with something like a Startech 4-bay rack-backplane (with a PCIe SATA controller 6G to go with it).

However, I am a NOOB when it comes to wiring, etc and have no clue about how to provide power to such a unit.

1. Would it be possible to somehow split power from the SATA-II cable that feeds the 2 optical bays ?
2. Would splitting from the SATA-II cables provide enough power required by such a unit (2x 4-pin LP4)?
3. Is it possible to draw power from any other place inside the mac pro if not ?

I would like to see if I can get the drives operate at optimum 6G speeds.

I had 4 3.5" drives in the optical Bay Area by removing both optical drives on a 3,1 Mac Pro. It was so many years ago that I don't remember which product I used though.

 

[arw]

Just to confirm: I will be removing the plastic on the side where the black wire is to the left, correct ?

You can't mistake the sides if you try plugging it in. It's the side where the contact bar has the additional plastic 'hook'.
I'm describing it this way because some adapters have an additional 5th (orange) cable left of the black one.

 

[h9826790]

Oh! That is fantastic. Thank you very much. Just to confirm: I will be removing the plastic on the side where the black wire is to the left, correct ?

You can try to connect it to the cMP's optical bay's SATA ports, then you can confirm which plastic hook need to be removed. I had a similar setup which required to remove the plastic hook from the cable connector.

 

[tek.prabu]

Everything you said are possible, and it shouldn't be too hard to achieve. (As arw said, all you need to do should be just remove that plastic hook, then you can use the SATA ports in the optical bay to power this 4 bays enclosure)

However, may I know what you really want to achieve? And what's the performance you need / actual usage?

What I doubt is if this is the cost effective way to achieve what you are looking for.

My SSDs are all 6G and from what I have read so far in the forums here, the only option to get 6G on a macpro5,1 would be backplane conversion + a PCIe SATA card way (f.eks. MaxConnect from maxupgrades - for the drive bays).

I was finding it a bit confusing to choose from the many MaxConnect options (both drive bays + optical bay Mini-SAS configurations) and wrote to them. While waiting for a reply, I ran into this 4-bay backplane from StarTech and thought it might be a quicker/easier option. I think the MaxConnect options cost $239+ (for the controller + drive bays option) and the StarTech option (4-bay + a non-RAID card) approximately ~$200- ..

• I see that the maxconnect cards are mostly mini-sas. I do wonder if it might be worth investing in one of those cards anyway (and picking up a mini-sas -> sata cable)

Requirement is a reasonable performance upgrade (in this case 3G -> 6G) for photo editing and some light video editing.

I could go the NVMe way, but with PCIe 2.0, I should save up to get a Sonnet Fusion x16 card to have any meaningful performance upgrade, I guess ? (the OWC 4M2 x8 card is a poor man's stepping stone, maybe?).

Will greatly appreciate if you could point me to any cheaper/better options!

 

[tek.prabu]

Oh wow!

Since I will patch the power ports from both the connectors available in the optical bay area of the macpro5,1 for a single startech unit, I guess I will have to leave the 2nd optical bay empty ?

I had 4 3.5" drives in the optical Bay Area by removing both optical drives on a 3,1 Mac Pro. It was so many years ago that I don't remember which product I used though.

 

[Mactech20]

Just get this. Works great on my 5,1. About 1400 read/write speads with Pcie 2.0

OWC 240GB Accelsior 1M2 NVMe M.2 SSD PCIe 4.0... at MacSales.com

SACL1M.2 240GB OWC Accelsior 1M2 NVMe M.2 SSD PCIe 4.0 Storage Solution. The speed-boosting, capacity-expanding NVMe SSD internal storage solution for pro content creators, performance enthusiasts, and gamers.

eshop.macsales.com

 

[h9826790]

My SSDs are all 6G and from what I have read so far in the forums here, the only option to get 6G on a macpro5,1 would be backplane conversion + a PCIe SATA card way (f.eks. MaxConnect from maxupgrades - for the drive bays).

I was finding it a bit confusing to choose from the many MaxConnect options (both drive bays + optical bay Mini-SAS configurations) and wrote to them. While waiting for a reply, I ran into this 4-bay backplane from StarTech and thought it might be a quicker/easier option. I think the MaxConnect options cost $239+ (for the controller + drive bays option) and the StarTech option (4-bay + a non-RAID card) approximately ~$200- ..

• I see that the maxconnect cards are mostly mini-sas. I do wonder if it might be worth investing in one of those cards anyway (and picking up a mini-sas -> sata cable)

Requirement is a reasonable performance upgrade (in this case 3G -> 6G) for photo editing and some light video editing.

I could go the NVMe way, but with PCIe 2.0, I should save up to get a Sonnet Fusion x16 card to have any meaningful performance upgrade, I guess ? (the OWC 4M2 x8 card is a poor man's stepping stone, maybe?).

Will greatly appreciate if you could point me to any cheaper/better options!

That's why I asked what you really need.

In general, we use SSD (especially SATA SSD) because of it's high IOPS, but not the sequential speed. In this case, 3G or 6G doesn't really matter, the computer responsiveness still practically the same.

If you want to install a 4 bay SATA III enclosure. And each drive has its own SATA connection. Which means, you will need a 4x (or more) SATA III ports PCIe card.

And most normal price card out there only has one SATA III controller onboard. Which means, all 4 SSD must share the same controller. And the combined performance max at ~500MB/s (assuming the card has a good quality SATA III controller, and a good PCB layout. Otherwise, the max combined performance may be lowered to ~350MB/s).

I give you two examples.

If your cMP boot from one of the SSD connected to one of the SATA II connector, and the boot time is 60s. Then most likely the boot time from via this SATA III setup is also 60s. (because system responsiveness mainly base on 4K random read QD1, which is not affected by 6G or 3G)

If you copy a video from SSD A to SSD B, both connected to the cMP's native SATA II connector, and it takes 60s. Then the same operation will also need about 60s via the SATA III setup. (because the combined max speed is ~500MB/s, which is the same as 2x SATA II connection).

So, please consider what you really looking for.

If you only need to max out 1 SSD's sequential speed. Then yes, connect it via a SATA III card make sense. However, for today's price. For only one SSD, unless you are talking about something like 4TB SSD. Get a NVMe make more sense in general, because even the cheapest adaptor can still allow the NVMe to outperform a SATA III connected SSD.

 

[tek.prabu]

@h9826790 @arw Thanks so much for the advice.

I was considering the Startech 8-port PCIe card which has 4x host controllers -- I was not going for their 4-port PCIe card as it has just one controller on board and will be ending up with the exact problem you are pointing to.

Am I correct in understanding that even with the 1 controller : 2 drives I get with this card, the performance is not going to be significant enough to warrant this upgrade?

And yes, I will aim my energies more at NVMe and I agree it makes much long term sense!

 

[h9826790]

Am I correct in understanding that even with the 1 controller : 2 drives I get with this card, the performance is not going to be significant enough to warrant this upgrade?

It really depends on your usage.

e.g. If you need something that >300MB/s sequential speed (e.g. to play a timeline smoothly in a video editing software). Then of course it worth.

But if you just want to match what the spec can do, then most likely you can't quite feel any improvement in normal daily use.

I was considering the Startech 8-port PCIe card which has 4x host controllers -- I was not going for their 4-port PCIe card as it has just one controller on board and will be ending up with the exact problem you are pointing to.

The eight ports card may still give you similar performance as the 4 ports card.

A quick check shows that the 8 ports card use the PI7C9X2G608GP PCIe switch, which means, all down stream SATA controllers only have PCIe 2.0 x1 bandwidth. In this case, you are not gonna to get what you want. And most likely the sequential speed will be limited to about ~350MB/s for each SSD. Way below the ~500MB/s that most SATA SSD can do.

This PCIe switch "split" a x4 lane into four x1 lane, but not allocate all x4 lane bandwidth to all four downstream dynamically.

Of course, improve from 250MB/s to 350MB/s still quite a lot. But apparently that's not what you are looking for.

 

[tek.prabu]

Thanks so much for the explanation @h9826790 -- I fully understand now. Love this forum and all you guys!

 

[tek.prabu]

Hei!

Something weird happening here - I mounted my Samsung 850 Evo on an OWC Accelsior S (that promises full SATA III throughput) - but it peaks out at ~250Mb/s (w) and ~380Mb/s (r).

The drive itself is mint, rarely used and SmartUtility reports healthy status.

Is this normal ?

 

[h9826790]

I never tested any 850 Evo (I have this drive, but all in my PS / Xbox) on the cMP, but I expect better result.

This is the speed test from my 840 Evo, but it's mounted on a Sonnet TempoSSD. Technically, the OWC can also allow the SSD to perform at this speed.