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.
SATA 3 Anyone!
- Thread starter Vapor matt
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I have had no problems booting via vertex 3 SSD on this card since day 1 of installation.
OS lion 7.2
OCZ vertex 3 120g SSD
single drive connected to the card.
I have never tried using raid as it is not a raid card, and i havnt tried software raid as on OSX its not been very reliable and has been known to be broken after updates.
someone else must have this setup working by now!
OS lion 7.2
OCZ vertex 3 120g SSD
single drive connected to the card.
I have never tried using raid as it is not a raid card, and i havnt tried software raid as on OSX its not been very reliable and has been known to be broken after updates.
someone else must have this setup working by now!
pci sata III mac pro
did you try the different positions of the jumper because I had the same problem on boot position to try to come into a 1-2 and 2-3 for the other verification
I try the boot with the card last night'm glad the boot and a bit long but it starts
well I think we need a little manipulation like wipe free space or activate the trim?
but it works best wishes and Happy New Year friends
----------
big big respect and thanks vapor matt
did you try the different positions of the jumper because I had the same problem on boot position to try to come into a 1-2 and 2-3 for the other verification
I try the boot with the card last night'm glad the boot and a bit long but it starts
well I think we need a little manipulation like wipe free space or activate the trim?but it works best wishes and Happy New Year friends
----------
big big respect and thanks vapor matt
Confirmed: ASMedia based SATA-3 Controller boots OS X
Hi all,
roughly 10 minutes after my last post UPS showed up and delivered my new SSD. I cloned my boot drive onto it and connected it to the ASMedia SATA-3 controller.
What can I say. It boots OS X
Not sure why the same controller with the same jumper settings would not boot my other SSD (in RAID-0) or any of my optical drives. Anyways. Here are some of my findings:
1.) The card is fast. But it does NOT deliver full SATA-3 speeds, which was to be expected from a single lane PCI-E card. Still, it is very fast, my initial benchmarks showed throughputs of around 380-390 MB/sec for each read and write. Clearly showing that it has hit the limit here (SATA-3 should give you more than 500 MB/sec.). My SSD is specced at 550 MB/sec, btw. This is still faster than Marvell based SATA-3 controllers.
2.) TRIM enabler works fine, which is to be expected.
3.) This is odd: drives connected to the internal ports of the controller show up as external drives (see attached screenshot). Looks like this chipset is actually a plain eSATA chipset. I am not sure about the implications this has (I know in Windows external drives have some caching features disabled by default, which will reduce performance - not sure if the same is true for OS X - as I said, the card is very fast regarding my benchmarks).
So now I can also confirm this card is actually booting. I think we now have a total of 3 people in here who confirm this? I think it's safe to say this card can be recommended to anyone who needs a bootable SATA3 controller.
Cheers
Sascha
Hi all,
roughly 10 minutes after my last post UPS showed up and delivered my new SSD. I cloned my boot drive onto it and connected it to the ASMedia SATA-3 controller.
What can I say. It boots OS X
Not sure why the same controller with the same jumper settings would not boot my other SSD (in RAID-0) or any of my optical drives. Anyways. Here are some of my findings:
1.) The card is fast. But it does NOT deliver full SATA-3 speeds, which was to be expected from a single lane PCI-E card. Still, it is very fast, my initial benchmarks showed throughputs of around 380-390 MB/sec for each read and write. Clearly showing that it has hit the limit here (SATA-3 should give you more than 500 MB/sec.). My SSD is specced at 550 MB/sec, btw. This is still faster than Marvell based SATA-3 controllers.
2.) TRIM enabler works fine, which is to be expected.
3.) This is odd: drives connected to the internal ports of the controller show up as external drives (see attached screenshot). Looks like this chipset is actually a plain eSATA chipset. I am not sure about the implications this has (I know in Windows external drives have some caching features disabled by default, which will reduce performance - not sure if the same is true for OS X - as I said, the card is very fast regarding my benchmarks).
So now I can also confirm this card is actually booting. I think we now have a total of 3 people in here who confirm this? I think it's safe to say this card can be recommended to anyone who needs a bootable SATA3 controller.
Cheers
Sascha
Attachments
Great !
My card will be arriving soon so I'll be confirming these results I hope. 380-390 MB/s is still amazing even if quite a bit lower than full SATA III
My card will be arriving soon so I'll be confirming these results I hope. 380-390 MB/s is still amazing even if quite a bit lower than full SATA III
Great !
My card will be arriving soon so I'll be confirming these results I hope. 380-390 MB/s is still amazing even if quite a bit lower than full SATA III
yep. and let's not forget. SSDs are not really about sustained throughput when reading/writing large files. They are about those small ramdom reads/writes, and those are still MUCH slower than even SATA-1.
I am happy right now. Next experiment will be to buy a second SSD and put it all back into RAID-0. Then we'll see what this controller can deliver (of course I will use a second controller for that).
Sharkoon even offers a solution for six 2.5" drives in one 5.25" bay (also available for 4 drives). Admitted - cable routing would probably be more of a hassle there. But combined you could pack the MacPro to the limit:
Both optical bays with the Sharkoon adapter = 12 2.5" drives.
The TransIntl adapter you linked makes for another 4 2.5" drives.
Makes 16 2.5" drives PLUS 4 3.5" drives (or alternatively PLUS 8 2.5" drives in the 3.5" bays).
So what could one do with 24(!) 2.5" drives in a MacPro? That would be 12TB of disk space when taking comparably inexpensive magnetic drives with 500GB each. IIRC you can get 1TB in a 2.5" form factor these days, which would result in 24TB of disk space internally(!). Take that, iMac!
Though even more important - how could one come even close to properly support them in terms of ports and speeds?
This is a extreme amount of space!! Can this be done with SSD's?
ha ha see not bad for a cheap SATA 3 controller card!
Iam real pleased that others are seeing the speeds from even 1 SSD SATA-3 drive. with the update to a hex core W3680 and this SATA-3 controller card my 2009 mac pro will last even longer and will be even better value for money
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
mmm unfortunately had to send mine back. I couldn't get it to slot into the PCI slot on my 2010 5.1, I think it may have been bent
I got mine today and it was a bitch to get it in. I was about to throw it out the window when I decided to give it one final hefty shove and it finally slotted in.
The SSD was recognized after an HFS+ format. It hung during the OS 10.7.2 install on the step right after the download, when it reboots into the real install process... I didn't try it again because I was fed up at that stage, so I simply plugged the SSD back onto the Mac Pro's SATA II controller to install Lion (under 15 minutes total from the download to the desktop, already a good sign). I then plugged the SSD back onto the ASM1061 controller card and it rebooted fine, phew !
The speeds are stunning, booting happens in under 15 seconds , and shutdown even with many applications open happens in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately I can't measure anything really because AJA System Test does not seem to cope with SSD IOs !! Blackmagic Speed Test shows around 300MB/s writes and 400 MB/s reads. On the Mac Pro SATA II controller it was around 275 MB/s writes and reads.
My only problem now is getting the SATA data cable from the PCI bay to the optical bay. The cable I have is just long enough, but I really can't see where to make the thing go through so that it doesn't get in the way of the Mac Pro's side panel. If anyone has a tip for me it would be great if you cold share because as it stands I've stuck a piece of masking tape to hold the door closed
Cable routing pictures:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/tips/MacPro_HD_in_optical_drive_bay/MacPro_HD_in_OpticalBay.html
Thanks ... Ken
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/tips/MacPro_HD_in_optical_drive_bay/MacPro_HD_in_OpticalBay.html
Thanks ... Ken
That's perfect, but can be done a little easier, if you don't mind it not looking very professional/nice.
I routed 100 cm cable right along the door to the front, put it between the large fan and the front, across to the other side. There is a little space on the opposite side of the door where you can squeeze it through right into the optical bay compartment.
It's a little tricky to do but you don't need to unscrew anything.
Not sure it will help for his 2010 MP. Does anyone have such a guide for 2009-2010?
Loa
Got AJA System Test to work. First time I was running it under 10.6.8 and it seems that it did not like access privileges to a 10.7.2 drive. Standard video tests show excellent performance for HD frame sizes The Blackmagic Speed Test shows only 10 or 12 bit tests, but seeing as I work at mostly 8bit 422 YUV, it can only be better...
Thank you all for the cable routing tips, will try that out tonight or this weekend.
It seems stock of this card is a bit low. I checked it out this weekend for a friend on amazon.fr and .co.uk and "ASM 1061" returned no results. This morning it's back up. Get yours while you can, you won't regret it !
The Blackmagic Speed Test shows only 10 or 12 bit tests, but seeing as I work at mostly 8bit 422 YUV, it can only be better...Thank you all for the cable routing tips, will try that out tonight or this weekend.
It seems stock of this card is a bit low. I checked it out this weekend for a friend on amazon.fr and .co.uk and "ASM 1061" returned no results. This morning it's back up. Get yours while you can, you won't regret it !
Attachments
Last edited:
you wouldn't see anything on the picture because the cable is invisible. if you route it to the front of the mac pro below the optical drive bays, you will find a spot on the left side (front left below optical drives) where you can fiddle the cable through.
Still missing the cable
Vapor: Is your cable a power cable only? There is no such cable in Finland. But one expert told me to buy this cable:
http://www.kauppasatama.fi/?cid=334&page=2
do you think it does the job?
Thank you!
PJA
Vapor: Is your cable a power cable only? There is no such cable in Finland. But one expert told me to buy this cable:
http://www.kauppasatama.fi/?cid=334&page=2
do you think it does the job?
Thank you!
PJA
Hi my cable is a SATA extension power cable, that has 1 female and one male end. one plugs into the power connector in HD bay 4 direct to logic board the other end connects to the SSD power, then there is no need to run power cables from optical bay. then its a short SATA cable to card and SSD which bay 4 HD sits right above. the only reason not to go this way is if you have all the SATA 2 hardrive bays full already for storage.
I got my power cable from here
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CB-057-AK&groupid=1929&catid=1928&subcat=
this is the Akasa part number and product code.
Akasa SATA power cable extension cable (30cm) (AK-CBPW04-30)
Which one? The link shows all of page 2 !
Edit: Vapor Matt beat me to it.
This one looks like it will you help for power if you want to put the SSD in the optical bay
http://www.kauppasatama.fi/?tuote=SATA-15&cid=334
And this for data:
http://www.kauppasatama.fi/?tuote=SATA-05&cid=334