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SATA 3 Anyone!

A Real Controller

If you want to get real performance, get a hardware RAID card for your Mac Pro. Those little software solutions are weak compared to something from LSI or Adaptec.
 
itsamacthing said:
If you want to get real performance, get a hardware RAID card for your Mac Pro. Those little software solutions are weak compared to something from LSI or Adaptec.
Click to expand...
In the case of Mac, you need to look at ATTO and Areca as they offer both OS X drivers and firmware that will allow them to boot in an EFI environment.
 
I ordered one of these inexpensive SATA3 cards from Ebay in the hopes that it would help boost the performance of my Crucial M4 a bit. After receiving it, I promptly installed it in slot 4 of my Mac Pro 3,1 and SSD connected to COM3 connector. Everything seemed to work fine. System Information reported "negotiated link speed" to be 6 Gigabit. Drive booted fine.

I did some speed tests with and without the card using Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. When booting from the SATA3 card, write speeds were about 180 MB/s and reads were about 190MB/s. When booting from the built-in SATA2 ports, write speeds were about 250 MB/s and reads were about 270 MB/s.

Then, I tried the COM4 connector on the card and negotiated link speed was only 3 Gigabit. Switching to slots 2 or 3 did not help. Does anyone have any idea what might be wrong? Could it be a faulty card? Perhaps a limitation of the Mac Pro 3,1? Thanks in advance.
 
saulinpa said:
Slot 4 is PCIe 1.1 so going to 2 or 3 (PCIe 2.0) should have gotten you the speeds. As others have seen even in a Pro5,1 some of these cards suck.
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I tried switching to slot 2 again and managed to achieve the same speeds as the built-in SATA2 speeds. When I looked in System Information, it would only get a "negotiated link speed" of 3 Gigabit. I'm beginning to believe it's just a limitation of the Mac Pro 3,1.

At least I'm still able to use the eSATA ports...
 
If the card is what I expect, it's a single PCIe link. So the data rate will be set by the slowest PCIe specification in the chain. So if the slot is slower, then it dictates the max throughput. IF the slot and card are equal or the slot is faster, the card will dictate the throughput rate (not only PCIe lane speed, but the SATA controller chip will reduce matters due to 8b/10b encoding and latency <designed to be cheap, so they have to compromise on speed>).

In the case of a 2008, slots 3 & 4 are PCIe 1.1 (250MB/s max), slots 1 & 2 are PCIe 2.0 (500MB/s max).

So your experiences actually make sense.
 
pastrychef said:
That make sense but doesn't explain why even in slot 2 (PCIe 2.0), I am only seeing SATA2 speeds rather than SATA3 speeds.
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Keep in mind that a PCIe 2.0 link can only handle up to 250MB/s throughput. Combine that with a cheap SATA 3 controller chip, you'd get the speeds you've indicated (180 - 190MB/s).

Better performance will mean getting a better card. Unfortunately, there aren't that many options for MP owners, so the pricing soars very quickly.
 
pastrychef said:
Looks cool. Unfortunately, that card is not bootable.
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Didn't realize you needed bootable when I posted.

In that particular instance, you're choices are extremely limited (ATTO and Areca), and specifically to RAID versions (last it was tested, ATTO's H6xx series did not boot in EFI; just driver support, and it's the same with Areca's non-RAID HBA's, such as the 1320 series). You could follow up with ATTO to see if this has changed, but the cost difference is negligible last I checked. I know for certain it's still the case with Areca's non-RAID models.

However, you don't need to break the bank on a top-end model to get what you need in a RAID card either. Take a look at the ARC-1213-4i (about $90 more than the OWC product). It will do what you want (bootable in a MP and works with OSX).

Extremely good value for the money, as most cards in this range don't come close to the features or speed.

I realize it's not quite the answer you were hoping for, but it's the only type of product that will do what you need.

So look at it this way; ... That's what you get for buying a Mac Pro. :eek: :p

Seriously though, hope this helps (definitely will do what you need). :)
 
So I received my cheap card/s today, and put it in my late 2010 Mac Pro. Firstly tried it with the OWC external triple port drive enclosure and got reasonable results, about 290 Mbs read with my Corsair 480GB Force GT SSD.

I also got a power connector from Startech (http://www.ebuyer.com/265991-startech-com-6in-sata-power-y-splitter-cable-adapter-0-15m-pyo2sata), but had to break the outside clip on one side to get it to push in, but then it does seem not very secure. Just looking around, would the following be better??

http://www.lindy.co.uk/sata-power-splitter-cable-015m/33278.html

The other thing is, for those of you that are using sleds 3 & 4, utilising the internal HDD power, how are you mounting the SSD onto the sled bracket? The only way I can see this being done is good old fashioned electrical tape!!?? Not ideal!!

So with the same SSD utilising the internal SATA connection and power via my bodged power cable and got about 390Mbs read, which was much better. This was in Slot 4, so I might try tomorrow the card in Slot 2 to see if any performance differences!!?
 
Is the cheap controller an Astrotek?

Just wondering, I would like a cheap PCI adapter for a single booting SSD.

The $60 dollar solution posted early on sounded good; but I have found a number of Hong Kong makers whose PCI products are OS X compatible. It seems in Australia though, only OWC seems available here.

But PC vendors sell many PCI cards, and some seem to have OS X approval.

Is this one here???

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_385&products_id=18779

http://www.astrotek.com.hk/ProductDetails.asp?ProductName=AT-CPES6E
 
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Melbourne Park said:
Others have found that card boots just fine, and also is there for selection via boot camp. In a 4.1 PMs that is.

It seems from your experience, that it does not boot in a 3.1 Power Mac,
Click to expand...

I was replying to post #160. The cheap SATA3 card boots fine in my 3,1. The only problem I've had with the cheap SATA3 card is getting SATA3 speeds. The best speeds I've managed to get from that card were about 270MB/s reads and 250MB/s writes which is the sake speeds as the built-in SATA2 ports of the computer.
 
pastrychef said:
I was replying to post #160. The cheap SATA3 card boots fine in my 3,1. The only problem I've had with the cheap SATA3 card is getting SATA3 speeds. The best speeds I've managed to get from that card were about 270MB/s reads and 250MB/s writes which is the sake speeds as the built-in SATA2 ports of the computer.
Click to expand...

I am looking myself, although I have a 2010 machine. I think currently, the prices are much higher for the MacPro fully operational cards, than for PCs, which have somewhat similar architecture. I am thinking that its better to spend my money on SSD capacity, than for an expensive card architecture that really only makes sense when one has several SSDs attached to it.

The strange thing is that there are I think quite affordable cards that connect externally, so the card technology is known. It's just a matter of time IMO until something quick and affordable comes along. I think now that SSDs are clever and relatively good value for a 250GB unit of good quality, the speed differences from HDs are very significant, while the speed increases from a PCI bus are relatively small. Those differences do pay for some people/businesses, but if its small budget, I am looking to just by a 6GB/s SSD and then wait until a cheap card comes along.

I should say though, that Vapour Matt - on page one of the thread - got over 400 MB/S speeds of his cheap card. But he did have to supply a cable and power etc. And his machine is a bit later than yours.
 
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Well I have updated to mountain lion and still the card works perfectly with no issues! its been a real bargin for me!:cool:
 
I ended up sending my ASM chipset card back as it stopped booting my SSD. Turns out the return card was the same... after some testing it came down to the 1 meter SATA cable I was using to route the signal from the PCI slot up to the optical bay where the SSD is. I swapped it out for a 75 centimeter cable and it works fine now. Still get 230 MB/s writes and 350 MB/s reads :)
 
initialsBB said:
I ended up sending my ASM chipset card back as it stopped booting my SSD. Turns out the return card was the same... after some testing it came down to the 1 meter SATA cable I was using to route the signal from the PCI slot up to the optical bay where the SSD is. I swapped it out for a 75 centimeter cable and it works fine now. Still get 230 MB/s writes and 350 MB/s reads :)
Click to expand...


I use a very short cable, 15cm long as my SSD is in HD bay 4 right above the card. this card has been 100% reliable and i have no issues with it at all in ML either.
 
Possibly different Wiring???

Hi all, I'm in the process of changing from a 2008 Dual 2.8 Quad core to a 2009 Dual 2.26 Quad core Mac Pro, going through a process of moving my 8800GT graphics card and Airport Extreme card from one to the other.

On doing this, I noticed 2 Sata ports at the front of the motherboard that I'm assuming are for the Optical Drive bays.

I'm wandering if I put my SSD into Bay 2 of my Optical Drive area, then disconnected its sata cable from the motherboard and connected it to a Sata Extension cable back to the Sata 3 card, should this work?

The reason for this, is that it would also free up a sata port on the motherboard that I could attach a cheap eSata plate to the back of my computer and link to the motherboard to give me a Sata II speed eSata connection at the back of my machine.

Let me know your thoughts :)
 
Prince134 said:
People who wants to use sataIII ssd should consider using on board raid 0.
It will get you over 500 read and 450 write speed. And more importantly, even though the sataIII card can give you 400r/285w speed and bootable as most people think notable value, it will slow down your graphic performance:mad:. Believe it or not, I tried my self with sata III card with 120gb corsair GT ssd and get my finding when load web pages. These sataIII card share bandwidth with your graphics card and CPU power. Unlike on bard sataII interface which runs much smoothly (because of the integrated Sata controller) when comparing using sataIII card that share pcie bandwidth.

You can buy 2 120gb ssd and make 240gb raid 0 from disk utility, clone a bootable lion to the raid0 drive, It can boot and handle everything smoothly with 500r/450w speed.
Click to expand...

But isn't the bottleneck then the data connection to the computer? Isn't that why one needs a PCI card slot to connect to, rather than a slower disk connection?

With the low cost of both 120GB SSDs and the reasonable cost of 240GB SSDs, what you suggest is interesting for me!
 
TheCoupe said:
Hi all, I'm in the process of changing from a 2008 Dual 2.8 Quad core to a 2009 Dual 2.26 Quad core Mac Pro, going through a process of moving my 8800GT graphics card and Airport Extreme card from one to the other.

On doing this, I noticed 2 Sata ports at the front of the motherboard that I'm assuming are for the Optical Drive bays.

I'm wandering if I put my SSD into Bay 2 of my Optical Drive area, then disconnected its sata cable from the motherboard and connected it to a Sata Extension cable back to the Sata 3 card, should this work?

The reason for this, is that it would also free up a sata port on the motherboard that I could attach a cheap eSata plate to the back of my computer and link to the motherboard to give me a Sata II speed eSata connection at the back of my machine.

Let me know your thoughts :)
Click to expand...

there are posts about how you can access ports on the 2009 machines, to get very fast HD speeds ... do a search, your machine with some simple cable management, can achieve some gi-normous disk speeds.
 
TheCoupe said:
Cool, sounds interesting :) I take it the posts are located on here, or is it a google search?
Click to expand...

Yes at this site, the Mac Pro threads. Something about disk connections and the 2009 machines. There are pictures too of the connections made. Its a pretty cool thing and exclusive I think to your machine. Best for SSDs because they are quick enough to benefit from faster bus speeds.
 
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