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Apple PCIe adapter $10 on ebay
The Snitech Apple PCIe SSD adapter is currently available on eBay for $10. While there is a newer revision with an unnecessary heat-synch, save your money and buy revision one.

Re the ebay part linked above,the description says;

2:The product only support read data and write data in SSD,don not support as the system startup disk.

Which seems to suggest no booting available?
 
Don't buy the XP941 just yet. Samsung's SM951 is imminent and is about 50% faster at the same price. When it comes out the XP941 will become much cheaper.

You stick a SM951 in slot 2 and 3 and you will have a RAID with reads ups to 3000MB/s and writes about 2000MB/s. Or you can use one for OSX and the other for loading large amounts of data quickly, such as RAW image/video files, games, etc.

There is only one report of someone who bought one and was getting 1400mb/s reads and 1300mb/s writes on a single card.

http://forums.evga.com/m/tm.aspx?m=2261684&p=1

This was the dealer who sold the only one so far...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-SM951-MZ-HPV512HDGL-m-2-NGFF-PCIe-SSD-512-GB-/131379600228

With the cMP, it seems that the SM951 in RAID 0 is not doubling the speeds of a single card. The SM951's on-chip controller cannot negotiate a full-speed link in the cMP x16 slot, only in the x4 slot, whereas the XP941 can negotiate a full-speed link in any slot. So the fantastic speeds BareFeats reported by putting the XP941 in slots 2 and 3 cannot be improved upon with an SM951 in slots 2 and 3, and moving the SM951 to slots 3 and 4 is going to be slower for the same reason the XP941 is slower: the two drives share the same x4 uplink to the CPU. Consequently, the best two SM951s in RAID 0 can do is around 1500 MB/s, which is about what a single SM951 can do in PCIe 2.0.
 
Re the ebay part linked above,the description says;

2:The product only support read data and write data in SSD,don not support as the system startup disk.

Which seems to suggest no booting available?

I also went into the fine print AFTER having ordered the adapter and jolted in my chair.

Anyway, the keyword here is that it is in fact an adapter, not a controller that needs additional OS support to boot. This cheap piece of gold simply acts as a link between the SSD and the Mac Pro and then works as a normal hard drive.

That has to be my conclusion at least, after having installed it with zero work or issues. Being a PCIe hard drive it shows up in OS X as an 'external' drive by default. If you don't like the orange icon it's easy to swap it to whatever else you like.

I boot from mine (and many others do too)
 
I also went into the fine print AFTER having ordered the adapter and jolted in my chair.

Anyway, the keyword here is that it is in fact an adapter, not a controller that needs additional OS support to boot. This cheap piece of gold simply acts as a link between the SSD and the Mac Pro and then works as a normal hard drive.

That has to be my conclusion at least, after having installed it with zero work or issues. Being a PCIe hard drive it shows up in OS X as an 'external' drive by default. If you don't like the orange icon it's easy to swap it to whatever else you like.

I boot from mine (and many others do too)
I have seen other such adapters and the fine print was for a PC that does not have support in BIOS or is not X99 or Z97 so it cannot be used as a boot drive or device, such as the XP941 I have in an older Z87 and being used as a data-only volume.

Maybe something in the translation? as English is not native language it seems given all the spelling and syntax errors.

From what I learned on www.Ramcity.com I was amazed that every Mac Pro can use an XP941 as a boot drive using an adapter, and nice to see they are not controllers that a) cost more, b) require firmware to be enabled as boot drive, c) driver.
 
Hello,

Cute little post on Macrumors.com's main page about how NVMe will be important going to the future of Mac. Strange how our Mac Pros from the past already enjoy them.

:)

Loa
 
Hello,

Cute little post on Macrumors.com's main page about how NVMe will be important going to the future of Mac. Strange how our Mac Pros from the past already enjoy them.

so far no SSD in the cMP runs using the NVMe protocol. SM951/SSUBX should be capable of running this new protocol but up until now they both use the S-ATA protocol. I suspect this could be adjustable via firmware on these two SSDs.
 
so far no SSD in the cMP runs using the NVMe protocol. SM951/SSUBX should be capable of running this new protocol but up until now they both use the S-ATA protocol. I suspect this could be adjustable via firmware on these two SSDs.

Yes. But then again, PCIe remains our limit. Will NVMe bring other benefits to our old machines?

Loa
 
XP491 512 with Lycom/Bplus Adaptor

Hello,

Anyone using Lycom/Bplus adaptor with 512 XP491? May I know whether the deep issue is still present? I understand previously that the LYcom with XP491 will not boot after deep sleep. Thx
 
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My 'old' SSUBX (MZ-KPV1T00/0A2) has no issues on slot 2, full 4x link speed at 5 GT/s. Only the new SSUBX SSD's seem to be affected.



However, this is a strange problem. I filled 905 GByte and still had the full performance. Did you try to reformat the SSD?



No stability issues on my flashed Mac Pro 4,1 -> 5,1 with my SSUBX SSD since October.

Well, this is interesting. I was thinking the SSUBX would be at 2.5 in slot 2. So, at least in some cases, the MZ-KPV1T00/0A2 works at 5.0, but perhaps the MZ-KPV1T0R/0A2 never will. Thoughts?
 
Well, this is interesting. I was thinking the SSUBX would be at 2.5 in slot 2. So, at least in some cases, the MZ-KPV1T00/0A2 works at 5.0, but perhaps the MZ-KPV1T0R/0A2 never will. Thoughts?

The MZ-KPV1T00/0A2 has the controller of the SM953, and this model is very rare.

On eBay only the MZ-KPV1T0R/0A2 aka SM951 are available these days, so you can generally say SSUBX are at 2.5 in slot 2.

The term 'SSUBX' includes two models, the older MZ-KPV1T00/0A2, and the newer MZ-KPV1T0R/0A2.

Maybe we see the MZ-KPV1T00/0A2 in the next Mac Pro again.
 
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The MZ-KPV1T00/0A2 has the controller of the SM953, and this model is very rare.

On eBay only the MZ-KPV1T0R/0A2 aka SM951 are available these days.

The term 'SSUBX' includes two models, the older MZ-KPV1T00/0A2, and the newer MZ-KPV1T0R/0A2.

Maybe we see the MZ-KPV1T0R/0A2 in the next Mac Pro again.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. It would be nice to have a current Apple-branded drive that could run in Slot 2 of the 2009 Mac Pro. I will be fortunate to just find a MZ-KPV1T0R/0A2!
 
Thanks, made the buy. I really don't need 1TB on the system drive, but didn't want to buy a 2X part. What kind of speed do you get from the 512GB stick?

All the SSUBX benchmarks I've posted are from the 512GB part. Expect 1500-1600+ read/writes in Quickbench. Less in BlackMagic.



With the cMP, it seems that the SM951 in RAID 0 is not doubling the speeds of a single card. The SM951's on-chip controller cannot negotiate a full-speed link in the cMP x16 slot, only in the x4 slot, whereas the XP941 can negotiate a full-speed link in any slot. So the fantastic speeds BareFeats reported by putting the XP941 in slots 2 and 3 cannot be improved upon with an SM951 in slots 2 and 3, and moving the SM951 to slots 3 and 4 is going to be slower for the same reason the XP941 is slower: the two drives share the same x4 uplink to the CPU. Consequently, the best two SM951s in RAID 0 can do is around 1500 MB/s, which is about what a single SM951 can do in PCIe 2.0.

The SM951/ssubx in slot 2 is initialized directly on the PCIe bus VS a PCIe bridge in slots 3 & 4. If an active PCIe bridge were plugged into slot 2, the subsequent slots may be properly initialized. Finding the proper bridge at a reasonable cost is the issue.

The only active bridge I've been able to track down at a reasonable cost is this one from SuperMicro:
attachment.php


Whether the PCIe bridge on this card is supported in OS X on the MacPro is the question. FWIW.. this bridge can easily be extended into a position to work within the 4,1/5,1 case.
 

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Yes. But then again, PCIe remains our limit. Will NVMe bring other benefits to our old machines?

Loa

AFAIK a new controller chip on the motherboard is necessary for NVMExpress. So there will be no NVMExpress on the cMP and on nMP 2013.

I wonder if the next generation (built in the Mac Book 2015, the "H' series) using NVMExpress will still be compatible with AHCI?

And last but not least: Anyone knows if the "H" series has the same form factor as previous SSUBX blades? Or is it soldered on the board? Is there already an iFixit teardown of the MacBook 2015?
 
AFAIK a new controller chip on the motherboard is necessary for NVMExpress. So there will be no NVMExpress on the cMP and on nMP 2013.

And last but not least: Anyone knows if the "H" series has the same form factor as previous SSUBX blades? Or is it soldered on the board? Is there already an iFixit teardown of the MacBook 2015?

I highly doubt that (new chip neccessary on the MLB). where did you get this info?

AFAIK, MacBook 2015 (12" retina) has the SSD soldered to the MLB. MacBook Pro and Air 2015 are equipped with SSUBX blades.
 
I highly doubt that (new chip neccessary on the MLB). where did you get this info?

I read this once, but cannot find the source anymore. I would be glad if I'm wrong. :D

From my memory: At least on the PC side, the UEFI on the boards need an update to support NVME. I doubt that Apple will give us new firmware updates...

AFAIK, MacBook 2015 (12" retina) has the SSD soldered to the MLB. MacBook Pro and Air 2015 are equipped with SSUBX blades.

So we have two wait for newer Mac Book Pro's/Air's to know it the 'H' Generation is compatible with AHCI, or gives us even MVME.
 
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From my memory: At least on the PC side, the UEFI on the boards need an update to support NVME. I doubt that Apple will give us new firmware updates...
And yet... support for XP941 and adapter was there pretty much all along with Mac Pro 1,1 on, with its EFI 1.x that dates back to a year before the Mac Pro was released.

Whereas with my PC, yes I would need BIOs update, have to use UEFI to boot from M.2. But my lycom adapter does work with an XP941, but only as a storage drive and not to boot from, using Windows 10 TP.
 
All the SSUBX benchmarks I've posted are from the 512GB part. Expect 1500-1600+ read/writes in Quickbench. Less in BlackMagic.





The SM951/ssubx in slot 2 is initialized directly on the PCIe bus VS a PCIe bridge in slots 3 & 4. If an active PCIe bridge were plugged into slot 2, the subsequent slots may be properly initialized. Finding the proper bridge at a reasonable cost is the issue.

The only active bridge I've been able to track down at a reasonable cost is this one from SuperMicro:
Image

Whether the PCIe bridge on this card is supported in OS X on the MacPro is the question. FWIW.. this bridge can easily be extended into a position to work within the 4,1/5,1 case.

This ad says "active."
http://www.acmemicro.com/Product/13...E16-A-LHS-Active-PCI-E-2U-Riser-Card?c_id=356

This ad says "passive."
http://www.compsource.com/pn/RSCR2UGA2E16A/Supermicro-428/?src=F

However, SuperMicro site says "active."
http://www.supermicro.com/ResourceApps/Riser.aspx

No returns on this product if it doesn't help, though.
 
Whether the PCIe bridge on this card is supported in OS X on the MacPro is the question.

usually, these PCIe bridge/switch chips do their thing on their own. no KEXT needed AFAIK. OS X doesn't have to "know" anything about it. for example: the HighPoint RocketU 1144C USB 3.0 controller card has a PLX PCIe bridge. it shows up in the OS X System Profiler but with "Driver Installed: No".
 
Update

Update:

Hello everybody!

Finally I received the Sintech card this afternoon. I'll probably cancel what I had in agenda for tomorrow and instead spend the day finishing my cMP upgrade. I'll share my experience with this card and the samsung/apple ssd when I finish.
 

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Update:

Hello everybody!

Finally I received the Sintech card this afternoon. I'll probably cancel what I had in agenda for tomorrow and instead spend the day finishing my cMP upgrade. I'll share my experience with this card and the samsung/apple ssd when I finish.

Exciting, they are really fun and add some "spring" the the cMP's step.
 
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