Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

SATA Express meets the '09 Mac Pro - Bootable NGFF PCIE SSD

MattsanaX said:
I have a simple question and I'm sorry if it has been clarified but I've been going through pages and haven't noticed it but can the SM951 on a Lycom boot OS X?
Click to expand...


Yes, see my post #1257 on the Page 51 of this thread:

flowrider said:
Just installed a 512GB SM951 in a Lycom PCIe SSD to PCIe adapter in slot 3. I removed one of my two Apricorn Velocity Duo x2s and mounted the two drives in WD VelociRaptor heat-sinks and they also work as a 3.5" drive-bay converter. I removed the 80GB WD 2.5" HDDs from the heat-sink and mounted my Sansung SSDs in them, worked great. I got the VelociRaptors for less than $27.00 shipped ($13.50 ea).

My Blackmagic speed tests produced the following results:

View attachment 578904
Click to expand...

Lou
 
hornedrum said:
Thanks Flehman,

It's tough to know how much of a real-world difference these things make.
I have got a SSUBX and Sintech card on order for my boot drive, but basically tryng to decide on what to do for my audio drive (using Pro Tools 10). Might just crack on with a SATA2 SSD and see what happens. Not sure it's worth going down the road of another PCIe just for my audio drive, not sure the SSD will even make much difference in this respect, it seems 7200 drives are pretty good at holding their own in the audio world!
Click to expand...
I've been running my DAW (Digital Performer) on an all-SSD (except for backup) Mac for over three years now. Although three of the five SSDs are running on SATA2 native ports, it is one responsive machine!

PS: the drives are SATA3 (Intel) and work fine on SATA2 ports
 
  • Like
Reactions: hornedrum
Draeconis said:
Doubt it'd work anyway since it's NVMe.

Looks like the AHCI flavour of the SM951 could be the last decent SSD upgrade the older Mac Pro models get.
Click to expand...


I'm confused about this NVMe stuff - I know Apple added NVMe protocol support in Yosemite so is it the EFI Bios in the MacPro5,1 that is the issue?
 
MattsanaX said:
Thanks guys. I appreciate the answers. I guess my second and last question is will it run bootcamp?
Click to expand...

I'd be interested to know whether Boot Camp works in this setup as well. I have the SM951 in a Lycom DT-120 PCIe adapter and I cannot get Boot Camp Assistant to let me partition the drive to even start the Windows installation.
 
Thanks to everyone who's contributed to the thread for maintaining its methodical and thorough style right the way along, it made reading all 50+ pages a lot easier than I expected. I landed here while researching PCIe bifurcation on my Xserve - a topic you guys covered in more detail about six months ago. For anyone interested I found a very informative [H]ard|Forum™ discussion on the subject, which makes me optimistic that an active splitter with its own PLX chip (that isn't a $700 Cyclone or Magma part) is possible on Apple hardware, and may even already exist. SuperMicro's near complete lack of any documentation or spec sheets for their vast collection of hardware components is frustrating to say the least, but I've whittled down a list of possible contenders from various (often contradictory) sources:

mAJ8ywy.jpg


Probably of far more interest to you guys though is that while I was looking at these:

DVLK0wv.jpg


I stumbled across these:

Pw39Auv.jpg
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: bokkow and zephonic
worldburger said:
I'd be interested to know whether Boot Camp works in this setup as well. I have the SM951 in a Lycom DT-120 PCIe adapter and I cannot get Boot Camp Assistant to let me partition the drive to even start the Windows installation.
Click to expand...

In my experience, no. Windows doesn't like installing to an external drive, and despite the fact that it's connected internally, anything not on the SATA-II bus is considered external.
 
jamall said:
Thanks to everyone who's contributed to the thread for maintaining its methodical and thorough style right the way along, it made reading all 50+ pages a lot easier than I expected. I landed here while researching PCIe bifurcation on my Xserve - a topic you guys covered in more detail about six months ago. For anyone interested I found a very informative [H]ard|Forum™ discussion on the subject, which makes me optimistic that an active splitter with its own PLX chip (that isn't a $700 Cyclone or Magma part) is possible on Apple hardware, and may even already exist. SuperMicro's near complete lack of any documentation or spec sheets for their vast collection of hardware components is frustrating to say the least, but I've whittled down a list of possible contenders from various (often contradictory)
Click to expand...

Looks very interesting! Im curious if the M.2 adapter can really utilize x8 or even x16! What does a PLX chip bring to the table in driver terms other than a way to split/bridge on the adapter itself? And what about the prices and availability? Couldn't find an easy way to order one of these?
 
bokkow said:
Looks very interesting! Im curious if the M.2 adapter can really utilize x8 or even x16! What does a PLX chip bring to the table in driver terms other than a way to split/bridge on the adapter itself? And what about the prices and availability? Couldn't find an easy way to order one of these?
Click to expand...

Somebody already tried using bridges some pages back. It didn't work.

Also, you can't change an m2 blades lane speed from x4 to higher.lanes are fixed, they can only operate at lower speeds if the SSD controller can't negotiate a correct link with the EFI.

It is highly unlikely we will ever see more than x4 lanes on the M.2 blades because increasing lane bandwidth each generation is more than enough. PCIE version 4 is about 2 years away.
 
Soy, you're right, partially. Amfeltec adapter theoretically should work for XP941, but not for SM951 because the latter couldn't negotiate the x4 link properly in x16 slot. Presumably due to PCIe 3.0 compliance of SM one.
 
666sheep said:
Soy, you're right, partially. Amfeltec adapter theoretically should work for XP941, but not for SM951 because the latter couldn't negotiate the x4 link properly in x16 slot. Presumably due to PCIe 3.0 compliance of SM one.
Click to expand...

If I remember, the guy who tried this adapter couldn't boot his computer with it installed. It wouldn't even boot to Apple logo.
 
From my understanding, any M.2s installed on the card are only exposed to a x4 link, so it would come down to which PLX chip is on the card and whether it can talk to your Mac. Some PLX chips obviously work - Magma and Cyclone expansion boxes use compatible chips - but others, like the dual GPU cards from ATI and Nvidia, don't, and I'm yet to find any info on what the specific differences are.
 
flowrider said:
^^^^For comparison.

1. Samsung 840 Evo in SATA Drive Bay.
2. Samsung 840 Pro on Apricorn Duo x2 PCIe Card
3. Samsung SM951 on Lycom PCIe adapter

View attachment 581522

View attachment 581523

View attachment 581524

My Machine - 5,1 Mac Pro.

Lou
Click to expand...

Hi,

having seen your speeds, which are amazing! would you mind confirming these products for me?

I have a 2009 Mac Pro thats totally standard

is this the Lycom card?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/LyCOM-DT-120-Lycom-PCI-Adapter/dp/B00MYCQP38/ref=cm_wl_huc_item

And is this the Samsung SM951 SSD?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-MZH...UTF8&qid=1445448803&sr=8-1&keywords=sm951+ssd

and just to clarify as I think I have confused myself by reading so much on here, I can boot OSX on the mac pro just fine? and its just plug and play?

Thanks for any help
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
That's great thanks! Is there a particular slot to install it in?

I got the Mac Pro out of a skip so it's essentially a free computer, I just wanted to be able to have storage as fast as my MacBook pro ssd which is similar to your benchmarks.
It also has an apple raid card installed which I'm going to take out as the battery is dead so that will free a pci e slot up I think
 
flowrider said:
Yes - Slot 3 or 4. Installing in slot 2 will limit it's performance.

Lou
Click to expand...

Slot 3 and 4 too, but not so much.

A Samsung SM951 has a read performance of up to 2000 MB/s in a PCIe 3.0 Slot
In slot 4 and 3 (4x) you get ~1450 MB/s
In slot 1 and 2 (16x) you get ~720 MB/s
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back