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SSD advice for Mac Pro 3.1

B

Bah-Bah

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 28, 2013
71
12
Greetings all

Wondering someone could offer some advice. I've just recently revived a Mac Pro 3.1 with a new GPU and got it up and running again. The last thing I want to add now is an SSD and noticed the OCZ Vertex 2E Bigfoot 480GB 3.5" SATA-II is going at a reasonable price in the UK.

I know it's only SATA II but I think so is my Mac, so am I right in thinking a faster one would be of no benefit? I don't want to pour too much more money into this aging machine but a cheap SSD just to speed up application launches might give it an extra lease of life.

Thanks for any advice
 
Bah-Bah said:
Greetings all

Wondering someone could offer some advice. I've just recently revived a Mac Pro 3.1 with a new GPU and got it up and running again. The last thing I want to add now is an SSD and noticed the OCZ Vertex 2E Bigfoot 480GB 3.5" SATA-II is going at a reasonable price in the UK.

I know it's only SATA II but I think so is my Mac, so am I right in thinking a faster one would be of no benefit? I don't want to pour too much more money into this aging machine but a cheap SSD just to speed up application launches might give it an extra lease of life.

Thanks for any advice
Click to expand...
Mac Pro 3,1's only support SATA II, although you can get PCI-E adapters to achieve SATA III @ 6GB/S. that SSD would work fine with your mac, and would be light years ahead of a traditional HDD in terms of read/write speeds.
 
09sroyal said:
Mac Pro 3,1's only support SATA II, although you can get PCI-E adapters to achieve SATA III @ 6GB/S. that SSD would work fine with your mac, and would be light years ahead of a traditional HDD in terms of read/write speeds.
Click to expand...


Great, thanks for the info:)
 
Bah-Bah said:
Greetings all

Wondering someone could offer some advice. I've just recently revived a Mac Pro 3.1 with a new GPU and got it up and running again. The last thing I want to add now is an SSD and noticed the OCZ Vertex 2E Bigfoot 480GB 3.5" SATA-II is going at a reasonable price in the UK.

I know it's only SATA II but I think so is my Mac, so am I right in thinking a faster one would be of no benefit? I don't want to pour too much more money into this aging machine but a cheap SSD just to speed up application launches might give it an extra lease of life.

Thanks for any advice
Click to expand...

One thing you will want to consider is how you will connect it into the machine. I doubt you will get an adapter that will allow it to mount properly in the interior drive bays, I have one for mine in my 4,1 machine I got from OWC but I am pretty sure it said only that and the 5,1 model were compatible. You can put it in the DVD-ROM bay using a long as you can find SATA cable that you connect to the spare ports on the logic board at the front of the machine under the fan then use molex to SATA power adapter on the spare molex in that bay to get your power.
 
MacUser2525 said:
One thing you will want to consider is how you will connect it into the machine. I doubt you will get an adapter that will allow it to mount properly in the interior drive bays, I have one for mine in my 4,1 machine I got from OWC but I am pretty sure it said only that and the 5,1 model were compatible. You can put it in the DVD-ROM bay using a long as you can find SATA cable that you connect to the spare ports on the logic board at the front of the machine under the fan then use molex to SATA power adapter on the spare molex in that bay to get your power.
Click to expand...

You can easily add a 2.5 inch SSD into the 3.5 inch drive bay of your MacPro:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Icy Dock/MB882SP1S2B/

Works great! If you are adding a 3.5 inch, it should just work with the drive carrier, but I have no direct experience with it.
 
I thought with it being a 3.5" it should just slot into the sled? I didn't think there would be a need for anything else.
 
Bah-Bah said:
I thought with it being a 3.5" it should just slot into the sled? I didn't think there would be a need for anything else.
Click to expand...

pastrychef said:
You are correct.
Click to expand...

All SSD drives are 2.5" and to be used in any HDD sled on any Mac Pro, you need something to modify the stock 3.5" sled to accept the 2.5" SSD, or any 2.5" HDD and have it plug into the MOBO like the stock HDD does.

That's what the above recommendations are about. Also the sleds are different depending on the Mac Pro you have. The sleds on the 1,1, 2,1 and 3,1 and shorter than the sleds on the later models. I found that out the hard way when I went from a 3,1 to a 5,1:eek:

Lou
 
flowrider said:
All SSD drives are 2.5" and to be used in any HDD sled on any Mac Pro, you need something to modify the stock 3.5" sled to accept the 2.5" SSD, or any 2.5" HDD and have it plug into the MOBO like the stock HDD does.
Click to expand...

Not that hard drive. It is 3.5" form factor. You will be fine without an adapter.
 
throw a Velocity x2 solo card on your one free pcie2.0 slot, and get them SSD 6g speeds bro!
 
funwithdesign said:
Not that hard drive. It is 3.5" form factor. You will be fine without an adapter.
Click to expand...

Well, I never noticed that the drive had a 3.5" form factor. I googled it, and can not find it in the US. From what I can see, it appears to be only available in the UK.

Korican100 said:
throw a Velocity x2 solo card on your one free pcie2.0 slot, and get them SSD 6g speeds bro!
Click to expand...

See above, but a 3.5" form factor will not work with the Apricorn Velocity Solo x2 card. The card requires a 2.5" form factor, which 99.9% of SSDs are.

Lou
 
I have a Crucial M4 256GB in my mac pro 3.1. It is in sleeve 1, connectec with the OWC adapter (not the blue sleeve).
Even if is not Sata 3, the machine flyes. There is not much difference in real performance usage between sata interfaces. Random reads and writes are fast as hell. Boot times to.
 
dollystereo said:
I have a Crucial M4 256GB in my mac pro 3.1. It is in sleeve 1, connectec with the OWC adapter (not the blue sleeve).
Even if is not Sata 3, the machine flyes. There is not much difference in real performance usage between sata interfaces. Random reads and writes are fast as hell. Boot times to.
Click to expand...

There really is. Even though my boot time was cut from 40 secs. to 25 secs., you probably boot up faster, because of how the Mac searches for a drive. It now takes a bit of time for the Apple and the spinning gear to show, but once they do, things really start to move. My write/read right tests show:

Lou
 

Attachments

  • Solo x2 - Samsung 500gb 840 Speed Test.jpg
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flowrider said:
See above, but a 3.5" form factor will not work with the Apricorn Velocity Solo x2 card. The card requires a 2.5" form factor, which 99.9% of SSDs are.

Lou
Click to expand...

wow didnt know they made 3.5 ssds!


Well OP if you ever decide on going with a 6g ssd, that is your option! just make sure its a 2.5 incher bro!
 
flowrider said:
There really is. Even though my boot time was cut from 40 secs. to 25 secs., you probably boot up faster, because of how the Mac searches for a drive. It now takes a bit of time for the Apple and the spinning gear to show, but once they do, things really start to move. My write/read right tests show:

Lou
Click to expand...

The maximum sustained is the difference between Sata 2 and 3. For a system disk, It doesn't make difference, random writes and reads dont benefit for Sata 3. There was an article about this in anandtech, but I cant find it.
 
I am currently using it with a Velocity Solo X2 PCI-e card. But I used to use it on one of the built-in SATA connectors of my Mac Pro 3,1 with absolutely no issues.

SATA 3 drives are backwards compatible. You have nothing to worry about.
 
pastrychef said:
I am currently using it with a Velocity Solo X2 PCI-e card. But I used to use it on one of the built-in SATA connectors of my Mac Pro 3,1 with absolutely no issues.
Click to expand...

I have my current one in the lower optical slot, no issues. I am hoping to just plug my Velocity Solo X2 in and load the OS, then boot, since you are also running a 5,1 did you do that or did you first load it in a sled?
 
Macshroomer said:
I have my current one in the lower optical slot, no issues. I am hoping to just plug my Velocity Solo X2 in and load the OS, then boot, since you are also running a 5,1 did you do that or did you first load it in a sled?
Click to expand...

When I first got my SSD, I cloned my system from the old 3.5" to the SSD. The SSD was connected to one of the four hard drive connectors. I never used the optical bays for an SSD, but I'm sure they would work equally as well. I ran it in one of the hard drive bays for a month or two before purchasing a PCI-e SATA card.
 
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