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SSD Upgrade for Mac Pro (black cylinder model) ADVICE NEEDED PLEASE

mbosse said:
The name should explain it, correct ;-)?



Those drives from a Macbook (Pro, Air) do not have the heatsink. As far as I can tell the drives are completely interchangeable.

Magnus
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Perhaps, I should phrase it in another way. My apologies.
My reason for asking whats is the function of this heat shield in the original Apple SSD which i have now (MZ-JPU256T/0A1) is because the newer revisions seem to not come with the heat shield? (e.g. MZ-KPU1TOT/0A6 , MZ-KPV1T00 / 0A3).

Is it crucial to have the heat shield when used in this Mac Pro? What are the siginificant problems or disadvantages of having an SSD without heat shield in the Mac Pro?

All advice welcome please, thanks so much
 
jojo8888 said:
I see, thanks!

Are the new Mac Pros purchased now fitted with SSUAX SSDs "e.g. MZ-KPU1TOT/0A6" or SSUBX SSDs "MZ-KPV1T00 / 0A3" do you know?
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This I cannot answer, I am sorry. I personally see no difference in temperature behaviour in a nMP between a SSD with or without heatsink. Then again, I am probably not taxing it enough ;-)
 
xav8tor said:
Bought a new Apple/Samsung 1TB SSD on eBay from Edit Builder Store for my nMP. Plug and play install took maybe two minutes, if that. OWC sells a PCI-E card you can put your old 256 GB on and use it in a classic MP or a PC. That too was as simple as it gets. No issues at all. Even Windows immediately recognized it.
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Do you have the weblink to the OWC PCI-E card you are referring to please?
Thanks!
 
jojo8888 said:
Thanks!

But I suppose this is not suitable for the Mac Pro (black cylinder model)?
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No, this would not fit. The ones which would fit are these: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Aura-for-Mac-Pro/

However, they cannot compete with native PCIe cards Apple uses (in terms of speed). I see them as a makeshift solution using their Sandforce ("4x Sandforce SF2281 with 7% Over Provisioning") in a RAID configuration.

Nothing I would like to have in a production machine.

They are not even cheaper than Apple's original SSDs on Ebay (although you can get them in a 2 TB version, this I have to acknowledge).

Best,
Magnus
 
jojo8888 said:
the newer revisions seem to not come with the heat shield? (e.g. MZ-KPU1TOT/0A6 , MZ-KPV1T00 / 0A3).
Click to expand...

Pretty sure the /A06, /A03, etc. in the part number indicates the machine its for, not the revision. /A01 is the Mac Pro version.
 
jojo8888 said:
Thanks!

But I suppose this is not suitable for the Mac Pro (black cylinder model)?
Click to expand...


No. This adapter is so that you can use your old SSD in another computer such as a classic Mac Pro or a PC. It will perform just about as fast as it does in the nMP.

mbosse said:
No, this would not fit. The ones which would fit are these: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Aura-for-Mac-Pro/

However, they cannot compete with native PCIe cards Apple uses (in terms of speed). I see them as a makeshift solution using their Sandforce ("4x Sandforce SF2281 with 7% Over Provisioning") in a RAID configuration.

Nothing I would like to have in a production machine.

They are not even cheaper than Apple's original SSDs on Ebay (although you can get them in a 2 TB version, this I have to acknowledge).

Best,
Magnus
Click to expand...

The link you have is for the replacement drive, not the replaced drive. However, if you buy that SSD, they give you a USB 3 enclosure for the replaced drive to use it as a significantly slower external drive. This is another option for your old drive. The Envoy enclosure can also be purchased separately. I chose to use the 1 TB Samsung Apple SSD instead of the SSD from OWC and repurposed the 256 GB drive to a PC with the OWC PCIE adapter.

I certainly don't see the availability of 2 TB from OWC as an advantage because there's no getting around the fact that most users will still need external storage with the nMP.
 
edanuff said:
Pretty sure the /A06, /A03, etc. in the part number indicates the machine its for, not the revision. /A01 is the Mac Pro version.
Click to expand...

What @edanuff said is very new to me. If that's the case, why are all the eBay sellers saying they are revisions?
Anyone knows, help please.

By the way, guys this is what i often see on the eBay ads.
"Apple Mac Pro, Late 2013 – 2014 (ME253, MD878)" How am i able to see the numbers "ME253" / "MD878" on my machine?
 
A06, A03, A01 etc. do not indicate newer "revisions", but most likely, what machine each was originally in.

The A01 is the part for the 2013 Mac Pro.

It includes a black heat shield surround it, which no other part has.

Other than that, the drives are mostly identical in terms of chipsets and speeds, but I think the difference lies here: On some of the Macbook Pros, the lower storage capacity units (256 GB or 512GB) can either be Sandisk drives or Samsung drives. I do not believe the Mac Pro 2013 comes with a Sandisk drive at all. Samsung is a better performer than Sandisk, and as always with SSDs in general, the higher capacity drives are better performing than the lower capacity drives.

As far as the heat shield goes...it depends on who you ask. A lot of members here got parts that were made for a Macbook Pro, which do not have the heat shield, but function the same within the Mac Pro. My theory is that the heat shield is there on the Mac Pro to protect the chipsets from the heat coming from the GPU (since the SSD slot is located on the GPU itself).

You can use whatever, but I'd feel better having the part in there as designed by Apple.
 
MMcCraryNJ said:
A06, A03, A01 etc. do not indicate newer "revisions", but most likely, what machine each was originally in.

The A01 is the part for the 2013 Mac Pro.

It includes a black heat shield surround it, which no other part has.

Other than that, the drives are mostly identical in terms of chipsets and speeds, but I think the difference lies here: On some of the Macbook Pros, the lower storage capacity units (256 GB or 512GB) can either be Sandisk drives or Samsung drives. I do not believe the Mac Pro 2013 comes with a Sandisk drive at all. Samsung is a better performer than Sandisk, and as always with SSDs in general, the higher capacity drives are better performing than the lower capacity drives.

As far as the heat shield goes...it depends on who you ask. A lot of members here got parts that were made for a Macbook Pro, which do not have the heat shield, but function the same within the Mac Pro. My theory is that the heat shield is there on the Mac Pro to protect the chipsets from the heat coming from the GPU (since the SSD slot is located on the GPU itself).

You can use whatever, but I'd feel better having the part in there as designed by Apple.
Click to expand...

@MMcCraryNJ Any weblinks to suggest for purchase of the A01? so far I only managed to see the only one on Amazon which is always unavailable.
 
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MacVidCards said:
Ebay has great buyer protection. (not so good for sellers)

Don't worry about "not recognizing as Apple SSD", all of mine showed up fine.

I think you should decide if speed is important, if so go with one of the newer SSUBX models, but even the original SSUAX ones are fast.

The biggest worry is really that you get the right slot. Apple used to put SATA protocol drives in these slots, they had different connector and won't work.

As long as you get an actual PCIE version from recent Mac (last year) you should be fine.

As a "for instance", my 2012 rMBP uses something that looks similar, but is in fact a SATA drive. Meanwhile, the 2013 rMBP got real PCIE SSD. So just pay attention to that. Basically most Macs have switched to the PCIE connector.

My nMP (like yours) came with a 256GB drive with heatsink. I bought a 1GB version without heatsink and it works just fine. Just needed a Torx screwdriver and I was off to the races.

Mark's Taco (something like that) is where I got a couple of them, mostly because he is within driving distance so if I got a box of candles (has happened before) instead of a $700 drive I could DRIVE down and discuss with him. But I bought 2 drives from him, both exactly as described.

As far as this particular slot, it's either these clandestine Apple drives, or the VERY expensive and MUCH slower OWC model that was mentioned. The OWC model doesn't have the TRIM enabled by default and thus suffers from those things you mentioned.
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@MacVidCards, may I know the model number of the SSD which you mentioned u purchased to replace the 256gb in your nMP?
 
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