SSD weirdness in a mid-2010 5,1 Mac Pro running Sierra (10.12.6)

[Cock Robin]

I bought a Western Digital 1 TB SSD (WD Blue) to speed my Mac Pro up. Curiously enough, if I put it into one of the HD bays the SSD does not show up in Disk Util - it's as if the drive bay is empty. Connect the SSD to one of the optical drive cables though, and it pops right up and works fine.

Since I don't really use both optical drives at the same time very much these days having one disconnected so I can use the cable for the SSD isn't a terrible inconvenience. But I'd very much like to do this properly and have the SSD in on of the HD bays.

Any ideas why the SSD doesn't show up when it's in the HD bay? Or how I can fix that?

 

[h9826790]

I bought a Western Digital 1 TB SSD (WD Blue) to speed my Mac Pro up. Curiously enough, if I put it into one of the HD bays the SSD does not show up in Disk Util - it's as if the drive bay is empty. Connect the SSD to one of the optical drive cables though, and it pops right up and works fine.

Since I don't really use both optical drives at the same time very much these days having one disconnected so I can use the cable for the SSD isn't a terrible inconvenience. But I'd very much like to do this properly and have the SSD in on of the HD bays.

Any ideas why the SSD doesn't show up when it's in the HD bay? Or how I can fix that?

How you install the SSD into the bay? With any adaptor?

 

[Cock Robin]

How you install the SSD into the bay? With any adaptor?

Yes, with an adapter that allowed me to mount it in the HD carrier that came with the Mac. But I also tried it with just the SSD card to make sure I was getting a good connection.

 

[MarkC426]

Just looked on amazon, and it says pc ssd on the case.....is it preformatted for pc.

 

[iMac-Do-You?]

Just looked on amazon, and it says pc ssd on the case.....is it preformatted for pc.

Not even remotely related to the problem.

 

[MarkC426]

Ooooops......i’m off then

 

[bsbeamer]

Yes, with an adapter that allowed me to mount it in the HD carrier that came with the Mac. But I also tried it with just the SSD card to make sure I was getting a good connection.

Which adapter are you using?

 

[flehman]

At the risk of sounding like T1 support, did you try seating the SSD in one of the other stock drive bays just to rule out the possibility that the drive bay is the problem? I use Newertech Adaptadrives to adapt my 2.5" SSDs to the 3.5" SATA-II drive bays and they have worked OK.

You could also try connecting the SSD back up to your optical drive bay long enough to reformat it as APFS, Mac OS Extended, etc. and then attempt to reconnect it to the regular drive bay in order to see if that makes a difference (although I cannot see why it would, but worth a shot).

 

[Cock Robin]

Yeah, I tried it in all the drive bays in two identical Macs - no dice. It works fine when plugged into the optical drive cable (also SATA 2) and when mounted in a Windows box.
[doublepost=1518644438][/doublepost]Corsair Dual SSD Mounting Bracket 3.5" CSSD-BRKT2 - which were recommended for this card.

 

[Squuiid]

I suspect a firmware problem.

Personally I’d avoid drives which aren’t Samsung when the target is a Mac.
Samsung SSDs just work every time.

Don’t get me started on Crucial or Sandforce based drives. Horrible in my experience. WD are a relatively new player and I’ve not heard of anyone using them in a cMP before.

Can you return the drive?

 

[bsbeamer]

Would second the Samsung recommendation. Have been using them for years in Macs and generally speaking, always work. Firmware updates can be a challange, however.

Have you tried using a non-interface mounting bracket in the drive sled? Curious why only the dual bracket is being used and if any other has been tried in the drive sled. There are several options, but the OWC Blue Sled for 2.5" drives flat out works: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009P4NEKA

 

[orph]

simple side ways fix is a usb dvd drive

 

[Cock Robin]

Western Digital has been around a while, and they insist they work on Macs, but ....

Having said that, the WD Customer Service rep I emailed back and forth with had the IQ of a yeast infection. After daily emails back and forth for a while, they suddenly went quiet and haven't responded since my last email (which included pictures of the card, front and back, after they tried to claim that it couldn't possibly their card, as their cards work in Macs).

So, Samsung it is then. Any recommendations on a PCIE SSD?

 

[bsbeamer]

Apricorn Velocity SOLO X2 and Velocity DUO X2 both work great for me. Hard to find them in-stock at the moment.

 

[Squuiid]

Western Digital has been around a while, and they insist they work on Macs, but ....

Having said that, the WD Customer Service rep I emailed back and forth with had the IQ of a yeast infection. After daily emails back and forth for a while, they suddenly went quiet and haven't responded since my last email (which included pictures of the card, front and back, after they tried to claim that it couldn't possibly their card, as their cards work in Macs).

So, Samsung it is then. Any recommendations on a PCIE SSD?

WD have been around a while doing HDDs not SSDs. Saying that, they acquired Sandisk in 2016 so your drive is essentially a Sandisk rebrand.

PCIe, the only one you can buy new is a HyperX Predator 480GB. And they're getting scarce.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/king...d-state-drive-shpm2280p2h-480g-hd-080-ks.html

If not you can go the eBay route and get a bunch of Samsung SM951 AHCI blades and use an Amfeltec squid to RAID them if you need a 1TB drive. An expensive way of doing it though.
I believe there are some Apple PCIe SSDs also on eBay. SSUBX if I'm not mistaken although some other forum members can elaborate on those I'm sure.

If you don't need the speed of PCIe just get a Samsung 850 EVO 1TB.

 

[h9826790]

Western Digital has been around a while, and they insist they work on Macs, but ....

Having said that, the WD Customer Service rep I emailed back and forth with had the IQ of a yeast infection. After daily emails back and forth for a while, they suddenly went quiet and haven't responded since my last email (which included pictures of the card, front and back, after they tried to claim that it couldn't possibly their card, as their cards work in Macs).

So, Samsung it is then. Any recommendations on a PCIE SSD?

For PCIe SSD, it’s a bit more complicated.

1) I don’t expect you “need” PCIe SSD as boot drive because there is virtually zero benefit of doing that.

2) if you really need a bootable PCIe SSD, than only AHCI version is bootable on cMP. However, they are rare nowadays. Which means over price and relatively low capacity (compare to SATA SSD) / performance (compare to NVMe SSD).

3) if you need super fast data only storage. NVMe SSD work in the latest High Sierra natively.

 

[orph]

i still vote on stick it in the dvd bay and buy a cheep usb dvd drive (i know i need one), just sounds like less time trying to fix it.