SSDs for MacPro 5,1

[mw360]

Time to breathe new life into a 5,1 MacPro. Currently it has 1x2TB drive for OS, and 3x 500GB drives in a 1.5TB SW RAID. Mainly used for After Effects.

Planning to replace the system disk with a 1TB SSD, and possibly replace the raid with 2x1TB SSDs or 3x 500GB SSDs. Don't really need to go much over 1.5TB, as that would only stress the Time Capsule backups anyway. Any spare bay would house the old system disk, just in case.

Any dos and don'ts? Recommendations? Will there be much benefit it replacing the drives in the RAID or will there be a bottleneck somewhere else?

 

[Ph.D.]

If you use the normal sleds, then yes, an SSD RAID will be about 2x as fast as a single disk. It's worth it if you can spare the bay space. However, just to be clear, the bottleneck will be the bays and not the SSD's.

If you prefer to stick with a single SSD, then you should consider an Apricorn Velocity Solo X2. With a good SSD (Samsung 850 Evo, for example), it will likely be faster than a sled-mounted RAID array.

Personally, I can't recommend the Velocity Duo right now (I have one). The performance is good in general, but lacking when it comes to managing many small files - the bays are actually faster in that case. If you want even higher performance, I'd suggest investigating an M.2/blade-type solution.

 

[IowaLynn]

Time to breathe new life into a 5,1 MacPro. Currently it has 1x2TB drive for OS, and 3x 500GB drives in a 1.5TB SW RAID. Mainly used for After Effects.

Planning to replace the system disk with a 1TB SSD, and possibly replace the raid with 2x1TB SSDs or 3x 500GB SSDs. Don't really need to go much over 1.5TB, as that would only stress the Time Capsule backups anyway. Any spare bay would house the old system disk, just in case.

Any dos and don'ts? Recommendations? Will there be much benefit it replacing the drives in the RAID or will there be a bottleneck somewhere else?

Samsung SM951 512GB blade, or ebay for Samsung OEM 1TB.
I'd skip using in arrays, they get 1500MB/sec as is, close to as much bandwith of PCIe 2.2 can offer.
Use another PCIe SATA III pair (2x1TB) on Sonnet Tempo Pro SSD for scratch or projects.

 

[flowrider]

Yep, Blades are the way to go. I have two Duo x2s with four Samsung SSDs. Blades were not generally available when I arranged my setup, if they were I would have gone that way. I started off with one Solo x2 and them moved to the Duos, which I like a lot, but blades are definitely faster, but then again I have four SSDs.

Lou

 

[mw360]

Okay, thanks all. I hadn't even heard of blades. I'll look into these and may return if it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

 

[Kniteman77]

This is the relevant thread I believe.

Currently going through the same process... looking into a 3rd way, but I don't know if there will be adaquate software/driver support for it yet.

I want to get one of these on the PCIe bus.

 

[ActionableMango]

Samsung SM951 512GB blade, or ebay for Samsung OEM 1TB.

Are there any issues with these or do they act/appear as a normal drive in every way? Mostly I need it to be bootable for Windows 10 EFI, which I think they are, but I don't like future surprises when I find out I cannot do something because I chose a weird/unusual solution.

 

[IowaLynn]

Are there any issues with these or do they act/appear as a normal drive in every way? Mostly I need it to be bootable for Windows 10 EFI, which I think they are, but I don't like future surprises when I find out I cannot do something because I chose a weird/unusual solution.

You should be asking and looking in the Windows 10 experience thread(s).

All Mac Pro modems with 10.5+ are bootable with XP941 or later AHCI adapter like Lycom's. SeeAmazon product specs or Ramcity. PC users have had to get X-99 era motherboards and BIOS.

Whether Windows 10 will, I k ow UEGI on e,1 or earlier probably will not but 5,1 should but again, there is a thread on W10 and other dealing with UEFI.