Upgrading Mac Pro to USB 3.0

[philm001]

Hello all,

I am currently looking at a few cards to update a Mac Pro 2006 and 2009 to USB 3.0. Both have been flashed with the 2.1 and 5.1 firmware respectively.

The cards that I am looking at are as follows:

https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Expr...pID=41DNpOxTFvL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-comp...1538275435&sr=8-17&keywords=pcie+usb+3.0+card

From the product page, the KT4004 is listed as mac compatible. the KT4005 is not listed as mac compatible, which happens to be the low cost version.

Now, I was wondering, what defines the PCIE to USB 3.0 card as being natively Mac compatible?

 

[MacDann]

Hello all,

I am currently looking at a few cards to update a Mac Pro 2006 and 2009 to USB 3.0. Both have been flashed with the 2.1 and 5.1 firmware respectively.

The cards that I am looking at are as follows:

https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Expr...pID=41DNpOxTFvL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-comp...1538275435&sr=8-17&keywords=pcie+usb+3.0+card

From the product page, the KT4004 is listed as mac compatible. the KT4005 is not listed as mac compatible, which happens to be the low cost version.

Now, I was wondering, what defines the PCIE to USB 3.0 card as being natively Mac compatible?

Did you read this thread?

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/usb-3-x-pcie-cards-for-classic-mac-pro.1501482/

MacDann

 

[kohlson]

From the product page, the KT4004 is listed as mac compatible. the KT4005 is not listed as mac compatible, which happens to be the low cost version.

The Mac compatible one works in a 4,1. The one that is not listed as Mac compatible doesn't work in a Mac. I know this from firsthand experience...

 

[ActionableMango]

Now, I was wondering, what defines the PCIE to USB 3.0 card as being natively Mac compatible?

To be natively compatible, the card has to use a USB chipset which is supported by drivers included with MacOS.

There are some cards with third party drivers you can download, but the danger is that they won't be kept up to date with new OS releases. And in fact that has already happened for certain LaCie, Sonnet, and other cards based off of the NEC/Renesas chip. (Incidentally, the KT4005 you linked to is an NEC chip card I think.)

The KT4004 uses the same chip that the 2013 Mac Pro uses. This is a big advantage because Apple themselves will include and keep the drivers up to date with each MacOS release.

The Mac compatible one works in a 4,1. The one that is not listed as Mac compatible doesn't work in a Mac. I know this from firsthand experience...

If you are stuck with the KT4005 card (can't return it or whatever) and you are using Lion through Yosemite, you can try these generic drivers.

If you are using Mavericks through High Sierra you can try these generic drivers. This set is intended for Hackintoshers, but if you can get the KEXT extracted and install it manually (or use Kext Drop or whatnot), I suspect it should work.

 

[philm001]

Hello all, thank you for your insights on this matter!

It looks like macs are very picky on what you place in them. I don't think that I can afford the $100 options. So it looks like that I will have to go with the $30 option.

Thank you all for your insights!