USB 3.0 Card for Mac Pro 4,1 (2009)

[Erlang]

Are you doing anything with the "2I" portion of the card? Had been thinking about this one myself and couldn't work out what to do with the internal port.

I have this card, and bought a header cable via Ebay, and added two more USB3.0 to a PCI plate.

All good.

 

[crjackson2134]

Are you doing anything with the "2I" portion of the card? Had been thinking about this one myself and couldn't work out what to do with the internal port.

No, not using anything internal. The Orico card works like a hub anyway. It shares the bandwidth with all connected devices (it only has one controller chip). You only get full speed with one port. That's the main reason I decided to use the RocketU instead. It's ports are independent and allow full speed on each of the 4. There are trade-offs for both cards. You just have to decide which one offers what you are looking for.

 

[ActionableMango]

It would be nice to run it to the front and replace the existing ports up there, but that's too ambitious and requires changes that are not easily undone.

I'd be tempted to do it anyway if I knew the little circuit board assembly there up front were cheap, but something tells me it's anything but cheap.

 

[sunsetsothickly]

No, not using anything internal. The Orico card works like a hub anyway. It shares the bandwidth with all connected devices (it only has one controller chip). You only get full speed with one port. That's the main reason I decided to use the RocketU instead. It's ports are independent and allow full speed on each of the 4. There are trade-offs for both cards. You just have to decide which one offers what you are looking for.

Anyone have any knowledge of this one:
SYBA Combo USB 3.0 + SATA III 6Gbps, v2.0 PCI Express, x4 Slot Controller Card Model SD-PEX50055
Chipset:
Etron EJ168a &
ASMedia ASM1061

http://www.sybausa.com/productInfo.php?iid=1397

Do you think it would have the same issue as the Caldigit FASTA combo card in terms of throughput?

 

[kushari]

I just ordered the Orico card. I don't think I will need power, because my monitors already have a usb 3.0 powered hub in them. The power/speed issue is for hard drives or other devices that need extra power compared to things like a usb stick etc. If he had something like my setup he wouldn't have had to bother. Once I get the card I'll let you guys know how it goes.

So I just installed the card and it worked right away. Here are screen shots of Blackmagic and the devices I used. I think it's right on the money, in terms of speed since I'm using my powered USB Hub in my Asus Pa248q Monitors.

Edit: maybe the write speeds would be a bit better if the card was itself powered as I see both are in the same ball park for write speeds. It could also be an OS thing I think. I'll test in Bootcamp and report back.

Sandisk Extreme 32gb:

http://www.sandisk.com/products/usb/drives/extreme/

Seagate Goflex 1.5TB:

http://www.seagate.com/external-hard-drives/portable-hard-drives/standard/goflex/

 

[Tesselator]

So I just installed the card and it worked right away. Here are screen shots of Blackmagic and the devices I used. I think it's right on the money, in terms of speed since I'm using my powered USB Hub in my Asus Pa248q Monitors.

Edit: maybe the write speeds would be a bit better if the card was itself powered as I see both are in the same ball park for write speeds. It could also be an OS thing I think. I'll test in Bootcamp and report back.

Sandisk Extreme 32gb:
Image
http://www.sandisk.com/products/usb/drives/extreme/

Image

Seagate Goflex 1.5TB:
Image
http://www.seagate.com/external-hard-drives/portable-hard-drives/standard/goflex/
Image

200MB/s reads from a thumb-drive... that's pretty good. I'd love to see what it gets in a small-file 4k test!!! Any chance of that?

Amazon has it for Windoze:

The SanDisk Extreme 32GB (left) and a Samsung 830 (right) for comparison.​

 

[kushari]

200MB/s reads from a thumb-drive... that's pretty good. I'd love to see what it gets in a small-file 4k test!!! Any chance of that?

It's a really fast usb 3.0 drive. I get over 100MB write speeds. Do you want me to run a windows test under atto, or on mac (don't know the equivalent os x to test 4K)?

 

[Tesselator]

It's a really fast usb 3.0 drive. I get over 100MB write speeds. Do you want me to run a windows test under atto, or on mac (don't know the equivalent os x to test 4K)?

Yeah, the OS X test on a real Mac would be useful. I found some PC tests as you can see. I was thinking of buying 4 of these and putting them on the HighPoint USB3 4-port card in RAID0 and using that as a boot and OS drive.

I booted off the USB2.0 native over a Barracuda drive and it was very fast. Only about 10 to 15 seconds more than booting off of a 4-drive internal SATA II RAID0 using the same drives. From power on to desktop is 40sec in the SATA II RAID0 and over USB2 was like 50 to 55 seconds. I used the machine like that for a few months and I didn't notice too much performance difference with the OS between the two setups.

 

[crjackson2134]

Yeah, the OS X test on a real Mac would be useful. I found some PC tests as you can see. I was thinking of buying 4 of these and putting them on the HighPoint USB3 4-port card in RAID0 and using that as a boot and OS drive.

I don't think that would work Tess. If you are talking about the same HighPoint card that I have, it has to load drivers to be recognized so I don't THINK you can boot from it.

I did an [OPTION KEY] boot up, and it didn't see my TimeMachine drive. I have plugged the same drive into the USB 2.0 and it sees the drive for recovery purposes.

 

[Tesselator]

I don't think that would work Tess. If you are talking about the same HighPoint card that I have, it has to load drivers to be recognized so I don't THINK you can boot from it.

I did an [OPTION KEY] boot up, and it didn't see my TimeMachine drive. I have plugged the same drive into the USB 2.0 and it sees the drive for recovery purposes.

Awe, crapola... I didn't think about that. Dang-it.

It looks like those thumbdrives are a little expensive right now anyway... about $70 a pop... I was thinking more like $25 for the 64GB ones - similar to the USB2.0 ones I see in the shops here. So it looks like it's a no-go on multiple levels.

 

[mathemabeat]

So I just installed the card and it worked right away. Here are screen shots of Blackmagic and the devices I used. I think it's right on the money, in terms of speed since I'm using my powered USB Hub in my Asus Pa248q Monitors.

Edit: maybe the write speeds would be a bit better if the card was itself powered as I see both are in the same ball park for write speeds. It could also be an OS thing I think. I'll test in Bootcamp and report back.

Sandisk Extreme 32gb:
Image
http://www.sandisk.com/products/usb/drives/extreme/

Image

I have the exact same 32GB Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 drive. LOVE it!

Here are some Blackmagic benchies off my late 2012 i7 27 inch iMac with it: