USB 3.0 for Mac Pro

[ActionableMango]

Any problems booting from them?

I have not tried. I assume all USB 3.0 solutions are not bootable since the drivers wouldn't load until the OS loads.

If Apple does a firmware update in the future to support USB 3.0 at boot time, I would guess that they would support the ones they already provide native drivers for. But I think the chance of future support in the MP firmware is slim to none.

 

[Atroz]

Atroz, have you tried the cards that use native drivers in OSX? People seem to be happy with those. Yes, they require power hookup, but they seem to run without problem, which to me is far more important than the initial difficulty of running a power cable. At $20 they are also very inexpensive.

Fresco Logic FL1009-200
Orico PFU3-202I
Orico PFU3-4P
Orico PFU3-2P

I have personally tried the first three and they all work with sleep/wake and without KPs, mysterious shutdowns, etc. My personal opinion is that native drivers are the way to go.

When I went looking for a solution a year or so back I never came across these ones. Certainly seems like a better solution if they are stable and 1/5 the price.

 

[Tesselator]

Atroz, have you tried the cards that use native drivers in OSX? People seem to be happy with those. Yes, they require power hookup, but they seem to run without problem, which to me is far more important than the initial difficulty of running a power cable. At $20 they are also very inexpensive.

Fresco Logic FL1009-200
Orico PFU3-202I
Orico PFU3-4P
Orico PFU3-2P

I have personally tried the first three and they all work with sleep/wake and without KPs, mysterious shutdowns, etc. My personal opinion is that native drivers are the way to go.

I agree with the native driver bit for the most part but I can never understand why such cheap-o cards are ever recommended. Heck I can't even understand why a company would go to the trouble of designing such a poor device.

That card you linked to for example is 5Gb/s divided by two ports. And I would be willing to bet it can't actually even achieve 5Gb/s with just one device connected to it. Maybe 3Gb/s sounds more like it. Heh. Well for $19 I guess you get what you pay for.

For me I want something with dedicated ports so I can choose to either hub them myself (by adding a hub) or use the various ports for external RAID0 - or whatever. A single split port like that on a low-grade Chinese card is to me, more scary then it would be useful.

 

[ActionableMango]

I agree with the native driver bit for the most part but I can never understand why such cheap-o cards are ever recommended. Heck I can't even understand why a company would go to the trouble of designing such a poor device.

That card you linked to for example is 5Gb/s divided by two ports. And I would be willing to bet it can't actually even achieve 5Gb/s with just one device connected to it. Maybe 3Gb/s sounds more like it. Heh. Well for $19 I guess you get what you pay for.

For me I want something with dedicated ports so I can choose to either hub them myself (by adding a hub) or use the various ports for external RAID0 - or whatever. A single split port like that on a low-grade Chinese card is to me, more scary then it would be useful.

I think it is normal for people to recommend what works for them regardless of low cost pricing or where it was designed, which is my case.

I've followed every single one of the USB 3.0 threads when searching for a solution that would satisfy me. For the NEC chip and other expensive cards I saw stories of poor support, KPs, reboots, missing drives after sleep, lack of driver support when ML came out, having to obtain drivers from sketchy sources, one that died after a few days use, not working with USB 3.0 card readers, working very slowly with USB 3.0 card readers, bluetooth interference, and having to modify kernel extensions.

In contrast the list of complaints for FL chip cards is much, much smaller. One was delivered DOA, someone found a USB 3.0 hub that wouldn't work, and there is the same bluetooth problem.

The bluetooth problem in all cases appears to be an industry-wide problem and even affects Apple's own hardware such as the Mac Mini.

So what I'm seeing are two imperfect solutions, but one seems to be much better than the other. I'm certainly not seeing what's so great about the more expensive cards.

You can complain about the 5Gb/2 setup, but I posted Black Magic disk speed tests, which are very close to the speeds in the native Apple solution (Mac Mini 2012) and I have yet to see anyone post speeds noticeably faster than the FL cards, so the theoretical difference doesn't play out in the real world when connected to a single drive. In fact, the speeds I've seen posted for the NEC cards are somewhat slower.

Admittedly this might change when hubs come into play, but I'm skeptical at least for the Caldigit because of this response they made about speed complaints:

- Our FASTA-6GU3 has two controller chips (Marvell for eSATA, NEC for USB3.0), and there's a PLX chipset to serve as the 'middle man' (there's no controller that can deliver both USB3.0 and SATA6 yet). While the Marvell and NEC can reach a higher performance, the PLX is the limited factor.

 

[Tesselator]

You can complain about the 5Gb/2 setup, but I posted Black Magic disk speed tests, which are very close to the speeds in the native Apple solution (Mac Mini 2012) and I have yet to see anyone post speeds noticeably faster than the FL cards, so the theoretical difference doesn't play out in the real world when connected to a single drive. In fact, the speeds I've seen posted for the NEC cards are somewhat slower.

Admittedly this might change when hubs come into play, but I'm skeptical at least for the Caldigit because of this response they made about speed complaints:

Hubs or using more than one of those ports... Try hooking up a drive to each of those ports and either striping them or duplicating your BMSpeed utility to test both drives at once and watch your speeds fall through the floor. Same goes for copying files from one drive to the other.

To some people it might not even matter. But to them I guess they don't actually need USB3 - even if they think they do or want it "just because". For me the whole idea of USB3 on a MacPro is the convenience it holds over eSATA III . But then what, I'm going to bomb myself by selecting a card that can't actually handle it? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Sure if you use your MacPro like most people use laptops then I guess... But then you might as well sell your MP and buy a laptop - it's cheaper to run and hey, it's portable too!

For me, I want (and need) dedicated ports and I couldn't in good conscience recommend anything else to someone who may not be aware of the limitations they're getting themselves into. I also want/need more than two ports but that may just be me.

 

[Erlang]

It's quite interesting that the FL chipset, has been endorsed by Black Magic Design for use with their Intensity Shuttle USB3 HDMI capture device.

Now when connected to the new Fresco Logic USB 3.0 host controller, Intensity Shuttle can unlock the higher quality 1080p60 capture and playback available in the latest generation of gaming consoles and video cameras. This wasn’t possible on previous USB 3.0 host solutions which could not handle the extreme bandwidth requirements.

http://www.frescologic.com/news_show.php?pe=1&ns=25

So in theory not too much of a slouch.