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USB 3.1 PCIe for cMP info repository

Y

yifuhood

macrumors member
Nov 3, 2014
75
16
thank you guys for the help, but i am getting confused now :),

i think thunderbolt 1 on iMac 2011 is 2X(2 port) 2xPCIE 10Gbps, and USB 3.1 G2 is 2xpcie using 128/132 encoding as well. and usb 3.1 G1 is what encoding? and usb 3.0 is again different right ? or USB 3.1 G1 = 3.0?
my thunderbolt to usb adapter, is asm1142=usb 3.1 G2 10G, my usb 3.0 hub VL813 chipset is 5G , not sure if it is just usb 3.0 or 3.1 G1, or it is the same?
ASM1153E USB 3.0 SSD drive (intel SSD 1500 pro)top out on my MacBook pro 2015 native USB 3.0 at 410MB/s, the same SSD over a thunderbolt enclosure on native thunderbolt max speed is 350-360MB/s, only 4k speed is better then USB 3.0. I have never tested raid 0 SSDs over thunderbolt.
so now, the TB to USB 3.1 10Gbps adapter with usb 3.0 drive max speed is about 360MB/s, if i order a USB 3.1 G2 SSD, lets say sandisk extreme 900 (2 SSD raid 0) with a USB 3.1 A to C cable(if there are such cable) , will i reach a higher speed with this adapter?

by the way, i donot know what the USB guys are thinking, but how they named it for consumers like me(I am already the biggest geek among my familiy and friends) is really confusing!!
 
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S

Slash-2CPU

macrumors 6502
Dec 14, 2016
404
268
666sheep said:
Maybe I didn't phrase it precisely enough, my apologies.
At the end speed will be limited by bus encoding.
I.e. ASM1142 on a x1 PCIe 3.0 it will much be closer to 10Gb/s limit than on 2.0 x2.
Click to expand...

Still don't understand. x2 2.0 = 1GB/s max theoretical, about 800MB/s real. x1 3.0 = 985MB/s max theoretical, about 800 MB/s real. PCIe 2.0 is 5GT/s 8/10 encoding. PCIe 3.0 is 8GT/s and 128/130. USB 3.1 Gen2 is 10gbps and 128/132, possibly close to 900MB/s real.

Both interfaces will potentially limit USB 3.1 Gen2, but we won't know that for sure(or by how much) until there's a x2 3.0 or x4 2.0 chip or a northbridge with integrated 3.1 Gen2. It's very unlikely you'll see 3.1 Gen2 wider/faster controller chips any time soon. Doubling lane width and/or controller speed probably isn't cost-competitive, especially considering what a precious resource PCIe lanes are. x2 3.0 controllers wouldn't speed up the cMP anyway.
[doublepost=1483910173][/doublepost]
yifuhood said:
thank you guys for the help, but i am getting confused now :),

i think thunderbolt 1 on iMac 2011 is 2X(2 port) 2xPCIE 10Gbps, and USB 3.1 G2 is 2xpcie using 128/132 encoding as well. and usb 3.1 G1 is what encoding? and usb 3.0 is again different right ? or USB 3.1 G1 = 3.0?
my thunderbolt to usb adapter, is asm1142=usb 3.1 G2 10G, my usb 3.0 hub VL813 chipset is 5G , not sure if it is just usb 3.0 or 3.1 G1, or it is the same?
ASM1153E USB 3.0 SSD drive (intel SSD 1500 pro)top out on my MacBook pro 2015 native USB 3.0 at 410MB/s, the same SSD over a thunderbolt enclosure on native thunderbolt max speed is 350-360MB/s, only 4k speed is better then USB 3.0. I have never tested raid 0 SSDs over thunderbolt.
so now, the TB to USB 3.1 10Gbps adapter with usb 3.0 drive max speed is about 360MB/s, if i order a USB 3.1 G2 SSD, lets say sandisk extreme 900 (2 SSD raid 0) with a USB 3.1 A to C cable(if there are such cable) , will i reach a higher speed with this adapter?

by the way, i donot know what the USB guys are thinking, but how they named it for consumers like me(I am already the biggest geek among my familiy and friends) is really confusing!!
Click to expand...

USB 3.0 = 400MB/s real-world
USB 3.1 Gen1 5gb/s= 500MB/s real-world
USB 3.1 Gen2 10Gb/s = ?900-1000?MB/s real-world
PCIe 2.0 x2 = 800MB/s real-world
PCIe 3.0 x1 = 800MB/s real-world
Thunderbolt 1 = 900-1000MB/s real-world, per channel. 2 channels, but they can't be combined/aggregated.

The current state of things with USB and naming schema sucks.
 
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O

ofawx

macrumors newbie
Sep 26, 2013
12
0
Looking to upgrade my 4,1 to USB3.0 (3.1 would be nice but not important) Type A and stumbled upon some very inexpensive cards on Aliexpress claiming to use the ASM1142 chipset here: LA31-12U. Searching the site for 'ASM1142' gives a number of other options, such as Type C ports and A+C ports.

Just interested if anyone has experience with the card, as it looks very tempting for less than half the price of the equivalent Asus card.
 
S

Slash-2CPU

macrumors 6502
Dec 14, 2016
404
268
ofawx said:
Looking to upgrade my 4,1 to USB3.0 (3.1 would be nice but not important) Type A and stumbled upon some very inexpensive cards on Aliexpress claiming to use the ASM1142 chipset here: LA31-12U. Searching the site for 'ASM1142' gives a number of other options, such as Type C ports and A+C ports.

Just interested if anyone has experience with the card, as it looks very tempting for less than half the price of the equivalent Asus card.
Click to expand...

Looking at the traces on the board, I don't think it uses 12v supply from the PCIe slot. It definitely uses the 3.3v supply from the slot, likely for standby power. It's a gamble on power, but it appears that the card requires the molex power connector to be plugged in. The card should work if powered properly.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B010PNUALA/ -USB 3.1 card, maxes out around 510MB/s. Requires 10.12 Sierra
https://www.amazon.com//dp/B00I027GPC/ -USB 3.0 card, maxes out at 340MB/s. Works with anything later than 10.8.2

Both of the above do not require extra power cables in order to function. Upside of the 3.0 card is it has 2 more ports. Your 3.0 devices will run slightly faster on the 3.1 card than the 3.0 card due to the 3.1 using more PCIe lanes.
 
O

ofawx

macrumors newbie
Sep 26, 2013
12
0
Slash-2CPU said:
Looking at the traces on the board, I don't think it uses 12v supply from the PCIe slot. It definitely uses the 3.3v supply from the slot, likely for standby power. It's a gamble on power, but it appears that the card requires the molex power connector to be plugged in. The card should work if powered properly.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B010PNUALA/ -USB 3.1 card, maxes out around 510MB/s. Requires 10.12 Sierra
https://www.amazon.com//dp/B00I027GPC/ -USB 3.0 card, maxes out at 340MB/s. Works with anything later than 10.8.2

Both of the above do not require extra power cables in order to function. Upside of the 3.0 card is it has 2 more ports. Your 3.0 devices will run slightly faster on the 3.1 card than the 3.0 card due to the 3.1 using more PCIe lanes.
Click to expand...

Hadn't even thought of the power situation - thanks for the analysis, I definitely agree that it doesn't look like there are any 12V connections, at least from the pictures shown.

Think I'll go with the Ableconn, looks like a decent card. Thanks again for your help!
 
zoomfinder

zoomfinder

macrumors member
Dec 31, 2015
78
22
zoomfinder said:
Yes, that's what I was thinking and I'm going to try next. I will post the result here again. Thanks for your comment.
Click to expand...
Here is the speed I registered with my Squid in Slot 2. I moved the card from Slot 3.

Squid RAID (Gen2 x16 with four SM951 - 512GB boot volume and 1.5TB test volume)

ExtraDisk 170118-2.png


As you can see I had to change my benchmark app to AJA lite because when I tried the new setup using BlackMagic it over-revved and stopped registering at 2000. I don't know if there is any calibration discrepancy between these two apps but AJA has gone well beyond and I obtained over 2.5 times the speed I got in Slot 3. Please refer to my data in #217 in this thread for the data in Slot 3.

Slot 3: 1305.0 Write/1448.9 Read (BlackMagic)
Slot 2: 3708 Write/3660 Read (AJA)

I had a preconception from reading this forum that Squid would be slower in slot 2 but that wasn't so and now I'm very pleased. Thank you Slash-2CPU for suggesting this.
 
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S

Slash-2CPU

macrumors 6502
Dec 14, 2016
404
268
zoomfinder said:
Here is the speed I registered with my Squid in Slot 2. I moved the card from Slot 3.

Squid RAID (Gen2 x16 with four SM951 - 512GB boot volume and 1.5TB test volume)

View attachment 684255

As you can see I had to change my benchmark app to AJA lite because when I tried the new setup using BlackMagic it over-revved and stopped registering at 2000. I don't know if there is any calibration discrepancy between these two apps but AJA has gone well beyond and I obtained over 2.5 times the speed I got in Slot 3. Please refer to my data in #217 in this thread for the data in Slot 3.

Slot 3: 1305.0 Write/1448.9 Read (BlackMagic)
Slot 2: 3708 Write/3660 Read (AJA)

I had a preconception from reading this forum that Squid would be slower in slot 2 but that wasn't so and now I'm very pleased. Thank you Slash-2CPU for suggesting this.
Click to expand...


I bet that pulling 2-5 drives off the RAID controller and putting them on your internal HDD bays will also improve performance. This should work perfectly if it's a Mac OS software RAID. That 1GB/s number is definitely the card/PCIe slot maxing out. You should be able to get 1.5-2.2GB/s by splitting the 8-drive array across the RAID controller and the internal bays. A striped array will scale linearly in this regard. The onboard SATA controller should top out around 0.9-1.3GB/s.

It's very likely that you won't have to reformat or move any data, but of course backup first.
 
zoomfinder

zoomfinder

macrumors member
Dec 31, 2015
78
22
Slash-2CPU said:
That 1GB/s number is definitely the card/PCIe slot maxing out. You should be able to get 1.5-2.2GB/s by splitting the 8-drive array across the RAID controller and the internal bays. A striped array will scale linearly in this regard. The onboard SATA controller should top out around 0.9-1.3GB/s.
Click to expand...

In my setup, four SSDs are placed in the internal HDD bays and four more are placed in the IceDock which is mounted in the lower optical drive bay. The Highpoint 4520 RAID controller has two internal mini-SAS ports and no external ports. So each of the first group of four SSDs is connected directly to one of the mini-SAS ports with a fan-out cable and each of the second group is connected similarly to the other mini-SAS port.

None of my SSDs are connected to the SATA channel on the motherboard and they are configured by SoftRAID to create one single array because I'm running Sierra and Apple's RAID function does not exist any longer. I think I should be getting SATA3 speed which is provided by the RAID controller but, in your opinion, the speed would be faster if I split up the single array into two four-SSD arrays? I'm guessing that this will assign one controller to one SSD group hereby lessening the load. I need a big volume to store an ever growing library of my DSLR image data, both RAW and processed Photoshop files, and I need at least 6TB in a single volume.

BTW I'm wondering if there is any USB 3.1 Gen 2 hub available in the market place. Amazon lists some "USB 3.1" hubs and docks with USB-C ports on them but they are all in Gen 1 spec. I'm beginning to see TB3 docks being introduced to the market and I wonder if I can connect my USB 3.1 Gen 2 cable to such device's TB3 ports which have the same USB-C connectors.
 
S

Slash-2CPU

macrumors 6502
Dec 14, 2016
404
268
zoomfinder said:
In my setup, four SSDs are placed in the internal HDD bays and four more are placed in the IceDock which is mounted in the lower optical drive bay. The Highpoint 4520 RAID controller has two internal mini-SAS ports and no external ports. So each of the first group of four SSDs is connected directly to one of the mini-SAS ports with a fan-out cable and each of the second group is connected similarly to the other mini-SAS port.

None of my SSDs are connected to the SATA channel on the motherboard and they are configured by SoftRAID to create one single array because I'm running Sierra and Apple's RAID function does not exist any longer. I think I should be getting SATA3 speed which is provided by the RAID controller but, in your opinion, the speed would be faster if I split up the single array into two four-SSD arrays? I'm guessing that this will assign one controller to one SSD group hereby lessening the load. I need a big volume to store an ever growing library of my DSLR image data, both RAW and processed Photoshop files, and I need at least 6TB in a single volume.

BTW I'm wondering if there is any USB 3.1 Gen 2 hub available in the market place. Amazon lists some "USB 3.1" hubs and docks with USB-C ports on them but they are all in Gen 1 spec. I'm beginning to see TB3 docks being introduced to the market and I wonder if I can connect my USB 3.1 Gen 2 cable to such device's TB3 ports which have the same USB-C connectors.
Click to expand...

RAID has returned in Sierra.

I'm pretty sure you're maxing out either the controller or the PCIe slot with that 1GB/s limit you're hitting. If that slot/controller combo maxes out around 1-1.5GB/s, you want somewhere around 4 drives on it. The other 3-4 can go on the internal SATA bays. The bays max out at ~285MB/s each. Make a single Mac OS RAID 0 volume striped across all 8 drives. An array like that is limited basically by its slowest member. Your sequential speeds should top out around 2.0-2.2GB/s(8*285MB/s).

Right now, you're maxing out around 1.0-1.3GB/s, right? Those drives are individually capable of easily 500MB/s.

It goes against most of what is out there on RAID, but you'll get better performance letting Mac OS and your CPU's handle it. The 4520 is not tuned for SSD's. It's designed for platter drives. I'm sure running those SSD's on there is capping both sequential and 4k IOPS once you go past 3-5 SSD's. I saw this a few years ago running an Adaptec card. With 4 SSD's, it was faster when I switched off all caching and hardware RAID. Simply put, the processors on those cards were not intended to see drives that could push more than a few k IOPS per spindle.
 
zoomfinder

zoomfinder

macrumors member
Dec 31, 2015
78
22
This has gone way off the subject here and I will wrap it up but I see your points and I will do some experiments when I find time to. But I have one final question: Where do I find RAID? I don't see it in Disk Utility in which I used to see a tab for it a few years back.
 
A

AUser2017

macrumors newbie
Feb 4, 2017
25
4
Hi Forum, i have a important question for the caldigit FASTA-6GU3 PLUS PCIE Card. I am using a Mac Pro 5.1
Do i need to add a powercable to the internal sata port of the card for supplemental power.
I have no free port for a internal powercable to the card. Not from the drive bay or the internal hd ports.
Also my Graphicscard uses both pcie power connectors.
Is it possible to use the CalDigit FASTA-6GU3 Plus only powered by the PCIe Port, without additional power?

Thanks for help
 
Synchro3

Synchro3

macrumors 68000
Jan 12, 2014
1,987
850
AUser2017 said:
Hi Forum, i have a important question for the caldigit FASTA-6GU3 PLUS PCIE Card. I am using a Mac Pro 5.1
Do i need to add a powercable to the internal sata port of the card for supplemental power?
I have no free port for a internal powercable to the card. Not from the drive bay or the internal hd ports.
Also my Graphicscard uses both pcie power connectors.
Is it possible to use the CalDigit FASTA-6GU3 Plus only powered by the PCIe Port, without additional power?

Thanks for help
Click to expand...

No internal power needed for the Caldigit FASTA-6GU3 PLUS.
 
A

AUser2017

macrumors newbie
Feb 4, 2017
25
4
Thanks for the answers...so will i go with the caldigit card.

A last question; I read, that the ASM1351 based drive enclosures are overheating and stop working.
Does this happen with the caldigit card too? I found in my region only enclosures with this ASM Chipset...

Again, thanks for help
 
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ActionableMango

ActionableMango

macrumors G3
Sep 21, 2010
9,613
6,909
AUser2017 said:
Is it possible to use the CalDigit FASTA-6GU3 Plus only powered by the PCIe Port, without additional power?
Click to expand...

It is not required--it is optional. If you hook up power, more wattage is available at the port for charging connected devices more quickly.
 
P

Plato65

macrumors member
Jan 3, 2017
84
80
M

macuser453787

macrumors 6502a
May 19, 2012
578
151
Galatians 3:13-14
zoomfinder said:
I guess this is about the max performance a cMP can get.
Click to expand...

There is a solution for even faster speeds. I found out about this from the Barefeats website, here and here.

Check out this product from Max Upgrades. This kit includes drive sleds with a custom connector that uses the Mac Pro's backplane for POWER only, NOT for DATA.

Using this kit with your Highpoint Rocket RAID 4520, you can achieve proper SATA 3 speeds with SSDs in a RAID stripe.

I have this kit in my cMP 4,1(5,1) hooked up to an Areca RAID controller with 4 Samsung 840 Pros in a RAID stripe and AJA benchmarks it at about 1900 MB/s.
 
Squuiid

Squuiid

macrumors 68000
Oct 31, 2006
1,877
1,713
macuser453787 said:
There is a solution for even faster speeds. I found out about this from the Barefeats website, here and here.

Check out this product from Max Upgrades. This kit includes drive sleds with a custom connector that uses the Mac Pro's backplane for POWER only, NOT for DATA.

Using this kit with your Highpoint Rocket RAID 4520, you can achieve proper SATA 3 speeds with SSDs in a RAID stripe.

I have this kit in my cMP 4,1(5,1) hooked up to an Areca RAID controller with 4 Samsung 840 Pros in a RAID stripe and AJA benchmarks it at about 1900 MB/s.
Click to expand...
I think you might have posted this in the wrong thread?
 
M

macuser453787

macrumors 6502a
May 19, 2012
578
151
Galatians 3:13-14
Squuiid said:
I think you might have posted this in the wrong thread?
Click to expand...
Nope, it was just an older post on the previous page, from post #217. Thought it might be helpful to zoomfinder and others to know that faster options are possible. :)

Edit: And now that I've looked further into the thread, I see that a solution was found using the Squid in a different slot. :)
 
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