USB 3.x PCIe Cards for Classic Mac Pro

[pullman]

Thank you for the reply, and apologies that it took a while to reply. I missed the forum notification.

I've received the CalDigit card, which has both eSATA and USB 3.0. Booting works from drives connected via eSATA (which the OWC box has), which is great

@pullman, i dont think that would work, provided you have only usb functionality on thw OWC Mercury quad. if it is a model that has also Firewire and Esata connector, it should/could work.

 

[CactusMel]

Hi, I just got this on eBay for £10 inc postage, it's not quite the same as the other Inateck cards I've seen on this site but the model is a newer revision, it has the same FL11xxx chip, it may or may not need the extra power connector, but for my modest needs proberly not! There was also one with 3 x USB 3.0 and 2 USB 'C' keeping an eye on that! same manufacturer. Will report on it's working or not when it arrives later this week!

 

[CactusMel]

Hi, Just found this card on eBay for £10 inc post, so thought it worth a try, it's not arrived yet so can't say yah or nah, but it does seem to have the same FL1100xx chip, it seems to be a more upto date version, not sure if it will need the extra power connector. There was also another Inateck card with 3 x USB3 and 2 x USB 'C' keeping an eye on that one. I will get back to you and let you know the results...

 

[ActionableMango]

Why would Sonnet say the USB3-PRO-4P10-E with ASMedia3142 is 10.12.6+ only if Inatek is claiming 10.8.2+ support with the same chip?

I speculate that each company is simply listing what they tested for. That's certainly how it is where I work.

Thanks for coming back and providing a report on your card. So many people ask questions and then I assume they bought something, but they don't report success or failure which would help the next person.

Thanks to everyone else who has done the same.

Also, special thanks to @joevt for keeping the Wiki up to date. Look at this history over the years:

 

[AlexMaximus]

I think the connector is needed if you want to charge a device such as an iPhone or something on that USB port. If you don't charge and need data only, you may not need that sata power cable. Just in case you did not populate your second DVD-Rom bay, you could use an adapter/cable to transfer SATA power down to that card.

 

[mode11]

I found both the Inateck cards mentioned above worked well in my Mac Pro 4,1 (when I still had it). The newer Red Comets version was great too (I had the 4x PCIe version).

I've since bought the 1x Red Comets card for my PC, which has also worked flawlessly, after having issues with a cheaper USB 3 card.

Having individual controllers per port is great if you're really hammering the card. But if some of the ports are just to give you more ports for low speed stuff like printers, dongles etc, you may only need to use one port to its full potential. I generally used it for backup drives and thumbdrives.

 

[z11111]

Posting here for others with a similar predicament.

My 5,1 slots were basically maxed out. I have a Sapphire Pulse RX580 8GB and despite being one slot, it’s still huge and had very little clearance. Someone in this thread recommended the Sonnet cards being able to squeeze in, so here’s my experience installing it.



TL;DR: worked right away with no changes necessary. Martin Lo OpenCore 1.0.2 beta with Monterey 12.7.2.



As others have mentioned; the Sonnet fits above a big GPU in a machine where all other card slots are used but it’s a TIGHT SQUEEZE, and I mean EXTREMELY TIGHT.



It got stuck on the GPU fan which is no good since those are SMD caps clicking against it. I did the following to alleviate that

• added washers to the screws for the mounting bracket to raise up the screws
• trimmed all long through-hole component leads on the bottom of the PCB (with precision cutters)
• Shoved a little piece of 3M foam tape in the corner

But after all that, the GPU fan was still gonna catch on some of the SMD caps.



Hilariously, I shoved a 1.5mm thick guitar pick between the fan housing on the GPU and the back of the Sonnet card and that helped it clear the GPU fans entirely.



There is minimal mechanical strain on the devices in my slots above the Sonnet. If anything, the most strain is going to be on the Sonnet card itself.



That being said: plug and play. Worked immediately with no issues.



I thought this card did 10 Gbps speeds but it’s USB 3.0 / 5 Gbps which is my mistake. At first I thought I had something configured wrong before realizing it was just the specifications of the card. And yes, I am using genuine 10 Gbps USB C to USB A cables that I have tested the speeds of on other machines.

Still, with an external SSD USB drive, I still get faster speeds than an internal SATA SSD since the cMP 5,1 is locked to SATA II speeds.



Attached are some DiskMark results showing:
1) SanDisk Extreme USB C SSD 1TB into the Sonnet
2) same drive into USB 2.0 port
3) and a new old stock 2019 Crucial MX500 SATA SSD installed in the machine (Samsung EVO 860 had essentially the same speeds).





Outside of DiskMark, I am able to copy roughly 50GB of data off the SanDisk external SSD to the Mac Pro internal drive in about 3~ minutes. Love it.

 

[AlexMaximus]

Posting here for others with a similar predicament.

My 5,1 slots were basically maxed out. I have a Sapphire Pulse RX580 8GB and despite being one slot, it’s still huge and had very little clearance. Someone in this thread recommended the Sonnet cards being able to squeeze in, so here’s my experience installing it.

View attachment 2475104

TL;DR: worked right away with no changes necessary. Martin Lo OpenCore 1.0.2 beta with Monterey 12.7.2.



As others have mentioned; the Sonnet fits above a big GPU in a machine where all other card slots are used but it’s a TIGHT SQUEEZE, and I mean EXTREMELY TIGHT.

View attachment 2475105

It got stuck on the GPU fan which is no good since those are SMD caps clicking against it. I did the following to alleviate that

• added washers to the screws for the mounting bracket to raise up the screws
• trimmed all long through-hole component leads on the bottom of the PCB (with precision cutters)
• Shoved a little piece of 3M foam tape in the corner

View attachment 2475098
View attachment 2475099

But after all that, the GPU fan was still gonna catch on some of the SMD caps.



Hilariously, I shoved a 1.5mm thick guitar pick between the fan housing on the GPU and the back of the Sonnet card and that helped it clear the GPU fans entirely.

View attachment 2475100

There is minimal mechanical strain on the devices in my slots above the Sonnet. If anything, the most strain is going to be on the Sonnet card itself.



That being said: plug and play. Worked immediately with no issues.



I thought this card did 10 Gbps speeds but it’s USB 3.0 / 5 Gbps which is my mistake. At first I thought I had something configured wrong before realizing it was just the specifications of the card. And yes, I am using genuine 10 Gbps USB C to USB A cables that I have tested the speeds of on other machines.

Still, with an external SSD USB drive, I still get faster speeds than an internal SATA SSD since the cMP 5,1 is locked to SATA II speeds.



Attached are some DiskMark results showing:
1) SanDisk Extreme USB C SSD 1TB into the Sonnet
2) same drive into USB 2.0 port
3) and a new old stock 2019 Crucial MX500 SATA SSD installed in the machine (Samsung EVO 860 had essentially the same speeds).

View attachment 2475103
View attachment 2475102
View attachment 2475101

Outside of DiskMark, I am able to copy roughly 50GB of data off the SanDisk external SSD to the Mac Pro internal drive in about 3~ minutes. Love it.

Could you tell me how your experience is with that AVID PCIe card in slot3? I always dreamt of going full professional, but never did. What equipment do you connect to that Avid card?

 

[joevt]

Added some USB 3.2 gen 2x2 / USB4 v2 / Thunderbolt 5 notes to the first post wiki.

Who's going to be the first to test a Thunderbolt 5 card? I did GIGABYTE for Alpine Ridge and Titan Ridge (Thunderbolt 3). I did ASUS for Maple Ridge (Thunderbolt 4). I would probably do ASUS again for Barlow Ridge (Thunderbolt 5) if I wanted to waste any money but I only have one USB 3.2 gen 2x2 device and I have an ASMedia ASM3242 for that.

 

[z11111]

Could you tell me how your experience is with that AVID PCIe card in slot3? I always dreamt of going full professional, but never did. What equipment do you connect to that Avid card?

It is an HDX card which is kind of irrelevant nowadays considering Native processing power has mostly surpassed the need for HDX/Ultimate unless you require extremely low latency during tracking many channels at very high sample rates. Oftentimes the available voices get maxed out on 96/24 sessions and I have to switch to the “Hybrid” engine, which only offloads track processing to the HDX DSP if you specifically select them.

Even that being said, companies like RME have mastered low latency even over USB 3.0 that is probably comparable than the capabilities of this 10+ year old HDX card.