Right on the drives - OS X just works.
I hadn't tried the sleeping (my MP never sleeps).
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USB 3.x PCIe Cards for Classic Mac Pro
- Thread starter ActionableMango
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Right on the drives - OS X just works.
I hadn't tried the sleeping (my MP never sleeps).
I know nothing about the challenges of writing code, or designing hardware that's added on after the fact.
But is it within the realm of the possible that someone will build a card that's more 'native' or more whatever, so that things attached to the USB-3 ports don't have to be unplugged and plugged in again every time the Mac Pro goes to sleep?
malch
But is it within the realm of the possible that someone will build a card that's more 'native' or more whatever, so that things attached to the USB-3 ports don't have to be unplugged and plugged in again every time the Mac Pro goes to sleep?
malch
I know this bug affects many other brands and devices, even Thunderbolt devices. Apple released a supplementary update to 10.8.5 that lists that bug as one of the fixes, but it doesn't seem to have solved the problem for everyone.
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/0...5-supplemental-update-with-several-bug-fixes/
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5306476
I think we just have to wait and hope Apple will fix OS X.
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/0...5-supplemental-update-with-several-bug-fixes/
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5306476
I think we just have to wait and hope Apple will fix OS X.
Mango, are you having that problem as well? I ordered the same card you have but it hasn't arrived yet. I have no such issue at all with the RocketU, and now I'm wondering if I should leave well-enough alone.
I assume so, but I wouldn't know. My USB 3.0 drives go into a fire safe when I'm not directly using them, so coincidentally they are never connected when the MP goes to sleep.
I vaguely remember once, prior to 10.8.5, I was lazy about putting them in the fire safe so the drives were connected during a sleep. When the MP woke up there was a warning message about ejecting the discs. However, the discs were still visible is OS X and there was no need to physically detach/attach them. So either they were never really ejected and it was a false warning, or they automatically reconnected by themselves.
I'm curious if anyone has this problem on Mavericks.
Well, I won't get the time to check it out for a week or so, but if no one else has, I'll test it and post back here with the result.
Well I have given up on USB3 for tonight, I can not get my 5,1 3x33 to boot off of my 840 / Velocity x2 card in slot 3 or 4 with the Caldigit FASTA 6Gu3 card in the other slots, w/ Mavericks. I can boot option key off of it when a backup volume is found but when I select the SSD as the startup disk, no love.
I had been doing fine with the Vx2 in slot 4 with a Newer Tech Max Power eSATA 6G in slot 3 so I am going to have to go back to that until a more plug and play option surfaces. Bummer, I was looking forward to getting USB3 speeds with my Envoy 240 to go between my new 13" Retina and the Mac Pro, looks like that idea will have to wait, I'll put the Max Power 2x eSATA back in, at least it played nice with the Velocity x2.
Also, I did a Black Magic test of the Envoy in USB3 and got surprisingly low numbers, 179 write / 265 read. On the 13" Retina USB3 it is 430 write / read, big difference.
I had been doing fine with the Vx2 in slot 4 with a Newer Tech Max Power eSATA 6G in slot 3 so I am going to have to go back to that until a more plug and play option surfaces. Bummer, I was looking forward to getting USB3 speeds with my Envoy 240 to go between my new 13" Retina and the Mac Pro, looks like that idea will have to wait, I'll put the Max Power 2x eSATA back in, at least it played nice with the Velocity x2.
Also, I did a Black Magic test of the Envoy in USB3 and got surprisingly low numbers, 179 write / 265 read. On the 13" Retina USB3 it is 430 write / read, big difference.
@ Macshroomer:
Is there a reason why you do not want the Velocity Solo X2 in slot 2?
If you already have a Newer eSATA card, why didn't you get a USB 3 card that is natively supported by OS X? (the Caldigit card uses NEC chipset and requires separate drivers)
Is there a reason why you do not want the Velocity Solo X2 in slot 2?
If you already have a Newer eSATA card, why didn't you get a USB 3 card that is natively supported by OS X? (the Caldigit card uses NEC chipset and requires separate drivers)
Great questions, I did a ton of searches and found nothing on where to install the V X2 so the closest I found was slot 3 for a 3,1. Is it a better bet to put it in slot 2 then?
As for why I did not get a OSX supported USB3 card, I am new to this type of upgrade, I thought I could get away with getting rid of the Newer eSATA and replace it with the FASTA eSATA / USB3 card.
So with all of this in mind, given my use of the eSATA card, V X2 card, what USB3 card do you recommend and what slot order?
Thanks!!
I was having similar problems last week with my 5,1 12-core 3.33 and those same cards.
I decided to move my boot SSD from the sled in bay-1 to the Solo x2 card. I put it in slot 4 (top near disk drives), with a Sonnet Pro dual SSD card in slot 3, and the Caldigit in slot 2 next to the video card. The lower 2 cards had already been running in their respective locations.
The system would not boot!
I pulled the Caldigit card and was able to boot ... replacing the card and again no boot.
So I jumped on MacRumors and searched for other posters experience ... and ran across some of my own posts from early this year when I was having similar problems finding out what worked. Following my own advice ... I swapped locations and put the Caldigit card in slot 4 and put the Solo x2 card in slot 2.
The system booted!
It seemed to be running fine, booted fine, and I was happy until I attached external drives to the USB-3 or eSATA ports. The system would boot erratically, usually with a really long delay, sometimes requiring a PRAM reset. This was not something I wanted to live with.
So I put my boot SSD back into Bay-1 (removing the x2 card from the system) and I am back to a stable, fast booting system again. I think I will leave good enough alone!
-howard
Perhaps I will try the USB card pastrychef recommends in order to utilize the Solo x2 which I already have.
I decided to move my boot SSD from the sled in bay-1 to the Solo x2 card. I put it in slot 4 (top near disk drives), with a Sonnet Pro dual SSD card in slot 3, and the Caldigit in slot 2 next to the video card. The lower 2 cards had already been running in their respective locations.
The system would not boot!
I pulled the Caldigit card and was able to boot ... replacing the card and again no boot.
So I jumped on MacRumors and searched for other posters experience ... and ran across some of my own posts from early this year when I was having similar problems finding out what worked. Following my own advice ... I swapped locations and put the Caldigit card in slot 4 and put the Solo x2 card in slot 2.
The system booted!
It seemed to be running fine, booted fine, and I was happy until I attached external drives to the USB-3 or eSATA ports. The system would boot erratically, usually with a really long delay, sometimes requiring a PRAM reset. This was not something I wanted to live with.
So I put my boot SSD back into Bay-1 (removing the x2 card from the system) and I am back to a stable, fast booting system again. I think I will leave good enough alone!
-howard
Perhaps I will try the USB card pastrychef recommends in order to utilize the Solo x2 which I already have.
I remember swapping cards around in my system and the Velocity Solo X2 booted most reliably when in slot 2. I also found that multiple SATA controller cards can cause conflicts and prevent booting or caused the second SATA controller card to not function.
Personally, when given a choice between installing a product that requires 3rd party drivers and a product that relies on built-in Apple drivers, I tend to go with the later. The reason is that the odds of an OS upgrade breaking things and incompatibilities are far less.
hfg has the same cards as you and had success booting with Velocity Solo X2 in slot 2 and Caldigit card in slot 4, so I would try what he did. Since the Caldigit card has eSATA, you can probably leave the Newer eSATA card out to eliminate another potential variable.
I tried the V x2 in slot 2, USB3 card in slot 4 without the Newer eSata installed, nope. I am returning the Caldigit card, I really only needed this for swapping files between my MacPro and new 13" Retina. For the same money I spent on the card, I can get a decent 250GB SSD, plug it into my Voyager Q dock which has both eSata and USB3 and swap files quickly and reliably between those two interfaces.
Maybe in awhile a plug and play solution will surface that will not need specific attached hardware requirements to be in place, in the meantime, I am not willing to change any of that when I can simply use the Q-Dock to get the job done and not have to.
Oh well, at least I gave it a shot...
Maybe in awhile a plug and play solution will surface that will not need specific attached hardware requirements to be in place, in the meantime, I am not willing to change any of that when I can simply use the Q-Dock to get the job done and not have to.
Oh well, at least I gave it a shot...
I also have a OWC "Newer Technology MaxPower eSATA 6G Pro PCIe Controller Card" which seemed to dislike working with ANY other eSATA card. I first discovered this when I got the Sonnet Pro card and it wouldn't boot at all until I removed the NewerTech eSATA card. It still sits idle as I have problems whenever I put it in the Mac Pro with any of the cards I have tried.
I did use the Velocity x2 card for awhile, and altho it would not coexist with the NewerTech eSATA card, I did route the second SATA port on the x2 out to the rear panel so I would have a eSATA port to connect to my external RAID-5 box. This was prior to getting the CalDigit card.
-howard
I did use the Velocity x2 card for awhile, and altho it would not coexist with the NewerTech eSATA card, I did route the second SATA port on the x2 out to the rear panel so I would have a eSATA port to connect to my external RAID-5 box. This was prior to getting the CalDigit card.
-howard
OK, I figured out what my voodoo needed to be...
Even after reverting to my pre-Caldigit hardware config, I still could not get the thing to fire up with the boot volume in the PCIe slots, no matter which one, got the folder with the ? mark after a long grey screen time. This lead me to go back and do what I did when I first got the 840 / Vx2 card. At first I put the 840 in the PCIe card slot, cloned the original boot volume that was in the lower optical bay. Once it was cloned, I swapped drive positions and rebooted from the new drive in the optical bay to establish it as the primary boot volume. Then I shut down and simply swapped drive positions, 840 in the PCIe slot.
I simply had to redo the position maneuver to re-establish the 840 as the boot volume, only this time I did it with the 120SSD in the PCIe card in slot 2, 840 in the lower optical bay like the day I first got the drive. Presto, booted fine.
So I repaired permissions and powered down then swapped the drives, 840 now in PCIe slot 2 and the 120SSD back in the lower optical bay. Once again, boom, fired up without incident. Now, to be fair, I left every peripheral unplugged except for my ACD 30" and it's USB keyboard plug. Once I deemed everything was working well, I started plugging things back in, FW800, eSATA, USB3.
So far so good, happy little family of drives and such. I tend not to reboot very often so I am going to run with it and see what happens.
Even after reverting to my pre-Caldigit hardware config, I still could not get the thing to fire up with the boot volume in the PCIe slots, no matter which one, got the folder with the ? mark after a long grey screen time. This lead me to go back and do what I did when I first got the 840 / Vx2 card. At first I put the 840 in the PCIe card slot, cloned the original boot volume that was in the lower optical bay. Once it was cloned, I swapped drive positions and rebooted from the new drive in the optical bay to establish it as the primary boot volume. Then I shut down and simply swapped drive positions, 840 in the PCIe slot.
I simply had to redo the position maneuver to re-establish the 840 as the boot volume, only this time I did it with the 120SSD in the PCIe card in slot 2, 840 in the lower optical bay like the day I first got the drive. Presto, booted fine.
So I repaired permissions and powered down then swapped the drives, 840 now in PCIe slot 2 and the 120SSD back in the lower optical bay. Once again, boom, fired up without incident. Now, to be fair, I left every peripheral unplugged except for my ACD 30" and it's USB keyboard plug. Once I deemed everything was working well, I started plugging things back in, FW800, eSATA, USB3.
So far so good, happy little family of drives and such. I tend not to reboot very often so I am going to run with it and see what happens.
Reduced speed is a known problem with the Caldigit USB/eSATA card. It affects both the USB and eSATA ports. See this post.
For performance, you are better off with separate USB and eSATA cards.
Noted and written to both OWC and Caldigit, WTF is the point of this card then, really?
Any suggestions for a different brand of USB3 card, I think I am about done with CalDigit...
I suppose if you needed both interfaces and you only had one slot left, the Cadigit is your card. 250MB/s is still much faster than USB 2.0. Also, back in the day, it was one of the only Mac compatible solutions at all.
Recommended cards are in the first post of this thread.
I'm not getting 250MB/s, With my fastest external, the 240 GB Envoy SSD I am getting 179/277 via USB3-Caldigit and 430/430 USB3 MacBook Pro.
I have slots 3 & 4 available. I can run with my Newer Tech eSATA in one slot and what ever recommended USB3 card in the other one. But by what you have updated the front page it looks as though I am out of luck as I don't have any power to spare from a drive or optical bay.
Maybe I will try Caldigit's USB3 only card?
Lots of people have had success with the Orico cards.
http://www.amazon.com/ORICO-PFU3-2P...1383949800&sr=8-33&keywords=orico+usb+3+pci-e
http://www.amazon.com/ORICO-PFU3-2P...1383949800&sr=8-33&keywords=orico+usb+3+pci-e
I think based on what I have read here and the reviews that it needs power from a molex connector, some splicing into SATA cables? I'll pass, I need plug and play or nada.
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Generally you don't need extra power for this card. If your going to plug in a power demanding device, or use it as a charger then yes, you should add the extra power.
I think you don't understand.
The Orico PFU3-2P doesn't need power to operate. This is my setup. I've used it with USB 3.0 thumb drives and USB 3.0 external desktop backup drives. It works fine for this purpose without supplemental power.
The reviews on Amazon are all mixed together for multiple models of Orico cards, including those that do in fact require power. It is causing a lot of confusion there.
To the best of my knowledge several people here have used the PFU3-2P successfully with their devices and I'm not aware of anyone that has plugged in a device that didn't have enough power. That doesn't mean it can't happen of course, but as far as I know, nobody's mentioned it yet.
Thanks, yeah, it is a bit confusing, for example, there are three boxes of graphics to click on, one shows 4 ports and then there are the two port versions.....which one do I select?