USB 3.x PCIe Cards for Classic Mac Pro

[drglenn]

Amazon Issues

Just FYI: The new Inateck KT-4004 was available on Amazon USA - right before I posted that it was back - for all of about 5 minutes. I ordered one (~$25), and it has already shipped and is scheduled for delivery on Mon. or Tues. Interestingly, clicking on my order info, takes me back to the multi-listing page where the KT-4004 has not yet reappeared. So, they either sold out within 5 minutes, or they just decided not to post it again until they had confirmed stock. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up - I meant well! Who knew they'd pull it off right after it was re-posted?

I left this message for the Inateck folks through Amazon (USA):

My order has now shipped, but the listing for this product is still nowhere to be found (on the USA Amazon site, anyway)! I would like to purchase a few more, as would some of my friends. Why don't you leave the listing up even if it is again on backorder? That way you'd at least have some idea how many want to purchase it?

 

[crjackson2134]

Just FYI: The new Inateck KT-4004 was available on Amazon USA - right before I posted that it was back - for all of about 5 minutes. I ordered one (~$25), and it has already shipped and is scheduled for delivery on Mon. or Tues. Interestingly, clicking on my order info, takes me back to the multi-listing page where the KT-4004 has not yet reappeared. So, they either sold out within 5 minutes, or they just decided not to post it again until they had confirmed stock. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up - I meant well! Who knew they'd pull it off right after it was re-posted?

I left this message for the Inateck folks through Amazon (USA):

Good for you, glad you snagged one. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

 

[Gav Mack]

These just hit the market so I feel it is too early to say they are stable and reliable. On the other hand I feel that those attributes are likely, since OWC does generally have a good reputation.

The driverless one sounds like it has the same sleep problems as the FL cards. In fact, this is all pointing more and more to Apple's driver in OS X.

Having had the powered card behave faultlessly hardware wise with the same chipset I think it's going to be pretty much the same. Both Windows and Mac have had constant different sleep issues with external devices through the years, bootcamp worse on Macs for example disabling AHCI on wake and BSOD time. Since the SSD era and cos I do data recovery for both platforms I've disabled sleep full stop on both OS and prefer to shut the machine down when I'm not using it - cos it's not as if they take long to boot anymore!

 

[kerontide]

Hi Robert, don't worry here we are for that

the size I transfer and the type was RAW files around 74mb each one and yes I download them direct from camera

About the tethered shooting, sorry but I don't test I don't have the camera control pro, but if you know another app for do that tell me it and I will try to test it for you.

My wife says that one day perhaps forget one of my daughter but never forget my camera

Hi happy friday!!

I want to say that I have now a external case USB 3.0 with a SSD 128gb SATAIII and I now very happy with the card was very surprised now I can download so quick my D800 RAW files and can move so quick, les of 5 minutes 23gb of data from my hard drive to the externa SSD!!

 

[Marty62]

Having had the powered card behave faultlessly hardware wise with the same chipset I think it's going to be pretty much the same. Both Windows and Mac have had constant different sleep issues with external devices through the years, bootcamp worse on Macs for example disabling AHCI on wake and BSOD time. Since the SSD era and cos I do data recovery for both platforms I've disabled sleep full stop on both OS and prefer to shut the machine down when I'm not using it - cos it's not as if they take long to boot anymore!

Agreed - the only Mac I let sleep is my Macbook pro, all others I have disabled
sleep mostly due to working with Audio.
I don't want to come back from a cup of tea and have my song "fall over"
due to drives sleeping !!
M.

 

[Gav Mack]

Agreed - the only Mac I let sleep is my Macbook pro, all others I have disabled
sleep mostly due to working with Audio.
I don't want to come back from a cup of tea and have my song "fall over"
due to drives sleeping !!
M.

Ditto - the MBP on OSX is my only one that sleeps of mine, it does nothing classified as hard long work with externals since the 3,1 landed which is ten times more able than the Mini I used to use before. Maybe would have wished it in the pre SSD era but now doesn't really matter. Besides even now I still raise a smile watching the tray apps load as fast as fork on both platforms after logging on

 

[Marty62]

Gav - yes, really enjoying my new/old MP 5,1 with the Inateck card and Apricorn solo.
Watching it boot from SSD in 15 secs is a "smile raiser" every time

Just at the last stretch of a 5 day marathon setup/install/test period

I forgot just how time consuming it can be to get all your software/plugins
and add ons newly updated, downloaded, re-registered.... remembering your
logins !! ... etc
Made slightly tougher by going to 64bit ONLY !
Thankfully I found a company called "Sound Radix" who designed a small AU wrapper program
called "32 Lives" so I can rescue some slightly older but expensive 32bit plugins.

It appears that a few companies are either ignoring 64bit totally or have no interest/resources
to migrate .... shame :-(

M.

 

[zineer]

Just FYI: The new Inateck KT-4004 was available on Amazon USA - right before I posted that it was back - for all of about 5 minutes. I ordered one (~$25), and it has already shipped and is scheduled for delivery on Mon. or Tues. Interestingly, clicking on my order info, takes me back to the multi-listing page where the KT-4004 has not yet reappeared. So, they either sold out within 5 minutes, or they just decided not to post it again until they had confirmed stock. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up - I meant well! Who knew they'd pull it off right after it was re-posted?

I left this message for the Inateck folks through Amazon (USA):

They posted on their Twitter that it should be available again in "mid march":
https://twitter.com/InateckOfficial/status/440784668086923264

 

[hfg]

I replaced my CalDigit card with the Inateck KT-4004 a couple of days ago and it seems to be working fine in my MacPro 5,1. I was able to install the Velocity Solo x2 card again with no ill effects in addition to the Tempo Pro dual SSD card, something I had problems with when the CalDigit card was also in the system (SATA controller conflicts???).

I no longer have eSATA available, but my external RAID-5 and disk dock also have USB 3.0 interfaces and they seem to be working fine using USB 3.0 with the Inateck card. I was doing a 400GB transfer from internal SSD to external SSD via USB 3.0 and was seeing a sustained 300MB/s in Activity Monitor which I was happy with.



-howard

 

[crjackson2134]

Great news Howard,

I've done many TB transfers now on the Inateck card now and I've yet to find a single fault. I have 4 external usb drives plugged in (buss powered portables) and not a single glitch.

 

[ActionableMango]

Newertech or Caldigit cards

Does anyone have those two recently released Newertech cards or the new Caldigit Pro card? (Or any other recently new card.)

If so, please speak up. I'll add them to the first post if I can get some information from you.

 

[leon771]

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone in this thread. Without you I'd not have known the Inateck card existed. Ordered 2 to Australia (postage cost the same as 2 cards) and am extremely happy. Just need to update all my drives now. My 1TB Seagate Expansion only gives me 46MB/s on USB3.0, which is still too slow. Better than 26MB/s that USB2 was giving me though.

 

[Synchro3]

Does anyone have those two recently released Newertech cards or the new Caldigit Pro card? (Or any other recently new card.)

If so, please speak up. I'll add them to the first post if I can get some information from you.

I've got the old CalDigit FASTA-6GU3, the new FASTA-6GU3 Pro, and a Sonnet Tempo SSD card running together in my Mac Pro 4,1. No issues at all. The new Caldigit FASTA-6GU3 Pro is noticeably faster than the old Caldigit, even faster than the Sonnet Tempo SSD.

OS X 10.8.5

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test (eSATA-Speed)

Crucial M500 SSD connected to old FASTA-6GU3:
- Write speed 175 MB/s
- Read speed 256 MB/s

Crucial M500 SSD connected to new FASTA-6GU3 Pro:
- Write speed 404 MB/s
- Read speed 464 MB/s

Crucial M500 SSD connected to Sonnet Tempo SSD:
- Write speed 377 MB/s
- Read speed 457 MB/s

 

[Robert Davies]

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone in this thread. Without you I'd not have known the Inateck card existed. Ordered 2 to Australia (postage cost the same as 2 cards) and am extremely happy. Just need to update all my drives now. My 1TB Seagate Expansion only gives me 46MB/s on USB3.0, which is still too slow. Better than 26MB/s that USB2 was giving me though.

The finger's pointing at the Seagate drive really. Is it self powered? 3.5"? 2.5"?

 

[crjackson2134]

I've got the old CalDigit FASTA-6GU3, the new FASTA-6GU3 Pro, and a Sonnet Tempo SSD card running together in my Mac Pro 4,1. No issues at all. The new Caldigit FASTA-6GU3 Pro is noticeably faster than the old Caldigit, even faster than the Sonnet Tempo SSD.

OS X 10.8.5

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test (eSATA-Speed)

Crucial M500 SSD connected to old FASTA-6GU3:
- Write speed 175 MB/s
- Read speed 256 MB/s

Crucial M500 SSD connected to new FASTA-6GU3 Pro:
- Write speed 404 MB/s
- Read speed 464 MB/s

Crucial M500 SSD connected to Sonnet Tempo SSD:
- Write speed 377 MB/s
- Read speed 457 MB/s

Impressive numbers. I'm going to buy a Samsung SSD shortly and get one of these CalDigit's to test out as well. I just wish someone who makes these high dollar cards would realize that if they put some kind of bootable firmware on there it would sell better.

 

[leon771]

The finger's pointing at the Seagate drive really. Is it self powered? 3.5"? 2.5"?

Self powered 2.5"

 

[crjackson2134]

I've got the old CalDigit FASTA-6GU3, the new FASTA-6GU3 Pro, and a Sonnet Tempo SSD card running together in my Mac Pro 4,1. No issues at all. The new Caldigit FASTA-6GU3 Pro is noticeably faster than the old Caldigit, even faster than the Sonnet Tempo SSD.

OS X 10.8.5

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test (eSATA-Speed)

Crucial M500 SSD connected to old FASTA-6GU3:
- Write speed 175 MB/s
- Read speed 256 MB/s

Crucial M500 SSD connected to new FASTA-6GU3 Pro:
- Write speed 404 MB/s
- Read speed 464 MB/s

Crucial M500 SSD connected to Sonnet Tempo SSD:
- Write speed 377 MB/s
- Read speed 457 MB/s

I just noticed these are eSATA speeds, I need to read more carefully. Can you post the USB 3.0 speeds?

 

[crjackson2134]

Inateck KTU3FR-4PA 4-Port USB 3.0 PCI-E Express Card for Mac

Having now transferred more than 50TB of continuous data, I can say this Inateck card it truly reliable. I've really beat this thing up in single drive use and it's a thoroughbred.

I like the things I've heard about the new CalDigit Pro card, but I'm super impressed with this one.

 

[Synchro3]

First: eSATA supports TRIM for SSD's, USB 3.0 doesn't (as far I know). My opinion therefore is that eSATA is better for SSD's, and USB 3.0 for HardDisks.

Impressive numbers. I'm going to buy a Samsung SSD shortly and get one of these CalDigit's to test out as well. I just wish someone who makes these high dollar cards would realize that if they put some kind of bootable firmware on there it would sell better.

The eSATA-Ports of the Caldigit are bootable, only the USB-Ports are not. Also the new Sonnet Tempo SSD-Cards are bootable.

I just noticed these are eSATA speeds, I need to read more carefully. Can you post the USB 3.0 speeds?

Unfortunately, I don't have a USB 3.0-Enclosure with UASP (or UAS) at the moment to test SSD's sufficiently, because my BlacX 5G died. The new Caldigit FASTA-6GU3 supports UASP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_Attached_SCSI), which is much faster than normal USB 3.0.

However, the USB 3 speed of the old and the new Caldigit without UASP is more or less the same:

WD Blue 1 TB HardDisk connected via USB to old FASTA-6GU3:
- Write speed 119 MB/s
- Read speed 122 MB/s

WD Blue 1 TB HardDisk connected via USB to new FASTA-6GU3 Pro:
- Write speed 120 MB/s
- Read speed 122 MB/s

Why is UASP important? A while ago i tested the BlacX 5G enclosure with a Samsung 830 SSD, connected to a Mac Book Pro 2012, which supports UASP.

The Result:
Samsung 830 SSD connected to Mac Book Pro 2012 via USB 3.0 with UASP:
- Write speed 331 MB/s
- Read speed 401 MB/s

This should also be possible with the new Caldigit.

For the moment the result without UASP:

Crucial M500 SSD connected via USB to old FASTA-6GU3:
- Write speed 177 MB/s
- Read speed 207 MB/s

Crucial M500 SSD connected via USB to new FASTA-6GU3 Pro:
- Write speed 205 MB/s
- Read speed 178 MB/s (?, could be a problem with the controller in my enclosure)

 

[crjackson2134]

First: eSATA supports TRIM for SSD's, USB 3.0 doesn't (as far I know). My opinion therefore is that eSATA is better for SSD's, and USB 3.0 for HardDisks.



The eSATA-Ports of the Caldigit are bootable, only the USB-Ports are not. Also the new Sonnet Tempo SSD-Cards are bootable.



Unfortunately, I don't have a USB 3.0-Enclosure with UASP (or UAS) at the moment to test SSD's sufficiently, because my BlacX 5G died. The new Caldigit FASTA-6GU3 supports UASP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_Attached_SCSI), which is much faster than normal USB 3.0.

However, the USB 3 speed of the old and the new Caldigit without UASP is more or less the same:

WD Blue 1 TB HardDisk connected via USB to old FASTA-6GU3:
- Write speed 119 MB/s
- Read speed 122 MB/s

WD Blue 1 TB HardDisk connected via USB to new FASTA-6GU3 Pro:
- Write speed 120 MB/s
- Read speed 122 MB/s

Why is UASP important? A while ago i tested the BlacX 5G enclosure with a Samsung 830 SSD, connected to a Mac Book Pro 2012, which supports UASP.

The Result:
Samsung 830 SSD connected to Mac Book Pro 2012 via USB 3.0 with UASP:
- Write speed 331 MB/s
- Read speed 401 MB/s

This should also be possible with the new Caldigit.

For the moment the result without UASP:

Crucial M500 SSD connected via USB to old FASTA-6GU3:
- Write speed 177 MB/s
- Read speed 207 MB/s

Crucial M500 SSD connected via USB to new FASTA-6GU3 Pro:
- Write speed 205 MB/s
- Read speed 178 MB/s (?, could be a problem with the controller in my enclosure)

At the moment, all I have are spinning drives. For the non UASP USB 3.0 I can get higher transfer rates with one drive in use on the Inateck for comparison. UASP is nice but I don't really need it. I'm sure it will fill a market niche, but at this point it's not for me. I'll test my SSD on the USB 3.0 cards that I have just to get the numbers, but it's actually going to live inside my MP. I'm content with fast spinners for my USB needs for now. I'm getting 150~170 on my spinners over Usb 3.0.

 

[Synchro3]

Crucial M500 SSD connected via USB to old FASTA-6GU3:
- Write speed 177 MB/s
- Read speed 207 MB/s

Crucial M500 SSD connected via USB to new FASTA-6GU3 Pro:
- Write speed 205 MB/s
- Read speed 178 MB/s (?, could be a problem with the controller in my enclosure)

Same test with an other USB3-Enclosure (Icy Box this time):

Crucial M500 SSD connected via USB to old FASTA-6GU3:
- Write speed 192 MB/s
- Read speed 225 MB/s

Crucial M500 SSD connected via USB to new FASTA-6GU3 Pro:
- Write speed 203 MB/s
- Read speed 174 MB/s

It seems without UASP the old Caldigit has better USB 3-Read-Speed, but when you use eSATA the new Caldigit is much better.

 

[Gav Mack]

Having now transferred more than 50TB of continuous data, I can say this Inateck card it truly reliable. I've really beat this thing up in single drive use and it's a thoroughbred.

I like the things I've heard about the new CalDigit Pro card, but I'm super impressed with this one.

Just a quick follow up that I swapped out the powered Inateck for the KT4004 Mac Pro specific card this weekend. No issues whatsoever aside from a little less spaghetti inside by removing one splitter cable from my ODD power extension. OSX booted up fine and picked the card up, and Windows 7x64 detected the card using the existing drivers so I didn't even have to insert the driver disc from the box.

All four ports are being used, though two go into powered hubs right now, one for the Dell monitor and the other the powered Inateck hub. Will give it a nice stress test before the weekend is out by plugging in 4 USB powered HDD's, a couple are fairly old models so they will give the current capabilities of the card powering externals a real good test out!

 

[ActionableMango]

I've got the old CalDigit FASTA-6GU3, the new FASTA-6GU3 Pro

When you have the time, can you do two tests:

1) Plug in a keyboard, mouse, printer, etc (not a drive) to verify that it works with USB devices that are not storage devices.

2) Check for dedicated controllers. (Plug two drives in and run the speed test on both of them at the same time to see if they bench at half the speed of one drive, or with no performance hit at all. You'll need to start two instances of Black Magic to do this.)

The first test will remove the big "storage-only" caveat I currently have listed for the non-Pro and the second test will differentiate the card from the Inateck, thus perhaps justifying the higher cost for those using multiple drives.

Also if you can find out which chipset it uses, that would be nice to post as well.

Thanks!

 

[ibarnett]

When you have the time, can you do two tests:
Thanks!

I think I can answer this:
I have 2 cards in at present, Caldigit FASTA-6GU3 Pro plus the Sonnet Tango 3 PCie.
Normally the Sonnet has WD USB3 Ext HDD connected for Time Machine, & the Caldigit has A Vantec HX4R with 4 HDD's in JBOD plus a Orico 10 port USB3 Hub (ORICO H10C1-U3 10Ports SuperSpeed USB3.0 HUB With 5V/2.1A USB Power Charger 121263651293).

1. I changed the setup for the tests, moved the WD to the Caldigit & the Vantec to the Hub (plugged into the Caldigit).
I then plugged into the Hub my Epson V550, a USB Mouse, my USB Keyboard, a USB stick, as well as the Vantec.
Everything worked normally.
Running 2 BlackMagics there was no difference with 1 drive or both at once. The JBOD disk gave 117 write & 130 read, the WD 135 write & 140 read.

2. I changed so that I had the Vantec & the WD plugged directly to the Caldigit - no change to the above.

3. 3 main chipsets (Caldigit FASTA-6GU3 Pro):

1. Fresco Logic
FL1100-100-EX
KLH5P-000
1337B01C

2. PLX Technology
PEX8613-BA50C G
1328
NHF441.00E Taiwan

3. M®
88SE9230-NAA2
N6K25807.5 JW
1319 A1P
TW



I have the Inateck KTU3FR-4PA on the way, but sounds like it won't perform as well?
Hope this helps.

 

[ben1969]

Availability of KT4004 card?

I've been on the Amazon sites (both US and UK, as I could order from either) and while there is a 4-port option for the Inateck, it's unclear that it's the Mac Pro specific one. Can anyone confirm that this is or is not the correct one to order?

I currently have the 2-port orico that shouldn't require additional power, but am having trouble getting it to work with my the Seagate 4TB backup plus (ejects unexpectedly after being recognised and mounting). I think the Seagate, even though powered, draws some current from the card in order to mount itself and that might be causing it to be ejected later.

Thanks for any help.

Just a quick follow up that I swapped out the powered Inateck for the KT4004 Mac Pro specific card this weekend. No issues whatsoever aside from a little less spaghetti inside by removing one splitter cable from my ODD power extension. OSX booted up fine and picked the card up, and Windows 7x64 detected the card using the existing drivers so I didn't even have to insert the driver disc from the box.

All four ports are being used, though two go into powered hubs right now, one for the Dell monitor and the other the powered Inateck hub. Will give it a nice stress test before the weekend is out by plugging in 4 USB powered HDD's, a couple are fairly old models so they will give the current capabilities of the card powering externals a real good test out!