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USB 3.x PCIe Cards for Classic Mac Pro
- Thread starter ActionableMango
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No, the firmware doesn’t change this. The spec. is the spec., regardless.
Faster transfers over USB 3.1 on a PCIe 2.0 buss should be theoretically possible I believe, if additional lanes are multiplexed with a switch, and put into a wide lane slot, but no such USB 3.1 device exists AFAIK.
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No, it doesn’t exist in the real world at the moment, and probably won’t ever. PCIe 2.0 is a dead technology and it wouldn’t make sense, nor would anyone likely buy such an expensive, very limited use device.
What are you doing/using that saturates the bandwidth of a USB 3.0 connection?
640 MB/s - is more than a single SSD on the cMP SATA2 buss. It’s about the same as 2x 2.5” SSD’s (fast ones) in RAID0 on a cMP SATA2 BUSS.
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Nothing. Just want the most possible out of the card
You would need a PCIe Gen3 connection to have a higher POTENTIAL transfer rate with that card.
Understand that having a higher potential, doesn’t make your current devices faster. You wouldn’t see any speed increase in most cases.
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You would need to use a RAID0 array. Many expensive ways to do that. Google it and choose your poison. Also keep in mind that software RAID0 appears to be dying in the Apple ecosystem. There newest file system doesn’t support it at all.
Read backwards through this thread, or use the search. It’s posted here what the max USB speeds are after subtracting the overhead. I don’t recall offhand.
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Has anyone tried the Inateck
KTU3FR-5O2U. 7 port ( 2 internal)
https://www.inateck.com/pci-express...eck-ktu3fr-5o2u-usb-3-0-pci-express-card.html
It would be possible to hack the cMP's front panel to include 2 front USB 3.0 ports.
that would be useful now that so many USB 3.0 memory sticks are now available.
It would also be possible to Dremel out a slot to the front edge of the cMP side cover for one of those PC USB 3.0 front panels.
I like that idea !
KTU3FR-5O2U. 7 port ( 2 internal)
https://www.inateck.com/pci-express...eck-ktu3fr-5o2u-usb-3-0-pci-express-card.html
It would be possible to hack the cMP's front panel to include 2 front USB 3.0 ports.
that would be useful now that so many USB 3.0 memory sticks are now available.
It would also be possible to Dremel out a slot to the front edge of the cMP side cover for one of those PC USB 3.0 front panels.
I like that idea !
Yes, I read that with interest a while back. I'm thinking more of cutting a new slot into the upper right area of the front cheese grate and just run the relevant cables.
Plenty of room there seeing that I no longer use internal SATA II drive slots.
Hopefully I can find a 'silver' 2 socket panel or hack the one shown to look nice yet be practical.
I don't need. 4 USB 3.0 sockets on the front, two would be nice.
I'll be buying a 2012 5,1 soon so hacking my current 4,1>5,1 will become a test bed / hobby.
Plenty of room there seeing that I no longer use internal SATA II drive slots.
Hopefully I can find a 'silver' 2 socket panel or hack the one shown to look nice yet be practical.
I don't need. 4 USB 3.0 sockets on the front, two would be nice.
I'll be buying a 2012 5,1 soon so hacking my current 4,1>5,1 will become a test bed / hobby.
If you want less permanent damage to the case, search for the photos of someone who basically installed under the top case handle. Think there was a small exit hole drilled through the side door for fishing a small umbilical of cables. Has to be easier to replace a door than the whole case.
The mod is not worth the time or effort for my needs, but do respect those who are dedicated enough to pull it off. Have run pretty simple USB 3.0 port extension cables from the back ports, under the machine to the front, and then gaffer taped to the bottom handle for easier access. Much less permanent, but basically serves the same purpose. Now usually just leave several USB 3.0 cables connected to the PCIe card and dangling next to the tower (when the USB 3.0 card is installed in the system).
The mod is not worth the time or effort for my needs, but do respect those who are dedicated enough to pull it off. Have run pretty simple USB 3.0 port extension cables from the back ports, under the machine to the front, and then gaffer taped to the bottom handle for easier access. Much less permanent, but basically serves the same purpose. Now usually just leave several USB 3.0 cables connected to the PCIe card and dangling next to the tower (when the USB 3.0 card is installed in the system).
Also lots of case mods, including Mac Pro front panel mods, at the tonymacx86 Mac Pro Case Mods subforum section. As a matter of fact The Workshop forum section has lots of subforums that would be of interest to case modders including a Modder's Tools section.
I did state that I will soon be buying a late model 5,1. which will be fully kitted out as my main 'pure ' cMP.
My current 4,1>5,1 will be my test bed for experimenting to create a cMP 4,1,1 . .as it "could" have been when it was released.
After 9 years I'm sure that my warranty is expired.
My current 4,1>5,1 will be my test bed for experimenting to create a cMP 4,1,1 . .as it "could" have been when it was released.
After 9 years I'm sure that my warranty is expired.
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Ha! I’ve done the exact same thing, but used Velcro. Works well and no need to damage/mod case.
With this card you could do the mod without having to do any of the difficult power modding and you get 2 ports in the back and 2 in the front:
https://www.inateck.com/pci-express...ard-20-pin-connector-no-power-connection.html
That seems much more doable and is not nearly as invasive as the above proposed case hack.
The Startech card in that post works without the additional power connection, but the connector is there if someone wanted to connect multiple high-draw USB devices or if you want to prevent attached hard drives from forcibly disconnecting when the system sleeps.
That Startech card is also nice because it offers USB 3.1 (vs 3.0 for the inateck) and has a USB-C port, which eventually will be the standard USB connector. I've got one in my cMP 4,1 and it's working great so far.
And maybe I misunderstood your post, but no card gets you front USB3 ports without doing some kind of case modding. If you just meant that the Inateck card has internal headers, then yes. It's the same as the Startech and several others in that regard. But without any provision to add supplemental 5V power you have to be mindful of the power needs of the peripherals you connect to it.
The Startech 5-Port USB 3.1 (10Gbps) Combo Card uses the following:
1) Asmedia ASM1142 USB 3.1 gen 2 host controller
2) VIA Lab's VL812 4-port USB 3.0 hub controller
One port of the Asmedia supports 10 Gbps (limited by the PCIe 2.0 x2 of the ASM1142 to 670 MB/s). The other port powers the 4-port hub which supports 5 Gbps per port (400 MB/s?)
A PCIe switch chip can't improve the performance of the Startech beyond the PCIe 2.0x2 link speed/width supported by the ASM1142. However, a switch will give improvements to a card when the card is used in a PCIe 1.0x4 slot (which in some cases may run at only PCIe 1.0x1 if it doesn't support x2 like in my 2008 Mac Pro) or a PCIe 2.0x4 slot that does not support x2 (some PC's with slots connected directly to SandyBridge CPUs for example). The Caldigit FASTA-6GU3 Plus is one such card with a PCIe switch that uses a ASM1142.
To go beyond PCIe 2.0x2 (or PCIe 3.0x1 or PCIe 1.0x4), you need a different USB controller such as the ASM2142 (but a switch is needed to convert its PCIe 3.0x2 to the PCIe 2.0x4 of your MacPro).
Another possibility is the USB controller that is part of a Thunderbolt 3 chip which is used on some newer Macs. Thunderbolt 2 Macs can get the benefit of the USB 3.1 gen 2 of Thunderbolt 3 using an Apple Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter with a Thunderbolt 3 peripheral that has two Thunderbolt 3 ports.
I'm able to use a GC-TITAN RIDGE Thunderbolt add-in card in my MacPro3,1 (Mac Pro 2008) to provide faster USB 3.1 gen 2 speeds (It's a PCIe 3.0x4 card that boots into PCIe 1.0 speed on my 2008 MacPro but can be set to PCIe 2.0 speed using some pciutils commands). It seems to have a read cap of 400 MB/s when used in a PCIe 1.0 slot which is strange because write is not capped (672 MB/s write) and I can get 678 MB/s read in a PCIe 2.0 slot set to PCIe 1.0 speed. The read speed goes up to 872 MB/s when the speed is set to PCIe 2.0.
Mac Pros with the New BootROM 138.0.0.0.0 might not have the problem where the PCIe 3.0 Thunderbolt card (and other PCIe 3.0 cards like the Amfeltec gen 3 carrier) boots into PCIe 1.0 speed.
Thunderbolt functionality doesn't work unless you boot into Windows first. I don't think hot swap works. An NVMe drive should be able to do about 1500 MB/s but I haven't tested that yet.
I'm using a OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini with two SSDs in hardware RAID 0.
Forgive me for not wanting to read the proceeding 84 pages of this thread ... And I'm looking for current information.
Has anyone tried this USB-C 3.1 card from Sonnet? https://www.sonnettech.com/product/allegro-usbc-pcie.html
Sonnet claims Mojave compatibility while many cards don't even mention being Mac compatible. That encourages me to buy it. The negative I see are complaints that the USB-C connectors are too close to the Mac Pro metal bars that divide the PCI slots and interfere with male connectors on cables. But other people don't mention that at all and say it works fine. Anyone have it that can provide more info about this card? Is there a better USB 3.1 choice?
Given that concern, I'm tempted to just go with one of the Sonnet 4-port USB 3.0 cards. They have been around for a while and I've heard no negatives about them other than price. Any better choice for a USB 3.0 card?
None of the Sonnet cards use a separate power cable (which is great) but are still rated for 10W or 15W per port. That makes sense because PCI can deliver 75 watts to the card and I doubt the card itself (without load) needs much power. Makes me wonder why some other cards need separate power cables? I'm primarily looking for faster external storage speeds right now, but are there many other types of power hungry USB products that need more than what the Sonnet cards can deliver?
Has anyone tried this USB-C 3.1 card from Sonnet? https://www.sonnettech.com/product/allegro-usbc-pcie.html
Sonnet claims Mojave compatibility while many cards don't even mention being Mac compatible. That encourages me to buy it. The negative I see are complaints that the USB-C connectors are too close to the Mac Pro metal bars that divide the PCI slots and interfere with male connectors on cables. But other people don't mention that at all and say it works fine. Anyone have it that can provide more info about this card? Is there a better USB 3.1 choice?
Given that concern, I'm tempted to just go with one of the Sonnet 4-port USB 3.0 cards. They have been around for a while and I've heard no negatives about them other than price. Any better choice for a USB 3.0 card?
None of the Sonnet cards use a separate power cable (which is great) but are still rated for 10W or 15W per port. That makes sense because PCI can deliver 75 watts to the card and I doubt the card itself (without load) needs much power. Makes me wonder why some other cards need separate power cables? I'm primarily looking for faster external storage speeds right now, but are there many other types of power hungry USB products that need more than what the Sonnet cards can deliver?
Are you really saying that this card is a way to get Thunderbolt connectivity on the cMP?
It's just another Asmedia ASM1142 based USB card. They all have similar compatibility (require 10.12 or greater, unless using a 5 Gb/s firmware for 10.9 or greater).
An interesting feature is the auto negotiation between PCIe 3.0x1 and PCIe 2.0x2. I was under the impression that the manufacturer of a ASM1142 based card had to choose one of those options. The ASM1142 cards I've tried in a PCIe 3.0 slot always seemed to use PCIe 2.0x2 unless they were physically PCIe 3.0x1. I think PCIe 2.0x2 is slightly faster, and the card requires a physical x4 slot, so x1 is not useful unless you have an electrical PCIe 3.0x1 slot or you use a riser connected to a physical PCIe 3.0x1 slot. This feature needs investigation to prove it's real, and to prove it's new with this card and didn't exist with other ASM1142 based cards.
I don't think the Sonnet's USB-C ports can be worse than those of a GC-TITAN RIDGE that I have. The Mac Pro metal bars won't block the USB-C male connector from being inserted. The thickness of the Mac Pro metal bars is not enough to stop the USB-C male connector from being fully inserted. The plastic of the plug overhands the metal bars (the plastic is 1.5mm away from the PCIe bracket, and the Mac Pro's PCIe slot metal is only 1.4 mm thick). The metal of the IT-GO "ADP-099-31" external enclosure is too thick (2 mm) so I had to make the PCIe card opening of the IT-GO wider to stop interference with USB-C connectors.
It depends what you want from it. What computer and OS you want to use it with. What performance you want to get (200 MB/s, 400 MB/s, 670 MB/s, 870 MB/s).
Some people say the power cable stops USB disks from being unmounted improperly during sleep in macOS. I haven't tested that.
I thought 75 W is only for x16 graphics cards and that x4 only allows 25 W. It seems to me that the Sonnet can't provide 15W to both ports simultaneously, so they included fuses? Or maybe I'm missing something from the PCI Express Card Electromechanical Specification. Maybe Sonnet is combining up to 25.2 W from 12 V and up to 9.9 W from 3.3 V? Is that allowed?
I think that any such device would come with a power supply to make it compatible with USB ports that only supply 2.5W (USB 2.0) or 4.5W (USB 3.0) or 15W (USB-C). You plug in the device without the power supply, and if it doesn't work then you connect the power supply.
Yes, but there are some issues. Thunderbolt is discussed in the testing TB3 AIC with MP 5,1 thread.
