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USB 3.x PCIe Cards for Classic Mac Pro

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
RockyBob said:
Help??
Click to expand...

That is the same error message I get when supplemental power is not applied.

In post #28 of this thread, a user indicated that there are several storage-related third party drivers that override the default OS X driver:
CalDigitHDProDrv, HighPointOP, HighPointRR, IOUSBFamily (hacked version) & IOUSBMassStorageClass (2.6.1 legacy?)

He removed them and the card started to work properly.

Admittedly you are not having the exact problem he did; I am just throwing darts blindly here. Do you have the ability to try a fresh OS X Mountain Lion installation on a spare disk? That would eliminate software as the problem.

If you like, I have a spare Orico card I could send you. All I ask is that you send it back after testing. It seems unlikely that it would help as it uses the same Fresco Logic chipset, but PM me if that is something you want to try anyway.

After that, I am out of ideas. I wrote the instructions that worked for me but unfortunately it doesn't make me an expert about what is going on.

Tesselator said:
Ya get what ya pay for! Don't expect that card to be fast with more than one device connected.... ;)
Click to expand...

Tesselator, I finally got around to testing this with two HDDs. Yep, you are absolutely right, two ports share the same controller. Used simultaneously, the two drives slowed down dramatically. This is not a good solution for a pro user intending to use multiple ports and drives.

Fortunately my only purpose is occasionally hooking up single USB 3.0 drives that normally sit on other computers, and not being stuck at USB 2.0 speeds.
 
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ActionableMango said:
Tesselator, I finally got around to testing this with two HDDs. Yep, you are absolutely right, two two ports share the same controller. Used simultaneously, the two drives slowed down dramatically. This is not a good solution for a pro user intending to use multiple ports and drives.

Fortunately my only purpose is occasionally hooking up single USB 3.0 drives that normally sit on other computers, and not being stuck at USB 2.0 speeds.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the only card I've seen that's worthy of using with multiple HDDs/SSDs or RAID is the HighPoint card which is about $140 (for MP1,3 and higher or $110 for MP1,1 or 1,2) and has 4 dedicated USB3.0 controllers. The way I figure it that's just perfect! 3-Drives in RAID0 on USB3 plus one port connected to a USB3 hub.
 
Tesselator said:
Yeah, the only card I've seen that's worthy of using with multiple HDDs/SSDs or RAID is the HighPoint card which is about $140 (for MP1,3 and higher or $110 for MP1,1 or 1,2) and has 4 dedicated USB3.0 controllers. The way I figure it that's just perfect! 3-Drives in RAID0 on USB3 plus one port connected to a USB3 hub.
Click to expand...

But the problem is (as I understand it) you can't connect it to hubs or other USB 3 devices. It's designed for storage devices only.
 
crjackson2134 said:
But the problem is (as I understand it) you can't connect it to hubs or other USB 3 devices. It's designed for storage devices only.
Click to expand...

No, that's incorrect. It's USB3 - plain and simple. It will work with all USB1.0 ~ 3.0 devices and hubs (that work with Mac). You do have to observe the proper power profiles tho - as you would with any card/hub.
 
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Good to know. It seems like it should be a no brainier then. I'm pretty sure I read elsewhere that it was designed for storage devices only, and was problematic with or didn't work at all with hubs. Of course the experience of one person doesn't represent all others. Do you use this device? I currently don't have any 3.0 devices except for a 3.0 Orico card.
 
Yeah, that's a mistake. It's designed for storage (high throughput) devices especially. But not exclusively or anything like that. It just means that you can get the full 5Gb/s over each of the 4 ports - 20Gb/s in total. I guess this is the only cad for MP that offers this - so far. When I buy my USB3 card this will be the one I get - ya, it's a no brainer IMO.

Of course when you use a hub on one (any or all) of those four ports then the bandwidth is potentially limited to just the speed of the single port it's connected to. It's like having 4 single-port cards installed. Each port is 5Gb/s but you won't 5Gb/s simultaneously over each of any hubbed ports you connect.
 
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ActionableMango said:
That is the same error message I get when supplemental power is not applied.

In post #28 of this thread, a user indicated that there are several storage-related third party drivers that override the default OS X driver:
CalDigitHDProDrv, HighPointOP, HighPointRR, IOUSBFamily (hacked version) & IOUSBMassStorageClass (2.6.1 legacy?)

He removed them and the card started to work .
Click to expand...

My first attempt at usb3 was with a card from bestbuy, and I did install a driver (I think LaCie), as there was not a mac driver for the BB card, and of course it didn't work. I have no idea how to find or remove such a driver. I guess its possible this could be a problem. Any help would be appreciated.

Reading all your response, I do have enough spare internal storage on another drive , 600gb, to reinstall ML. Is it as straightforward as going to the app store? Cautions?
 
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RockyBob said:
My first attempt at usb3 was with a card from bestbuy, and I did install a driver (I think LaCie), as there was not a mac driver for the BB card, and of course it didn't work. I have no idea how to find or remove such a driver. I guess its possible this could be a problem. Any help would be appreciated.

Reading all your response, I do have enough spare internal storage on another drive , 600gb, to reinstall ML. Is it as straightforward as going to the app store? Cautions?
Click to expand...

I've never had to do either of these (remove a kext or reinstall ML), so I have no experience to share with you. However, Google tells me you can do either of the following:
sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/xxxx.kext
sudo rm /System/Library/Extensions/xxxx.kext
​

Where xxxx is the filename. The trick is finding the right file. Don't delete the wrong driver!

A fresh install of ML is a troubleshooting step that can eliminate any problems caused by software you've installed, settings you've changed, rogue drivers, malware, etc.
 
Again, No Luck

I installed a new copy of ML on an internal disk, no frills, no added anything, and got the same results. So, two different Fresco Logic cards, in two different ML systems, using two unrelated USB 3 hard drives and several different internal drives, with independently established external power to the cards (via cabling) all have the same result: transferring a large file (this last time I tried a relatively small 3-4 GB folder) begins reasonably, then zooms up to about 100MB/sec, and then drops to a few KB/sec for a while, then, after many minutes says "disk was improperly ejected". Reading video files through the card appears never to have been a problem.

Actionable Mango, just to clarify, I have had the FL card in the second pci express slot from the top (top slot has added esata ports), and most of the time, not always, I have used the USB 3 slot closest to the panel release lever. The only other thing is, I believe you have the newer six core processor. Mine is the older four core.

I'm about to quit this attempt and stay with FW 800. Thanks for your help, anyway. It's been entertaining.
 
RockyBob said:
I installed a new copy of ML on an internal disk, no frills, no added anything, and got the same results. So, two different Fresco Logic cards, in two different ML systems, using two unrelated USB 3 hard drives and several different internal drives, with independently established external power to the cards (via cabling) all have the same result: transferring a large file (this last time I tried a relatively small 3-4 GB folder) begins reasonably, then zooms up to about 100MB/sec, and then drops to a few KB/sec for a while, then, after many minutes says "disk was improperly ejected". Reading video files through the card appears never to have been a problem.

Actionable Mango, just to clarify, I have had the FL card in the second pci express slot from the top (top slot has added esata ports), and most of the time, not always, I have used the USB 3 slot closest to the panel release lever. The only other thing is, I believe you have the newer six core processor. Mine is the older four core.

I'm about to quit this attempt and stay with FW 800. Thanks for your help, anyway. It's been entertaining.
Click to expand...

This is a shot in the dark and probably won't help but........

I've been on Google searching for your issue and Windows users have the same problem. One user found that if he didn't use his Internal Seagate drive as either the source or the target, he was able to transfer large files. If he used the Seagate drive to transfer either to, or from, the problem resurfaced.

This guy took the Seagate drive out and replaced it. USB 3.0 began working perfectly. This was on a Win7 system. He tried fresh installing and a different OS. It was the same in all cases. It seems that the firmware on the HD was conflicting with the firmware on the card.

It may not be relevant to your problem, but it's something to investigate.
 
crjackson2134 said:
This is a shot in the dark and probably won't help but........

I've been on Google searching for your issue and Windows users have the same problem. One user found that if he didn't use his Internal Seagate drive as either the source or the target, he was able to transfer large files. If he used the Seagate drive to transfer either to, or from, the problem resurfaced.

This guy took the Seagate drive out and replaced it. USB 3.0 began working perfectly. This was on a Win7 system. He tried fresh installing and a different OS. It was the same in all cases. It seems that the firmware on the HD was conflicting with the firmware on the card.

It may not be relevant to your problem, but it's something to investigate.
Click to expand...

Very interesting! My internal drives are all Western Digital (3 2TB, 1 1TB came with the Mac), and when I tried a WD USB 3 external that would have been all WD... But, interesting to think about.

I wish there was some way to understand why all the trials so characteristically start out ramping up to around 100 MB/sec and then immediately drop to around 1 MB/sec before then trailing off to a few KB/ sec. It's got to mean something, if only we knew.

I have VMWare with Windows 7 Ultimate installed. It's never been running, and the problem continues to occur with the new clean ML, so that is probably not an issue, but who knows.
 
There's a lot of discussion about this problem on Anandtech's forums. This isn't a Mac Pro or OSX issue, it's a USB 3.0 issue from what I can tell. It seems that USB 3.0 cards are very sensitive to all the other hardware in the machine (including HDD's that aren't even connected to it).

Several of the Techie people there have said that USB 3.0 is a "Half-Baked" product right now. For as many people who have perfect results, there are many more that have poor results.

I have one of the tested working cards here (that I purchased from a forum member). I haven't had an opportunity to even try it out yet, as I don't have any USB 3.0 devices. I had to jump in to the middle of a major home repair so I've not been able to purchase any of the USB 3.0 backup drives (that's all I need. A little 1TB back up drive and I'll be set) yet.

One guy bought a new SSD and moved his boot drive to a different port and USB started working (as long as the files weren't being moved to, or from the drive that was moved).
 
Not sure if this helps anyone but this little card has been working fairly well on both ports. I have 2x USB 3.0 external drives and they're running at their fullest speeds. No drivers to install. Works out of the box.

Use it in the PCIe slot that's next to the display card. I have all the other slots filled in as well with a BlackMagic capture card as well as an SSD adapter. All running at their highest speeds.

It is all running on a 2008 8 core Mac Pro.
 
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New cheap Fresco

Hi,

I am an owner of the Orico PFU3-2P with FL1009 ....
Well, unfortunately that card seems to be sold out everywhere.

I asked Orico about a replacement product . Found something now:
Have a look for Inateck KTU3FR-2P 2 port USB 3.0 on Amazon.de

Very cheap and should be compatible with 10.8. as well
 
Run!! It's Contagious!!

So, I'd given up on USB 3.0 for my MacPro and pulled off the USB bottom on the 4TB Seagate drive. Decided to plug in the firewire 800 bottom and use the drive that way, just as I've done in the past. Guess What!! Now this drive behaves as the USB 3 setup did. Starts to transfer satisfactorily, then slowed to a crawl, currently transferring at 1.5 MB/sec.
Moved the drive, as FW, to my iMac. It transferred 3.4 GB in less than a minute. No Problems. Currently it is transferring a 180GB folder out of the iMac to the Seagate with no problems and maintaining 30-70MB/secs. Stopped it after several minutes of fast transfer.
Moved the FW configured drive back to the MP and connected to the front FW this time. Same problem.
NEW QUESTION: what do the pci express bus and the FW bus have in common, if anything?
 
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RockyBob said:
So, I'd given up on USB 3.0 for my MacPro and pulled off the USB bottom on the 4TB Seagate drive. Decided to plug in the firewire 800 bottom and use the drive that way, just as I've done in the past. Guess What!! Now this drive behaves as the USB 3 setup did. Starts to transfer satisfactorily, then slowed to a crawl, currently transferring at 1.5 MB/sec.
Moved the drive, as FW, to my iMac. It transferred 3.4 GB in less than a minute. No Problems. Currently it is transferring a 180GB folder out of the iMac to the Seagate with no problems and maintaining 30-70MB/secs. Stopped it after several minutes of fast transfer.
Moved the FW configured drive back to the MP and connected to the front FW this time. Same problem.
NEW QUESTION: what do the pci express bus and the FW bus have in common, if anything?
Click to expand...

Wow, if you figure out all this mess, be sure to post the information here for the benefit of the rest of us.
 
texem said:
Hi,

I am an owner of the Orico PFU3-2P with FL1009 ....
Well, unfortunately that card seems to be sold out everywhere.

I asked Orico about a replacement product . Found something now:
Have a look for Inateck KTU3FR-2P 2 port USB 3.0 on Amazon.de

Very cheap and should be compatible with 10.8. as well
Click to expand...

any idea where to get these in Canada\USA? I'm looking for USB 3.0 that uses the native drivers in OSX.
 
crjackson2134 said:
Wow, if you figure out all this mess, be sure to post the information here for the benefit of the rest of us.
Click to expand...

More confusion, but maybe there will be a light somewhere. Troubleshooting the FW issue on the MP, I tried transferring between a 1TB FW-connected Passport and a 1TB Buffalo esata -- no problems either way. Being brave I tried esata and the FW 4TB Seagate -- no problem writing to the Seagate from esata drives. So at least in some situations I can use the 4TB. I'm gonna call it quits troubleshooting. But you all will hear if someday there is anything more to report.
 
GP-SE said:
coolers, so this will work with OSX's native drivers? I just install the card, power it with the adapter, and it'll work in OSX?
Click to expand...

The drivers are in 10.8.2 and later. If you want to use SL or Lion you'll need to go with something else.
 
RockyBob continuing

Finished a bunch of other tasks so continued today with the USB 3.0 problem. Previously I had success transferring a bunch of data between the Seagate 4TB (configured as a FW800 drive) and a 1TB Buffalo esata drive, so today tried same thing with the Seagate configured as a USB 3 drive. Transferring a 44GB folder, started well but at 16.33 GB transfer stopped. This is somewhat different in that it went so long, but is the same because it didn't finish. When trying to stop the transfer it is obvious the Mac has lost this drive. This time I really am going to stop trying to make USB 3 work...
 
RockyBob said:
Finished a bunch of other tasks so continued today with the USB 3.0 problem. Previously I had success transferring a bunch of data between the Seagate 4TB (configured as a FW800 drive) and a 1TB Buffalo esata drive, so today tried same thing with the Seagate configured as a USB 3 drive. Transferring a 44GB folder, started well but at 16.33 GB transfer stopped. This is somewhat different in that it went so long, but is the same because it didn't finish. When trying to stop the transfer it is obvious the Mac has lost this drive. This time I really am going to stop trying to make USB 3 work...
Click to expand...

Yeah, you sound very frustrated and I can't say I blame you. I've had similar problems from an onboard IDE controller before.
 
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