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USB 3.x PCIe Cards for Classic Mac Pro
- Thread starter ActionableMango
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Yes, only if you connect the 9 pin header of the GC-TITAN RIDGE to a USB 2.0 source.
Does macOS support the NEC uPD720202 USB 3.0 controller?
Use your imagination and some google searching to find cables to do what you need or make your own cables.
- Two USB-A male to 5-pin female cables.
- Two USB-A male to 5-pin male cables and connect them to the GC-TITAN RIDGE's 9-pin female to 9-pin female cable.
- One 9-pin female to two USB-A female PCI bracket and two USB-A male to USB-A male cables.
- USB-A male to USB-A male is non-standard (see USB cables table), so consider two 5-pin female to USB-B female cables and two USB-B male to USB-A male cables.
You could consider the NZXT or HUBBY7 internal powered USB 2.0 hubs or an unpowered internal USB 2.0 hub. The GC-TITAN RIDGE's 9-pin female to 9-pin female cable connects to a 9-pin male connector of the hub. Then you need to connect the 5-pin input of the hub to a USB source inside or outside the Mac Pro. There were diagrams posted in previous posts of this thread showing how the front panel USB ports are wired in the various versions of the Mac Pro. You could create cables that tap into the USB source for those ports to connect an internal hub. Then the front panel ports would be sourced by the internal hub like the GC-TITAN RIDGE.
Your PCIe card uses the NEC uPD720202 (or NEC µPD720202). I don't know if that works with MacOS. I don't think it does.
There's a lot of info here and my head is spinning. I know this has been brought up before, but I'm looking for a specific recommendation if possible.
My 5,1 has a Sonnet Allegro USB 3.0 card and as expected, it disconnects my Drobo when the computer sleeps. The problem is that the Drobo doesn't then re-connect when the computer wakes, meaning I have to restart it (which is slow and a giant pain).
Can you point me to the simplest solution to prevent the disconnects from happening and keep the Drobo connected even through sleep?
My 5,1 has a Sonnet Allegro USB 3.0 card and as expected, it disconnects my Drobo when the computer sleeps. The problem is that the Drobo doesn't then re-connect when the computer wakes, meaning I have to restart it (which is slow and a giant pain).
Can you point me to the simplest solution to prevent the disconnects from happening and keep the Drobo connected even through sleep?
Thanks! Was this pretty plug and play? Any special installation needed? Were the included cables long enough for power?
weezin
Yes, " Plug n Play " as long as the SATA power cable is connected. I have no internal SATA shdds at all in my cMP - I connect the SATA power cable to SATA Bay 4. I run it in PCIe slot 4.
if all of your SATA HDD powe ports are occupied you could get a long SATA power cable and connect to one of the SATA ports in your DVD drive area or. . move bay 4 HDD to the DVD drive area and power that HDD from there.
NOTE : Must be SATA powered.
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I'm going to get their 7 port KTU3FR-5O2U
https://www.inateck.com/inateck-ktu3fr-5o2u-7-port-usb-3-0-pci-express-card.html
It has 5 external ports and 2 interna.l I will use the two internal ports to power the two 12v USB 16 CFM fans I use to cool my Northbridge and CPU A RAM.
US$28 + shipping and totally worth it.
Yes, " Plug n Play " as long as the SATA power cable is connected. I have no internal SATA shdds at all in my cMP - I connect the SATA power cable to SATA Bay 4. I run it in PCIe slot 4.
if all of your SATA HDD powe ports are occupied you could get a long SATA power cable and connect to one of the SATA ports in your DVD drive area or. . move bay 4 HDD to the DVD drive area and power that HDD from there.
NOTE : Must be SATA powered.
================================
I'm going to get their 7 port KTU3FR-5O2U
https://www.inateck.com/inateck-ktu3fr-5o2u-7-port-usb-3-0-pci-express-card.html
It has 5 external ports and 2 interna.l I will use the two internal ports to power the two 12v USB 16 CFM fans I use to cool my Northbridge and CPU A RAM.
US$28 + shipping and totally worth it.
Thank you! I ordered the 5 port version of that card: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FPIMJEW/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I also ordered a longer SATA cable, as I think I'll need to be supplying power from the optical bay.
Looking forward to getting this working and thanks so much for the help! Free same day shipping in my area so I should have it tonight to play with.
I also ordered a longer SATA cable, as I think I'll need to be supplying power from the optical bay.
Looking forward to getting this working and thanks so much for the help! Free same day shipping in my area so I should have it tonight to play with.
Good card it has the Frisco Logic controller and one Via VL8120Q7 hub controller for connecting one of those PC USB 3.0 hubs so it's actually capable of 7 ports if you use the internal USB 3.0 connector.
Please test it for any problems by sleeping your cMP for a minute of so and then wake it and see if any drives connected to the card are not disconnected.
Please test it for any problems by sleeping your cMP for a minute of so and then wake it and see if any drives connected to the card are not disconnected.
Get the slightly different version of the card with an internal usb header connection and then run a short ribbon cable from the USB3 card to the GC Titan Ridge card.
https://www.inateck.com/pci-e-to-us...3fr-5o2i-5-port-usb-3-0-pci-express-card.html
https://www.inateck.com/pci-e-to-us...3fr-5o2i-5-port-usb-3-0-pci-express-card.html
Thanks! Here's a dumb question - do I need to cut off one of the plastic tabs on the SATA power cable it comes with in order to make it fit in the HDD SATA port? It seems as if the rightmost plastic tab on the cable is preventing it from being seated in the port.
Get the slightly different version of the card with an internal usb header connection and then run a short ribbon cable from the USB3 card to the GC Titan Ridge card.
https://www.inateck.com/pci-e-to-us...3fr-5o2i-5-port-usb-3-0-pci-express-card.html
That's actually the version I got. What does getting the Titan Ridge get me?
Yes, I put small round, white stickers marked " TOP " on the ones I've clipped; good for future use.
Thanks! I did that and it worked. Need a longer cable though.
Okay, so I installed the card, provided it power and booted the machine up with my Drobo plugged into the USB port. I then put the Mac to sleep, let it sit for a little bit, then woke it up. When it woke up, I had the "disk not ejected properly" message and no Drobo. After a few seconds, the Drobo reconnected itself.
This is different than my other USB card as the Drobo never reconnected itself before. So This is a step in the right direction, however, still not quite ideal. Hmmm. I wonder if there is a Drobo setting somewhere that would help in this situation.
Initially, I moved my SPINNER HDD from SATA Bay 4 ( above the PCIe slots ) to the DVD drive area .. .then the Inateck USB 3.0 card's SATA cable was an easy fit to the SATA Bay 4 SATA socket.
Yes, that is essentially what I have done as well. I have the USB card plugged in to the 4th HDD spot.
I really don’t know. A long while back, another user reported different enclosures have different results, including 1 that didn’t get the error ever.
I can only imagine that the card would need not only extra power to prevent shutting down the drive, but the in the case of something like the Drobo, it might need some sort of firmware setting/update. Also the drives that are installed in the Drobo itself may have something to do with this.
Perhaps you could do some testing with other enclosures to see if the ejected improperly notifications have halted. At this point, it could be related directly to the Drobo and it’s drives alone. It’s worth testing just to find out if a single drive in a dumb enclosure exhibits the same behaviors.
Good points. For now, I tried a USB-powered external hard drive in one of the other USB ports on the new card and put the machine to sleep. When it woke, there were two error messages, but both disks were there. So it would seem as if the problem might not be with the Drobo after all. I'll keep playing around with it, but not having those messages would be ideal. At least they re-connect now I suppose.
Thunderbolt 3 then you can plug into the USB header on your card to get usb2 support on the USB-C ports as well. I guess maybe you don't need Titan Ridge tb3 joevt does.
