NVMe upgrade for Mac Pro 4.1/5.1 Mojave

[jantelis]

Has anyone had any luck using an NVME with appropriate pcie adaptor etc on a 5'1 Mac Pro Mid 2010 running High Sierra (latest version, not mojave) looking to use one of these drives and clone over my OS and data via carbon copy cloner, seeing alot of old posts and or posts that mention only mojave, was curious if this worked for anyone in the same os and comp as me

thanks!

[TheFilterLab]

Hi jantelis,

I don’t know for sure but as far as I understand you can’t run NVME drives unless you do the firmware upgrades that require Mojave. I think that you can run AHCI drives with High Sierra though. I’m sure someone else here can verify this.

Take care,
Jared

[TheFilterLab]

Hi everyone

I’ve been following this thread as part of the my upgrade research.

I recently did an upgrade from PT10 HD3 to PT 2019.6 Ultimate HD Native PCIe. I started with a new (old) computer that was upgraded. It’s a 2010 Mac Pro with 12 3.46 cores, and 48 Gigs of RAM. I’ve got it running Mojave.

I’m pretty amazed at the increase in power, and for the most part it’s all working. However, all of this talk about increaseing the speed of the system drive has me curious.

Currently my system drive is a Samsung SSD in one of the SATA bays. I’m considering going the NVME route with a PCIe card. I’m wondering if It’s worth the expense, fan noise and potential for failure to go with the crest card. Or if I just go with the simple cheap PCIe card? I know this will still be much faster than what I have now.

Given Ghostwriter’s experience with the crest card that has me a little nervous. Also, how loud is the fan in the crest card? I have anther system in my studio with an HDX card in it and that fan is annoyingly loud. So if the fan in the crest card is anything like that I don’t think it would be worth the increase in speed for me.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Jared

[WorldStudios]

I have a computer with an HDX card already in it. I noticed no increase in fan noise after installing the crest card, but as you say, the computer is already noisy... I would say go for the simple card. The increase in speed going from SATA (250 mbps) to PCI hosted m2 drives (1500) is so worth it. Going from a simpler PCI adapter (1500) to the Crest (2900) is barely noticeable. It is very much like getting a new iPhone one year after the last one. Sure, it’s marginally faster but you feel like fool for spending that much for that little. :) If money is no problem and you like the opportunity to use two blades in one slot, then by all means go crest!

[TheFilterLab]

Thanks Johan,

That's kind of how I was leaning. Thanks for the confirmation. I think that's what I'll do.

[Oliver M]

Originally Posted by jantelis

Has anyone had any luck using an NVME with appropriate pcie adaptor etc on a 5'1 Mac Pro Mid 2010 running High Sierra (latest version, not mojave) looking to use one of these drives and clone over my OS and data via carbon copy cloner, seeing alot of old posts and or posts that mention only mojave, was curious if this worked for anyone in the same os and comp as me

thanks!

2009 4,1 Mac Pro here, flashed to a 5,1.
I am running a lot of NVMe drives with an Amfeltec card without any issue.

[hornedrum]

Hi everyone.

Super interesting thread, thanks for a great read!
I am getting back to ProTools after a 3/4 year hiatus....

I am running Sierra on a MP 5.1 6 core 3.33Ghz, PT 12.5.2, mostly Waves11 plus the odd Plugin Alliance plug etc.
I installed the Lycom DT-120 and system profiler says the blade installed is an Apple SSD SM0256G (which from memory was a Samsung 951 perhaps?)
All running smoothly for a couple of years as a boot drive, so probably no need to change that.

So now I am looking to upgrade my old spinners with SSDs.
The consensus seems to be NVMe, is that an option with Sierra though?
They don't need to be bootable, but I'd probably like one drive for samples and another for PT sessions.

I have no PT upgrade plan but fairly happy with PT 12.5.2 on Sierra.

Might you have any thoughts/recs please?

EDIT: Oh, and one further question, is the heat/throttling still an issue with some people?
I only have the GPU and the Lycom card in the PCIe slots, so shouldn't be too crowded in there. A tiny bit worried that the Lycm has no heatsink, but the blade is never hot to touch.

Thanks in advance! :)

[Ghost In The Attic]

I just wanted to thank Darryl Ramm again for all of his help and revive this thread. This upgrade turned out to be a life saver for buying time while the M1 gets sorted. If you haven't read this thread, you should. It may keep you up and running for a few more years.

Cheers,
Ghost

[K Roche]

Originally Posted by hornedrum

Hi everyone.

Super interesting thread, thanks for a great read!
I am getting back to ProTools after a 3/4 year hiatus....

I am running Sierra on a MP 5.1 6 core 3.33Ghz, PT 12.5.2, mostly Waves11 plus the odd Plugin Alliance plug etc.
I installed the Lycom DT-120 and system profiler says the blade installed is an Apple SSD SM0256G (which from memory was a Samsung 951 perhaps?)
All running smoothly for a couple of years as a boot drive, so probably no need to change that.

So now I am looking to upgrade my old spinners with SSDs.
The consensus seems to be NVMe, is that an option with Sierra though?
They don't need to be bootable, but I'd probably like one drive for samples and another for PT sessions.

I have no PT upgrade plan but fairly happy with PT 12.5.2 on Sierra.

Might you have any thoughts/recs please?

EDIT: Oh, and one further question, is the heat/throttling still an issue with some people?
I only have the GPU and the Lycom card in the PCIe slots, so shouldn't be too crowded in there. A tiny bit worried that the Lycm has no heatsink, but the blade is never hot to touch.

Thanks in advance! :)

I had the same machine a Mid 2010 3.33 Ghz 6 core Westmere and was running PTHD Native PCIe card

So If I remember correctly
And the same Lycom blade and a Samsung 951 PCIe (my boot drive)

I also installed a new Metal Capable Graphics card which did have a noisy fan

And then I installed a single dual Crest blade adaptor with two Samsung EVO NVMe 1 TB SSD drives on it which were my PT session storage Drive and My FCPX Projects storage dive
It worked great ..
I ran that until I switched to my current iMac and Avid Carbon interface last Dec.

[basslik]

Hi everyone. This is great news on the sonettech Mcfiver.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iIJo-izBFQ