# M.2 PCI-Express as secondary ssd for samples - Will it fit in my 2009 Mac Pro?



## DervishCapkiner (Dec 3, 2016)

It's all in the title folks - how do I check this please and is it worth it as a long term investment - I'm thinking this:

The Intel 750 series
https://www.alza.co.uk/search.htm?exps=Intel SSD 750 1.2 TB?layoutAutoChange=1

Or alternatively: the Samsung 850 pro 



I currently have about 550gb of samples but hopefully around 1-2 tb by next year when I apply to do a masters at the National Film and television School to do Film composition. I have been a school music teacher for 11 years now and biting the bullet and trying to change career and think I should get good stuff that will last while I'm a student. Your thoughts are much appreciated, thank you. Dervish


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## FriFlo (Dec 3, 2016)

You can use any sata 2 compatible drive in the Mac Pro, but you won't be able to use its speed via sata 2! You will have to buy a PCIe card. There are different options available holding on to four m.2 drives. I have a card by amfeltech which can hold up to four, but it has to go to the x16 PCIe slot (only one available on the 2009 Mac Pro).


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## FriFlo (Dec 3, 2016)

If you go for the Samsung EVO, you can use it on the sata 2 ports, but you will still loose some bandwidth/speed.


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## JohnG (Dec 3, 2016)

here's a thread about storage that you might find helpful overall:

http://vi-control.net/community/threads/state-of-the-union-ssds-for-samples-and-black-friday.57120/


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## DervishCapkiner (Dec 3, 2016)

FriFlo said:


> You can use any sata 2 compatible drive in the Mac Pro, but you won't be able to use its speed via sata 2! You will have to buy a PCIe card. There are different options available holding on to four m.2 drives. I have a card by amfeltech which can hold up to four, but it has to go to the x16 PCIe slot (only one available on the 2009 Mac Pro).



Just looked up the one you've got, i'm sorry to be a complete idiot but that just looks like the holder for an m2 ssd, the one I was thinking looks like the holder as well as 1.2 tb of ssd storage too. As far as the samsung is concerned , it's not worth spending that money then if it can't rad at full speed, is that what you're saying? Thank you and sorry , im a noob with computers and not sure where else I would fit an ssd except the 4 slots that in their own compartments.


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## DervishCapkiner (Dec 3, 2016)

JohnG said:


> here's a thread about storage that you might find helpful overall:
> 
> http://vi-control.net/community/threads/state-of-the-union-ssds-for-samples-and-black-friday.57120/



Thank you John but I had already read that post and there was nothing about mac 2009, what the appropriate ssds for this computer are and how to fit them which is my problem. It's more conversation about which ssd's people bought for their specific budget. I appreciate the gesture though, thank you


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## JohnG (Dec 3, 2016)

DervishCapkiner said:


> there was nothing about mac 2009



Hi Dervish,

I understand better now. I also use a Mac 2009 and generally use the Samsung EVO 850s, mounted in the "regular" disk slots, plus I bought from OCZ a bracket to mount two more SSDs in the second optical bay since I only have one optical drive. So I have six SSDs in my main Mac tower. I don't buy the "Pro" version of the Samsung drives for sample storage because they cost more and I doubt I'll have them long enough to get the benefit of the longer warranty. If you are also replacing the startup disk, using the Pro version might be a good idea (alluding to the "Macintosh HD" drive; if you want to replace your HDD. It's a marginal improvement, in my opinion).

PCIe

Another route is to add a PCIe card and attach the SSDs to that. By doing that, you access a faster "pipe" into the computer, the PCIe bus. In case you are not familiar with it, a PCIe card is a piece of hardware that looks like a graphics card and goes into a slot in your computer near where your graphic card is installed. You can buy ones that are designed specifically to accommodate SATA III ports, which I'm not sure are even offered on the 2009 Macs, so you'd get a pickup in speed there too.

RAID / Not RAID

Some people swear by RAID, but I don't use it. I have yet to see a really meaningful improvement in read speeds for what we do -- track count doesn't seem to move much. If you are going to use a RAID setup, remember that a standard RAID 0 setup means you lose all data if one drive goes out. There are other RAID formats that may address this risk.

Kind regards,

John

(sorry if you already know all this!)


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## DervishCapkiner (Dec 3, 2016)

John, this is the exact kind of layman's terms explanation I was looking for thank you very, very much.
I'm using a flash drive pci thing for my main drive (256gb) and have two SATA ( 2 x 2tb) drives in two of the docks but I was trying to find a quicker way of doing things and hopefully a way to stop samples from freaking out so much. I presumed I would be better of just getting the fastest thing (PCIe ) but now I'm unsure if I've taken up the space as I already have one of these for my main drive. Your way of doing things sounds good to me but now I'm not sure if I should just buy the crucial mx300 then that people were going on about in the conversation you suggested or whether it would actually make a difference with these other types of ssd drives....


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## jcrosby (Dec 4, 2016)

*For the OP, yes you can put M.2's in your 2009 Mac Pro*.
You need to find a host card, or an M.2 that comes on one. I have one as a boot drive and a SQUID Raided for samples. Here are a couple options:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ngston_hyperx_predator-_-20-104-708-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ngston_hyperx_predator-_-20-104-545-_-Product

http://amfeltec.com/products/pci-express-carrier-board-for-m-2-ssd-modules/
*(Benchmarks. This thing CRUSHES new Mac Pros.):* http://barefeats.com/hard210.html


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## DervishCapkiner (Dec 4, 2016)

jcrosby said:


> *For the OP, yes you can put M.2's in your 2009 Mac Pro*.
> You need to find a host card, or an M.2 that comes on one. I have one as a boot drive and a SQUID Raided for samples. Here are a couple options:
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ngston_hyperx_predator-_-20-104-708-_-Product
> ...




Thanks very much jr, can I ask...does the hyperx card go straight into one of the four slots inside the Mac pro?


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## JohnG (Dec 4, 2016)

DervishCapkiner said:


> Thanks very much jr, can I ask...does the hyperx card go straight into one of the four slots inside the Mac pro?



I have the same question -- I think it's easily answered by looking in the manual to see if your model has a PCIe lane that matches it. (PCIe stands for PCI express)


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## jcrosby (Dec 4, 2016)

DervishCapkiner said:


> Thanks very much jr, can I ask...does the hyperx card go straight into one of the four slots inside the Mac pro?



Sure thing... Yeah, the HyperX's I linked to go in any of your PCIe slots. The Squid has to be in slot 2 though, (right above your video card.) The first 2 slots will do x16, slots 3 and 4 are x4 as far as I know...

I have my Kingston in slot 3 and a SQUID in slot 2...


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## jcrosby (Dec 4, 2016)

The other thing to mention is that *NVMe m.2 SSDs won't work in 2009-2012 Mac Pros*. *They have to be AHCI*.
So the new Samsung m2's won't work if you find a host card or buy a Squid... You can find older ACHI versions of Samsung m2s on ebay but they've gotten astronomically overpriced and there's no point. The most speed you can get out of PCI 2 with 4 lanes (x4) is 1500 Megs/second...

That's why I posted the Kingstons... Plus I know they work and are bootable...

Also Amfeltec make a few Squid cards. You need to buy the Squid Gen 2. Gen 3 doesn't work in the 2009... EDIT: According to the Mac Rumors forum Gen 3 will work but Amfeltec says not. I'd say go Gen 2 if anyone's interested in one... The Kingston drives can be bought without a host card so these are perfect for the Squid and priced really well... (using the Samsung ACHI drives will run you about $2650!!!! :-o ) Kingstons will run you $320 a pop for roughy the same size and speed...


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## jcrosby (Dec 4, 2016)

JohnG said:


> I have the same question -- I think it's easily answered by looking in the manual to see if your model has a PCIe lane that matches it. (PCIe stands for PCI express)


Yup, asnwered above... These will run in any PCI slot in 2009-2012 Mac Pros, they'll all do x4. Only slot 2 is reserved for anything faster than x4....


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## DervishCapkiner (Dec 13, 2016)

Okay jrcrosby, first of all you're a complete legend - thank you so much!!!
Second, sorry it took so long to say thank you - the sale of my house and moving out of it has all been happening in the last week!

Okay so I'm going to buy two of these ( the 960gb versions for my samples) in the January sales to put in two of them in the first two slots(trays) and move my SATA drives to trays 3 and 4. This will mean I still have my flash drive thing ( 256gb) attached to the mother board I presume because I take it that's where boot up drives go I presume...? CanI ask, do I need some sort of holder or converter or attachment as the SATA drive looks much bigger than the hyper ssd and a different shape..? 

Thanks again so much, wish you lived in Glasgow (Scotland ) so I could pay you to do it...!


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## jcrosby (Dec 13, 2016)

DervishCapkiner said:


> Okay jrcrosby, first of all you're a complete legend - thank you so much!!!
> Second, sorry it took so long to say thank you - the sale of my house and moving out of it has all been happening in the last week!
> 
> Okay so I'm going to buy two of these ( the 960gb versions for my samples) in the January sales to put in two of them in the first two slots(trays) and move my SATA drives to trays 3 and 4. This will mean I still have my flash drive thing ( 256gb) attached to the mother board I presume because I take it that's where boot up drives go I presume...? CanI ask, do I need some sort of holder or converter or attachment as the SATA drive looks much bigger than the hyper ssd and a different shape..?
> ...



First of all thanks! And no worries... Just glad to offer some advice and would never ask for money... (maybe a beer though )

So when you said "CanI ask, do I need some sort of holder or converter or attachment as the SATA drive looks much bigger than the hyper ssd and a different shape..?"

Maybe you misunderstood, or I don't understand the question?

*You can only install the Hyperx Predator drives with a PCIe card, there is no way to connect them using the SATA hard drive bays.* So you either have to buy this model that comes with the PCIe card, it has to say "with HHHL":

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104544

Or buy a host card you install in your PCIe slot.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...294&cm_re=m.2_card-_-9SIA1K62VU5294-_-Product

(It makes more sense to just buy the Kingston on the HHHL card, it costs about the same and I know for sure these work since I run one in my machine.)

HHHL (sometimes abbreviated HH-HL) stands for _Half Height Half Length_ and refers to the bracket that holds the PCIe card to the rear of the Mac Pro's case. (These cards come with the regular size bracket that the Mac Pro requires and the host card will already have this size on the back of it when you get it, you can just leave the HHHL bracket in the box.)

The only reason you would buy the other PCIe card I posted, (the "Squid"), is if you were going to RAID the Predators together as a RAID 0 drive, or, you wanted to host 2, 3, or 4 predator drives on one PCIe card, in the same slot. 

RAIDing them would make them faster, but, that means that for every predator drive you add to a Squid card you need to add 4 to the number after the _x_. So you must buy the Squid card with either an x8 connector or x16 connector for two or more predator drives on the same card. The same rule applies if you were using the Squid to host multiple m.2 drives; add 4 to the number after the _x_. The company who makes Squid cards will ask you which connector you prefer before you buy one. (Most people won't go this route, and it's usually overkill... these drive are fast enough as is, and having two with your sample libraries split up on them is all you need.)

So in case you don't understand what the "x" means in x8, it refers to speed and size of the PCIe connector. (these are called PCI Lanes.) If you look at the picture of the Predator HHHL I linked, x4 refers to the two gold colored tabs along the bottom of the card in the photo.






Every HyperX Predator drive requires 4 lanes for full speed, (1.4 Gigabytes per second). So if you had two m.2s on a Squid card you would need to buy one with an x8 connector, which is twice as long. If you were going to use 3 or 4 m.2 drives on a Squid card you would need to buy one with the x16 connector, which is 4 times as long and looks like this.




(This is an x16 Squid with 4 Samsung m.2 drives connected to it. You can see the tabs on the bottom are much longer.)

The way the Mac Pro logic board is built requires you to use the 2nd PCIe slot (right above the graphics card) for any connection more than x4. The HyperX Predator *with HHHL* is an x4 connector and can work in any free PCIe slot.

Also it's a little unclear if you understand that there are only 3 empty PCIe slots in the Mac Pro. The 4th slot is already used by your graphics card.

I'm not sure what you mean by a "flash card". Where is it connected?

And when you said "move my SATA drives to trays 3 and 4", do you mean move them to the normal SATA hard drive bays 3 and 4? SATA drives can be in any order you want. (But never a bad idea to leave your boot drive in bay 1 if it's connected using the regular hard drive bays.)

Can you explain a little more if I misunderstood anything?


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## DervishCapkiner (Dec 14, 2016)

jrcrosby , thanks so much again. This is all a huuuuuge help as I know no-body who has a clue about any of this and I've went to two computer repair shops and they said it will cost a bomb ( even though I told him I'm trying to do this as a career and hoping to keep the computer for at least another 3-4 years) and not worth doing and the other said they needed to have my computer in to see what I was talking about! That's why I joined this place, I figured someone would have the same problems....

If I'm ever in America ( wherever you're from ),genuinely I'm taking you for lunch dude and as many beers as you want - really I'd love to say thank you in real life!

I've read your reply three times ( at least ) and I think I get it now.

1. I think I already have a 256gb PCIe in one of the three slots you're talking about...I think that's why it says 'External' - because it's not in one of the bays...? ( I stupidly said flash card and I meant flash storage as that's what the guy who made the computer told me the PCIe was )

2. and yes I meant the SATA hard drive bays.. 






So I'm presuming if I buy 2 x 960gb hyper predator pcie things then then I can put them on each one of the two slots still available?( it's a shame they don't have a 2tb one then I could have 4tb of extra storage in the future and buy the other 2tb next year....) 

I think I get the squib thing now... to have loads more really fast storage and at an even higher speed but it seems that ( spiderman's dad voice ) ...with great speed comes great amounts of cash ...

Would you recommend trying to find someone who will put them in these slots for me or is it simple enough with a little youtube investigating?

Thanks again ,

although I'm already sounding far too young for my age ( in terms of the the spiderman thing ) - you're a total computer leg' ( pronounced 'ledge' - short for legend ) as we say here in the UK.


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## jcrosby (Dec 14, 2016)

DervishCapkiner said:


> jrcrosby , thanks so much again. This is all a huuuuuge help as I know no-body who has a clue about any of this and I've went to two computer repair shops and they said it will cost a bomb ( even though I told him I'm trying to do this as a career and hoping to keep the computer for at least another 3-4 years) and not worth doing and the other said they needed to have my computer in to see what I was talking about! That's why I joined this place, I figured someone would have the same problems....
> 
> If I'm ever in America ( wherever you're from ),genuinely I'm taking you for lunch dude and as many beers as you want - really I'd love to say thank you in real life!
> 
> ...



Hey if you're ever in Boston I'd love to grab a few beers. 

Ok I get it. Yeah it is often referred to as flash storage, just wanted to make sure that's what you meant... So the Kingston drives install the same way, and yes it will show up as external. If you get the HH-HL card versions you can use them in any of the slots...

If you want more space there are other options but it gets really expensive.

For 2 TB the closest you can get is this:
http://poweredbymushkin.com/index.php/catalog/item/36-scorpion-deluxe/840-scorpion-deluxe-1920gb
$1800 US.

As far as 4TB versions - That's the advantage of the Squid cards. You can put 4 of Kingstons (or any other non-nvme m2 drives) on one card which gets you 3.84 TBs. Close enough to 4 for me...

The thing I like about the Squid is you can buy two drives and the card to start, and add two more m2s later...
The cards are expensive though, in the US the Squid cost me $422. (385 pounds, link below), plus you have to add on the cost of each Kingston drive...

You can set the Squid up with 4 separate m2 drives running at 1.5 Gigs per second each, or RAID 0 the drives together. In RAID it outperforms the fastest NVMe drives out now by twice the speed, and a fully loaded squid operates at the maximum speed limit these mac Pros will give you. (RAID isn't necessary though. Especially if you split your libraries across different drives... plus some people don't mess with RAID since if one drive dies it takes the data on the other drives with it. Not too likely with a solid state sample drive, but an expensive mistake if something happens... 1.5 gigs a sec is plenty fast anyway.)

If you compare the Squid and four Kingstons to the Mushkin the Squid is a lot cheaper. For now the Kingstons are $490 each, the squid $422, $2,382 total. Two mushkins (for about 4TB) are $3600.

Installing the m2s on the Squid is a piece of cake. Easier than installing RAM...

In Europe you can buy the Squid here: https://www.thedebugstore.com/squid-pcie-x16-m2-ssd-sku-086-01-fs-16.html
And here's the company that makes it: http://amfeltec.com/products/pci-express-carrier-board-for-m-2-ssd-modules/

So those are the options... If you decide to go for the bigger drives just remember that for every m2 you need 4 PCI lanes (x4). (That's why the Mushkin is x8. It has two SSDs in RAID).


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## DervishCapkiner (Dec 17, 2016)

jcrosby, I can't thank you enough for your time and effort in explaining these things to me. I think what I'm going to do is get one kingston right now and leave the third space 'till next year and depending on if I have the money , I will buy the squid with 4 kingstons to go in the final slot. 

In the meantime, keep making awesome music! Your a pro and I hope to get to your level one day!

Dervish 

p.s. When I visit Boston in the future and if you have the time, we're going for that beer!


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## iMovieShout (Feb 28, 2017)

jcrosby said:


> The other thing to mention is that *NVMe m.2 SSDs won't work in 2009-2012 Mac Pros*. *They have to be AHCI*.
> So the new Samsung m2's won't work if you find a host card or buy a Squid... You can find older ACHI versions of Samsung m2s on ebay but they've gotten astronomically overpriced and there's no point. The most speed you can get out of PCI 2 with 4 lanes (x4) is 1500 Megs/second...
> 
> That's why I posted the Kingstons... Plus I know they work and are bootable...
> ...



Hi all,
Just in case you've not seen my thread elsewhere, we have 4 MacPro 5,1 (2010) running NVME modules. The configuration is an Amfeltec Squid v3 card installed in slot 2 (x16), with x3 Samsung NVME 512GB modules (MZVPV512HDGL) and x1 Samsung 512GB AHCI module (used to boot from El-Capitan). An NVME driver is installed from MacVidCards.com (easy install and auto-loads at boot). All has been working fine since we've been using these, August 2016, and boy do they fly!!!! With the x3 HVME modules in RAID0, they are hitting around 5200MB/sec read and 4100MB/sec write.

Jon


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## jcrosby (Feb 28, 2017)

jpb007.uk said:


> Hi all,
> Just in case you've not seen my thread elsewhere, we have 4 MacPro 5,1 (2010) running NVME modules. The configuration is an Amfeltec Squid v3 card installed in slot 2 (x16), with x3 Samsung NVME 512GB modules (MZVPV512HDGL) and x1 Samsung 512GB AHCI module (used to boot from El-Capitan). An NVME driver is installed from MacVidCards.com (easy install and auto-loads at boot). All has been working fine since we've been using these, August 2016, and boy do they fly!!!! With the x3 HVME modules in RAID0, they are hitting around 5200MB/sec read and 4100MB/sec write.



Good to know Jon. I was aware NVMe was possible but from what I understand the driver is only stable on El Capitan, and people on Sierra or Yosemite have had their drives either stop working or experience stability issues... (May be wrong about that, but posts on MacRumors seem to suggest this though...) 

I'd have gone the Samsung route myself, especially when comparing costs... Just didn't seem worth it considering they might become bricks sooner than later, whereas AHCI should be fine for the foreseeable future... Plus with the way Apple's been dropping OS support in Logic,  I have a hunch that whenever Logic 10.4 comes out El Capitan support will be gone 

Anyway glad they're working for you, hope they continue to... 

Cheers.


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## iMovieShout (Mar 13, 2017)

jcrosby said:


> Good to know Jon. I was aware NVMe was possible but from what I understand the driver is only stable on El Capitan, and people on Sierra or Yosemite have had their drives either stop working or experience stability issues... (May be wrong about that, but posts on MacRumors seem to suggest this though...)
> 
> I'd have gone the Samsung route myself, especially when comparing costs... Just didn't seem worth it considering they might become bricks sooner than later, whereas AHCI should be fine for the foreseeable future... Plus with the way Apple's been dropping OS support in Logic,  I have a hunch that whenever Logic 10.4 comes out El Capitan support will be gone
> 
> ...


This worked fine for Mavericks and then Yosemite. Never had a problem. But upgraded to El Capitan purely because the read speed on this went up a bit more and because I needed the newer drivers for my Focusrite kit. 
That said I am now selling this and the Mac Pro 5,1 because Im now using a custom built Windows based machine and wickedly fast NAS supplied by the studio. 
Anyone interested in buying this item please contact me (Amfeltec Squid and 1.5TB Samsung NVMe modules with MacOS drivers). Can include bootable 512GB AHCI module if you also buy the MacPro 5,1 (2010 x2 3.46MHz 12-core 96GB RAM). 
Drop me a line here if interested.


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