# 1,400+ mb/s - System Drive (Mac Pro 5,1 tower)



## Garlu (Aug 29, 2016)

Just replaced the system drive of my Mac Pro tower (5,1) by a:

- Samsung SM951 SSD M.2 AHCI (512gb)
- Connected to a Lycom DT-120 pcie card.

I am getting more than 1,400 mb/s write/read! That's pretty amazing for a 5,1 tower. [attachments included]









I think current trashcans are around 800 mb/s for the system drive.


Various considerations:
- M.2 has to be AHCI if you want it bootable (for system drive). If it's just for streaming/samples/sessions (not bootable), NVMe is fine (but a special driver is needed; see below...)
http://www.macvidcards.com/nvme-driver.html
- PCIe adaptor card should be placed in slots 3 or 4 for maximun speeds (slot 2 divides performance).
- The M2 ssd could get hotter than a regular SSD drive. I hope it's ok on long working days. If not, I'll replace it the PCIe adapter card by an Angelbird Wings PX1, that has an extra heatsink and can run the SSD on lower temperatures.

I am a happy woman today!


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## PMortise (Aug 29, 2016)

Nice! I just received a pair of those SM951's today for my 5,1. As soon as my squid card arrives I'll be popping those in too.


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## Garlu (Aug 29, 2016)

PMortise said:


> Nice! I just received a pair of those SM951's today for my 5,1. As soon as my squid card arrives I'll be popping those in too.



Niceee! That's my next step for sample streaming! I have seen some tests: 6,000 mb/s for a 4x RAID using the squid! Good times! 

Let us know how it goes!


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## babylonwaves (Aug 30, 2016)

Garlu said:


> I think current trashcans are around 800 mb/s for the system drive.


yep, the 6.1 delivers about that. 1.4GB/s is what I get out of 4x Samsung EVO840 in a TB enclosure with RAID0. amazing to see this performance on a single PCI slot


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## dtonthept (Aug 30, 2016)

How are your boot times now, and what were you running previously?


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## Garlu (Aug 30, 2016)

dtonthept said:


> How are your boot times now, and what were you running previously?



It's definitely much quicker, but I haven't measured it yet. 

I had a 256gb Samsung 840 Pro connected to a SATA2 port (one of the 4 regular disk bays). It was running 10.9.5 and it has been serving for 3.5 years, non stop (and still alive!). I was running out of space, many OS upgrades and thought it was a good moment to swap towards this faster option, in a clean system. Apart from that SSD and the other bays, I was running pcie SSD's with OWC's accelssior (for sessions) and a couple of Apricorn Velocity Solo x2 (with Samsung EVO's for sample streaming). Now, some re-organization needs to be done, due to the fact that the M.2 is taking one PCIe slots I was using. So, doing some work on the second drive bay that it was empty...  

The M.2 got a clean Capitan image installed. It feels like a good combination for that drive.


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## leggylangdon (Sep 2, 2016)

Hey Garlu

Just bought one of these myself but after installing and booting my Mac Pro I'm not seeing the drive show up in disk utility. You mentioned drive has to be AHCI to be able to boot. Can you explain to me what that means and how to set it up? Or should it just be working?

Many thanks

Leggy





Garlu said:


> Just replaced the system drive of my Mac Pro tower (5,1) by a:
> 
> - Samsung SM951 SSD M.2 AHCI (512gb)
> - Connected to a Lycom DT-120 pcie card.
> ...


Hey


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## Mishabou (Sep 2, 2016)

Garlu said:


> Just replaced the system drive of my Mac Pro tower (5,1) by a:
> 
> - Samsung SM951 SSD M.2 AHCI (512gb)
> - Connected to a Lycom DT-120 pcie card.
> ...



Actually the Mac trashcan drives are much faster than 800 mb/s. My trashcan takes about 12 sec to boot, the internal drive is roughly the same speed as my Samsung pro 840, which is around 500 MB/s (4000 mb/s) read-write.


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## OleJoergensen (Sep 3, 2016)

My Mac Pro Cylinder (3.7 Ghz quad) pci drive 956/726 MB/S


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## Garlu (Sep 3, 2016)

leggylangdon said:


> Hey Garlu
> 
> Just bought one of these myself but after installing and booting my Mac Pro I'm not seeing the drive show up in disk utility. You mentioned drive has to be AHCI to be able to boot. Can you explain to me what that means and how to set it up? Or should it just be working?
> 
> ...



Hi Leggy, 

There are 2 different versions of the Samsung SM951: AHCI and NVMe. In order to use it as a "system" drive (meaning: you are able to boot from that SSD M.2 drive), it'd have to be the AHCI model (not the NVMe one). 

In my case, when I first plugged it, it automatically prompted a warning saying something along the lines of: "your disk is not formatted, please, go to Disk Utility... etc." I went, click on the left side and formatted it to HFS+. 

Are you putting it in one of the top 2 PCIe slots? 

Hope it helps!




OleJoergensen said:


> My Mac Pro Cylinder (3.7 Ghz quad) pci drive 956/726 MB/S



Cool! I didn't have one to try by myself. Thanks for the confirmation! 




Anhtu said:


> Actually the Mac trashcan drives are much faster than 800 mb/s. My trashcan takes about 12 sec to boot, the internal drive is roughly the same speed as my Samsung pro 840, which is around 500 MB/s (4000 mb/s) read-write.



Sorry, I meant 800 MB/s, not Mb/s. 
In my case, I noticed a considerable difference, between the ~500 MB/s to ~1400MB/s. My point was, MP "old" towers still have "life"... unless you move the entire system to thunderbolt and peripherals.


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## leggylangdon (Sep 3, 2016)

Garlu said:


> Hi Leggy,
> 
> There are 2 different versions of the Samsung SM951: AHCI and NVMe. In order to use it as a "system" drive (meaning: you are able to boot from that SSD M.2 drive), it'd have to be the AHCI model (not the NVMe one).
> 
> ...



Ok great thanks for the heads up! I think there is an issue with my pci slots as when I go to system report I'm getting the error 'error while gathering pci info' 

This was happening before I installed the new ssd but all my other cards were working fine (HD Native, and USB 3 card) 

I was expecting to to see the drive automatically like you did but it's just not showing up. Me thinks there maybe a fault with either the adapter or drive itself although the fact I can't get the pci info from system report is making me feel uneasy

Anyone ever come across this error before??

Thanks!


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## chimuelo (Sep 3, 2016)

Hey guys don't get excited about the 951s unless you add cooling.
I used 951s and they heat up fast, then throttle down.
This takes away reads but doesn't seem to hurt the random access.
But we stream using a combination of both so it depends if you're using PLAY/VSL or NCW Kontakt.

These are great system drives since RAM and cache help with pre fetch.
But th XP941 @ SM951s get hot streaming.

My 950s I use for streaming throttle down to 900 read and 140k random but that's plenty even for dense orchestration.

You can cool these with small finned stick ems and a case fan but if you're using PCIe cards there are some than fit/work in any PCI Slot with fans blowing both directions.

I use an inverted 120mm high rpm fan on my M.2s and I design my builds that way.

Check the case fans maybe and flip one around so it becomes a directional intake.

https://m.newegg.com/Product/index?itemnumber=N82E16835192026&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-Mobile&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-Mobile-_-pla-_-VGA+Cooling-_-N82E16835192026&gclid=Cj0KEQjw6am-BRCTk4WZhLfd4-oBEiQA3ydA3unuEgMQb3vlTlIOYUw11cf-5aCSFVDGKiU-Gl3crh0aAt-Y8P8HAQ&gclsrc=aw.ds


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## leggylangdon (Sep 3, 2016)

Garlu said:


> It's definitely much quicker, but I haven't measured it yet.
> 
> I had a 256gb Samsung 840 Pro connected to a SATA2 port (one of the 4 regular disk bays). It was running 10.9.5 and it has been serving for 3.5 years, non stop (and still alive!). I was running out of space, many OS upgrades and thought it was a good moment to swap towards this faster option, in a clean system. Apart from that SSD and the other bays, I was running pcie SSD's with OWC's accelssior (for sessions) and a couple of Apricorn Velocity Solo x2 (with Samsung EVO's for sample streaming). Now, some re-organization needs to be done, due to the fact that the M.2 is taking one PCIe slots I was using. So, doing some work on the second drive bay that it was empty...
> 
> The M.2 got a clean Capitan image installed. It feels like a good combination for that drive.



Hi again!

I have just realized that the drive is a NVme....would that be a reason why its not showing up automatically...doesnt it require a driver for mac?

I am returing it and have now ordered the AHCI version so hopefully that will work!


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## synthpunk (Sep 3, 2016)

Pretty close here as well on a mp 2013 6 core, 824/937

Boot time is about 30 seconds.



OleJoergensen said:


> My Mac Pro Cylinder (3.7 Ghz quad) pci drive 956/726 MB/S


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## leggylangdon (Sep 5, 2016)

Thanks again Garlu!

Just installed the AHCI version and I am in business! Getting around 1200 mb per sec!!! So awesome!

Cheers

Leggy 






Garlu said:


> Just replaced the system drive of my Mac Pro tower (5,1) by a:
> 
> - Samsung SM951 SSD M.2 AHCI (512gb)
> - Connected to a Lycom DT-120 pcie card.
> ...


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## Garlu (Sep 6, 2016)

leggylangdon said:


> Thanks again Garlu!
> 
> Just installed the AHCI version and I am in business! Getting around 1200 mb per sec!!! So awesome!
> 
> ...



Glad it worked! It's being great so far in my system. Good times!


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## PMortise (Sep 10, 2016)

First I ordered the NVMe's instead of the AHCI's (mistake) - then there was a mixup with the shipping, but I FINALLY got them in and I'm getting 1300+MB/sec each!

Then, I was about to RAID 0 when I came across this post by Richard:


rgames said:


> Have you measured that effect? If so, how? I ask because I've tried to show that relationship and failed.
> 
> I have drives that range from 400 - 550 MB/s on sequential read and varying IOPS and they all give about 1250 - 1500 voices for VSL or Kontakt before I start getting drop-outs. I've also seen folks post results from 800 - 1000 MB/s drives that don't do any better.
> 
> ...



The thing is, I plan on putting the Hollywood Orchestra on this. Will the Raid 0 step be unnecessary at this point?


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## virtualcomposer (Sep 21, 2016)

Garlu said:


> Just replaced the system drive of my Mac Pro tower (5,1) by a:
> 
> I am a happy woman today!



Hey there! Thought I'd post here in case anyone wants to chime in! I purchased
Samsung XP941 512GB AHCI M.2 80mm PCIe 2.0 x4 SSD - MZHPU512HCGL - OEM

As well as the Lycom DT-120 M.2 PCIe to PCIe 3.0 x 4 Adapter 

and I've only been able to get 980mb/s write and 1100mb/s read times. Wondering why I'm not getting faster throughput. I have a 2009 8 core 2.26Mhz that I upgraded to a 12 core 3.33Mhz machine with 64 gb of 1066MHz DDR3 Ram (which is odd since the RAM that I purchased from OWC said it's 1333MHz - so I'm looking into that) - 

The m.2 Drive is installed in slot 4.

Any ideas? Thanks!


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