# Any Mac Pro owners using Samsung 850 Evo/Pro SSD's?



## kingseamus

I'm considering a 2TB Samsung 850 Pro or Evo SSD for my Mac Pro 4,1 (early 2009 model). I would be using the drive for sample storage.

It appears as if the drive should be compatible with my Mac Pro, and that it's TRIM-enabled out of the box, but I'm curious if there are any Samsung 850 users on here, and if so, if there have been any issues with the drives.

Also, I'm aware that I'd have to get a drive bay in order to install it in my Mac. Would the Angelbird Mac Pro SSD Bay work?


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## synthpunk

I have a total of 4 850 Evo 500g. I just have simply formatted them. They have been flawless. I run them on a black magic tb multidock and Vader helmet mp. 5 year warranty.


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## charlieclouser

I've used Samsung 850 (both Evo and Pro) in both the silver tower Mac Pro and on the Mac Pro cylinder. In the silver tower (mine is a 2010 12-core) I used them in both the four internal drive bays via OWC / MacSales tray adaptors and on a Sonnet Tempo Pro PCIe card. On the cylinder the drives are in the BlackMagic MultiDock via Thunderbolt.

In no case have I done anything other than format them with the default settings in Apple Disc Utility. I never used a third-party TRIM utility or worried or thought about it for a second. In the three or four years I've been using them I have not had any problems or issues of any kind, with a total of 12x 850pro 1tb, 8x 850pro 2tb, and 2x 850evo 4tb so far. 

The Evo vs Pro decision is up to you - the Pro is technically rated for almost twice the total number of write cycles as the Evo, but whether you will ever reach that number of write cycles before the drive gets replaced by a newer model that has double the capacity at half the cost, only you can say. In general, if you're using the drive to hold sample libraries for playback, you will be reading from the drive far more than you'll ever be writing to it, so for this application the Evo is probably fine. I have all Pro drives except for the two giant 4tb Evo drives I have, but the only reason I got those in the Evo model is because the Pro 4tb is not on the streets yet - but those two drives are only holding Kontakt libraries for playback, so no worries there. As the 1tb and 2tb Pro drives in my collection get cycled out of sample playback duty due to being replaced by bigger drives, they get repurposed as primary audio and project drives. 

Click the "Show More Specs" tab on these Samsung web pages for relative numbers on the write-cycle durability of Evo vs Pro:

http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/consumer/850evo.html

http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/consumer/850pro.html

When it comes to internal drive tray adaptors, be very careful that the tray you are ordering is compatible with your specific year / model Mac Pro - the dimensions and configuration of the trays changed at one point in the lifespan of the silver towers, and they are NOT all the same. Notice the difference between the various year's models on the OWC web pages below:

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/mac-pro/2009-2012

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/mac-pro/2008

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/mac-pro/2006-2007


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## kingseamus

Many thanks synthpunk and charlieclouser! It sounds like the 2TB 850 Evo should suit me just fine. Since my Mac Pro 4,1 supports SATA II rather than SATA III, I realize I'm not going to be able to access the full performance capabilities of the drive, but it should beat the hell out of my old 2TB sample HD.

Charlie, thanks for the note regarding the tray adapters, too. I hadn't realized that there were different dimensions/configurations of trays available depending on the model of the tower. Will make sure to pick up the compatible option!


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## pdub

I have a 2TB Evo (which I somehow outgrew)  and several 500GB's as well. I also have a 4,1 tower. I have a tray with my system drive on an SSD but use the other bays for my audio drives. I installed a USB 3 PCI card with 4 independent busses at 5Gb/s which out performs the internal bus and it works great for my sample libraries. I use bus powered USB 3.0 cases for the drives which work surprising well. 

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1143180-REG/sonnet_usb3_pro_4pm_e_allegro_usb_3_0_pcie.html

Just in case you are looking for other options.


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## charlieclouser

Don't worry too much about SATA II vs SATA III - the raw speed of either an 850 Pro or Evo is way below the available headroom on even SATA II. In theory, with a RAID array of SSD drives, it might be possible to saturate a SATA II bus to the point where one might wish they had SATA III, but in practice this will never be an issue, and the internal configuration of a silver Mac Pro pretty much prohibits creating such a setup.

I'm sure you will notice a huge boost in disc speed from an 850 Evo - as soon as I got one, it was like the clouds had parted!


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## kingseamus

Glad to know that SATA II shouldn't be causing any bottlenecks for me, Charlie. I'm sure there will be a massive improvement when I load up more demanding sample libraries.

And thanks pdub for the mention of bus-powered USB 3.0 cases as another option for drives. Was the USB 3 PCIe card easy to install? Was getting the power cable connected a pain at all?


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## babylonwaves

kingseamus said:


> Many thanks synthpunk and charlieclouser! It sounds like the 2TB 850 Evo should suit me just fine. Since my Mac Pro 4,1 supports SATA II rather than SATA III, I realize I'm not going to be able to access the full performance capabilities of the drive, but it should beat the hell out of my old 2TB sample HD.


some MacPro models have different SATA speeds on different ports (1.5 vs 3 etc), so the speed also depends on which of the four drive bays you're planning to use.


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## jononotbono

charlieclouser said:


> Don't worry too much about SATA II vs SATA III - the raw speed of either an 850 Pro or Evo is way below the available headroom on even SATA II. In theory, with a RAID array of SSD drives, it might be possible to saturate a SATA II bus to the point where one might wish they had SATA III, but in practice this will never be an issue, and the internal configuration of a silver Mac Pro pretty much prohibits creating such a setup.
> 
> I'm sure you will notice a huge boost in disc speed from an 850 Evo - as soon as I got one, it was like the clouds had parted!



That's really interesting man! I say this because I speed tested my 850 Evo in my Mac Pro 5,1 in one of the Drive Bays (I use is for my OS drive) and it gave read speeds of 250mbs. I thought the 850 Evo could give read speeds of 500mbs? Sorry if I have the wrong end of the stick here!


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## pdub

kingseamus said:


> Glad to know that SATA II shouldn't be causing any bottlenecks for me, Charlie. I'm sure there will be a massive improvement when I load up more demanding sample libraries.
> 
> And thanks pdub for the mention of bus-powered USB 3.0 cases as another option for drives. Was the USB 3 PCIe card easy to install? Was getting the power cable connected a pain at all?


Hey! There's no power cable to install with that USB 3 card. Very easy installation and flawless performance.


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## robh

jononotbono said:


> That's really interesting man! I say this because I speed tested my 850 Evo in my Mac Pro 5,1 in one of the Drive Bays (I use is for my OS drive) and it gave read speeds of 250mbs. I thought the 850 Evo could give read speeds of 500mbs? Sorry if I have the wrong end of the stick here!


Charlie is probably talking about the random access speed, which is the more critical spec running sample libraries.

Rob


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## jononotbono

robh said:


> Charlie is probably talking about the random access speed, which is the more critical spec running sample libraries.
> 
> Rob



Well, it will definitely be me that's wrong when it comes to anything like this.


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## charlieclouser

I show about 370 mb/sec with the Evo drives in a BlackMagic MultiDock hooked up to the cylinder via Thunderbolt, even though Samsung quotes 500 mb/sec. My result comes from BlackMagic's SpeedTest app. I never really tested them in the silver tower, just plugged 'em in and got to work. Not surprised that it's a little slower, but that might not be entirely due to SATA II vs SATA III - might be some other aspect of the hardware that keeps the lid on the speeds. 

In theory even SATA II is way faster than 500 mb/sec, so who knows? Remember that even the slick Thunderbolt MultiDock is still using SATA III internally - it's got some sort of SATA > Thunderbolt bridge chip in there, similar to the way all the FireWire drives of yore had various flavors of SATA > FireWire bridge chip. Remember the days of trying to make sure your FW drive had the coveted "Oxford" bridge chip? Unfortunately, I do....

Interestingly, the internal Apple SSD boot drive in the cylinder shows a speed of 980 mb/sec on the same BlackMagic Speed Test app. Now that's impressive. That's why I put the Omnisphere factory library on the cylinder's boot drive - finally I can flip through patches in Omnisphere without massive lag on patch switching. It's nice. I'm thinking the boot drive is probably similar technology to m2 drives, so I'm kind of looking forward to a Thunderbolt box that takes m2 drive sticks and can light them up at full speed, but I haven't seen any yet, and the biggest m2 stick I've seen is 1tb, whereas SATA Evo drives go to 4tb, so it will take a minute for the tech to mature. When I can get a TB box that holds a row of m2 sticks and can raid them into a single volume, and we have bigger m2 capacities, I might have to get on board, but for now the MultiDock and SATA drives is fine.

Interestingly, OWC makes a replacement for the cylinder's boot drive that can go all the way to 4tb, but it's not m2, it's the Apple proprietary thing, which looks sort of like a gigantic m2 card. But it is not cheap. At all. And I'm not sure if it's really as fast as the stock Apple one. But a 4tb boot drive at 980 mb/sec would be nice for sure.


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## jononotbono

Thanks for the post Charlie. Everytime you talk about the Mac Pro 6,1 and using a Black Magic Dock it certainly inspires to upgrade from my 5,1. It's a great machine but it is old now and I can't wait to move with modern times. I'm about to buy some more SSDs and think I am going to stick with sata 3 Samsung 850 Evos. I have a few of them and I think they are great. I'm also concerned that if start investing in a load of M.2 ssds that it could be a long time till they can be used via Thunderbolt (as you say) and at least with the Sata 3 850 Evos I can pull them out and bang em into a Black Magic Multi Dock. They definitely are fast enough for Sample Streaming (for me anyway) Ah, just talking about this is making me lust after a complete studio upgrade and retire the 5,1 to a nice slave computer.



charlieclouser said:


> the internal Apple SSD boot drive in the cylinder shows a speed of 980 mb/sec on the same BlackMagic Speed Test app.



Good god. That's highly impressive.


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## synthpunk

Just to add to what Charlie said, I have read that the internal drive in the Vader helmet is made for them by Samsung and is equivalent to 850 Pro.


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## Vischebaste

Can anybody help me with a problem I'm having with an 850 Evo 1TB SSD, bought for my 2009 Mac Pro today? I can't seem to get the Mac to recognise the existence of this drive (I've tried plugging it into all four HD bay slots using an Icy Dock EZConvert Lite MB882SP-1S-3B sled as the holder).

The Mac has had a processor upgrade and is running 5,1 firmware, updated from 4,1, if that makes any difference? OS 10.11.3.

Thanks in advance!


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## JohnG

It does sound awesome but I keep asking myself exactly what I'd be getting that I don't have now, and for what price.

Still...

...shiny...


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## synthpunk

Can you try both the dock and drive both together and separately on another machine possibly that's where I would start to troubleshoot and eliminate.



Vischebaste said:


> Can anybody help me with a problem I'm having with an 850 Evo 1TB SSD, bought for my 2009 Mac Pro today? I can't seem to get the Mac to recognise the existence of this drive (I've tried plugging it into all four HD bay slots using an Icy Dock EZConvert Lite MB882SP-1S-3B sled as the holder).
> 
> The Mac has had a processor upgrade and is running 5,1 firmware, updated from 4,1, if that makes any difference? OS 10.11.3.
> 
> Thanks in advance!


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## Nick Batzdorf

Yeah, I don't understand why Samsung SSDs are so much more expensive than anything else.


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## Nmargiotta

I'm looking at the EVO 850 to use in my OWC Thunder Bolt 2 toaster. I currently have a 2012(late) iMac 27" which is sadly only tb1. I currently have a crucial 500g ssd in that toaster and I'm seeing speeds around 320-330 mb/s I was hoping the EVO would get me closer to the speeds they are rated but after what your seeing Charlie with the Blackmagic app (I'm using it as well) I'm not sure what to think. The other option I'm considering is going 2 EVOs or maybe even another crucial and running it in a raid 0 and seeing where where I can my read speeds. Anyone using the ssds in a raid array setup for their library in a Thunderbolt dock?


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## jononotbono

Have you formatted the SSD using Disk utility? I literally put a 2tb Samsung 850 Evo into my Mac Pro yesterday and worked like a charm as soon as I formatted it to OS X Journalled. Of course, it needs to formatted to ExFat if you want both PC and Mac to read and write to it. Sorry if I have missed something obvious here as I've had very little sleep.



Vischebaste said:


> Can anybody help me with a problem I'm having with an 850 Evo 1TB SSD, bought for my 2009 Mac Pro today? I can't seem to get the Mac to recognise the existence of this drive (I've tried plugging it into all four HD bay slots using an Icy Dock EZConvert Lite MB882SP-1S-3B sled as the holder).
> 
> The Mac has had a processor upgrade and is running 5,1 firmware, updated from 4,1, if that makes any difference? OS 10.11.3.
> 
> Thanks in advance!


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## Vischebaste

Hi jono and Synthpunk, thanks for the ideas.

Jono, unfortunately even Disk Utility isn't showing the drive.

Synthpunk I did have a breakthrough - I found out about the additional SATA cable hanging down alongside the CD drive, connected it, and it works through this! I guess that points to the problem being with the Icy Dock converter? It'd still be handy to get to the bottom of the issue for connection of additional SSDs.

My brief research seems to suggest that the Mac Pro will transfer data as fast (if not faster) through the optical drive cable than a drive connected through the HD bays - can anyone confirm or deny this?
Cheers!


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## synthpunk

Glad to hear it seems like you found the issue.

I would suggest you try each bus and then use the Blackmagic Disc Speed Utility to see which one is fastest?


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## iMovieShout

Hi,
Glancing quickly through the above, yes the optical and internal HDD connectors all use the slow SATA bus. This is the best you can get for speed unless you have 2 SSDs and configure them in RAID0 mode. That will almost double the speed. Use SoftRAID software to do that. Another way is to use an internal SATA card on the PCiE bus which can increase speed 10 fold to around 1000MB/sec read/write. I have a dedicated 4TB SSD SATA card on the PCiE bus with these speeds. Theres also the Flash SSD option if you want speeds up to 3500MB/sec. Let me know if you'd like info. 

Jon


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## JohnG

jpb007.uk said:


> RAID0 mode. That will almost double the speed.



I have never seen any data to support that claim for audio -- it may work in benchmarks but for audio applications the improvement from RAID0 appears to be quite limited. Plus I don't like the risks of RAID0.

However, I like and fully endorse your idea about the PCIe card.


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## Shad0wLandsUK

I have to agree with JohnG here, I myself did extensive testing on RAID0 over the years and found little no benefit for audio samples. I believe it is to do with the thousands of files they have to load. With one exception, which is that my Samsung 830 Pros are in RAID0 (to make enough space for the samples), though they do now have a read speed of 870MB/s, But they are small 128GB drives as well, which I believe work better. They are old though, so I am not fussed about wearing them out.

To answer the original post though: Yes I am using 2 Samsung 850 EVOs in my system and I also have another 5 in my PC build for my EW Composer Cloud Plus


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## Shad0wLandsUK

kingseamus said:


> I'm considering a 2TB Samsung 850 Pro or Evo SSD for my Mac Pro 4,1 (early 2009 model). I would be using the drive for sample storage.
> 
> It appears as if the drive should be compatible with my Mac Pro, and that it's TRIM-enabled out of the box, but I'm curious if there are any Samsung 850 users on here, and if so, if there have been any issues with the drives.
> 
> Also, I'm aware that I'd have to get a drive bay in order to install it in my Mac. Would the Angelbird Mac Pro SSD Bay work?


Hi, I have the 2012 Mac Pro 12-Core, but that aside I know the same card I have in mine will work in your machine. In order to get the speeds of SATA III (6Gb/s) I use a CalDigit FASTA-6U3Pro which does not seem to be on the market anymore.

But all I had to do was get a SATA splitter so I could split the power from the optical drive bay connectors to add more SSDs 

If you would like help with any of it, just PM me and I will do what I can to support


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## Nmargiotta

Shad0wLandsUK said:


> To answer the original post though: Yes I am using 2 Samsung 850 EVOs in my system and I also have another 5 in my PC build for my EW Composer Cloud Plus



I just picked up an EVO 850 today, Im benchmarking 500 mb/s but the load times for my EW Play instruments are just as bad as they were prior. Loading Leg+Slur patches take a ridiculous amount of time. any workarounds you have been doing with your rig? It seems to me PLAY is the bottleneck.


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## Shad0wLandsUK

Personally I have my EW libraries on my PC because I find that PLAY is more efficient on that system.
And my Kontakt libraries along with some lighter libraries are on macOS Sierra.

Have you set the disk cache to 0 for the SSD?


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## synthpunk

Do you have the newest version of Play btw ? It works really well for me although I'm just using Stormdrum 2/3.



Nmargiotta said:


> I just picked up an EVO 850 today, Im benchmarking 500 mb/s but the load times for my EW Play instruments are just as bad as they were prior. Loading Leg+Slur patches take a ridiculous amount of time. any workarounds you have been doing with your rig? It seems to me PLAY is the bottleneck.


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## Vischebaste

Thanks for the replies above, guys. Synthpunk, I can't compare the relvative speeds, unfortunately, as the drive is only working through the optical drive SATA cable - not through the drive bay SATA connections. I'll check out the PCIe bus option though, that sounds interesting, as I'm guessing that bottlenecks are currently preventing me from getting the most out of the 850 SSD.


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## babylonwaves

Vischebaste said:


> Can anybody help me with a problem I'm having with an 850 Evo 1TB SSD, bought for my 2009 Mac Pro today? I can't seem to get the Mac to recognise the existence of this drive



if you use one of those bay adaptors (2.5">3.5") make sure it sits right and it is the right model for your mac. those bays changed over time and if the drive doesn't get power for instance you will not see it of course.
i had SSDs in a MP 5.1 from 2008 and that worked fine.


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## iMovieShout

Hi everyone,

Some useful feedback and tips. Thanks

Meanwhile we have upgraded the VEP6 server with 4TB flash maxxing out at around 5000MB/sec read/write. And moved all sample libraries to an SSD NAS and upgraded the network to melonex at 40GB/sec. Also replaced the Cubase workstation with 2016 MacPro 12 core. 
Its all lightening fast now. Even EW libraries and Spitfire Albion One load in the blink of an eye. Amazing!! All said and done we've yet to really load it to the max and see how it all performs for real life scenario. But hoping to do this next week for a new project. So will be interesting to see how it goes. 

Thanks,
Jon


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## jemu999

jpb007.uk said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> Some useful feedback and tips. Thanks
> 
> Meanwhile we have upgraded the VEP6 server with 4TB flash maxxing out at around 5000MB/sec read/write. And moved all sample libraries to an SSD NAS and upgraded the network to melonex at 40GB/sec. Also replaced the Cubase workstation with 2016 MacPro 12 core.
> Its all lightening fast now. Even EW libraries and Spitfire Albion One load in the blink of an eye. Amazing!! All said and done we've yet to really load it to the max and see how it all performs for real life scenario. But hoping to do this next week for a new project. So will be interesting to see how it goes.
> 
> Thanks,
> Jon



Hi Jon,

Can you tell us more about your setup??? Very interested in learning more!


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## remmet

I'd be very interested to see if you find a solution to this problem. I have a mid-2010 Mac Pro 12-core, 5,1 running El Capitan. I bought two 850 EVO 1TB drives for use with a Sonnet Tempo PCIe card, and I'm also getting the "no drive detected" message. But in my case, when I put one of the SSDs in a regular drive bay, it WAS detected and I was able to format it. I then tried that same SSD again with the Sonnet PCIe card, and again no detection. The Sonnet itself is recognized in the system profile, but not the SSDs. Sonnet suggested upgrading the firmware for the SSDs, but I couldn't find any Mac upgrades for the 850 EVO model, just the 850 EVO Pro. All in all, very frustrating. 

I don't think I understood more than 10% of what Jon said above, but I also would be interested in hearing about his setup.


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## iMovieShout

A little experiment we did with a MacPro 5,1 (12 core x2 3.46GHz CPUs, 96GB RAM) over the weekend to compare speeds with 3 storage mediums, where we have loaded the following samples each time in to a VEP6 channel:
- Spitfire Albion ONE Orchestra (Brass High / Low / Medium), Woods (High, Low), Strings. About 3GB;
- Chris Hein Solo Strings (ContraBass, Cello, Viola, Violin). About 330MB.
So, we have preloaded a VEP6 channel with the above samples, save the channel, and then closed VEP6. We've then started VEP6, created an empty VEP6 project and loaded the channel (with the above samples). For each of the 3 storage solutions (see below), we've created 3 different channels, loading the samples from the 3 different sources each time. Kontakt5 was set to use memory server, with automatic sample management, and multi-processor management was turned off.

1) Fastest method we've found here, is to install a MacPro 5,1 with an Artemis PCIe card in x16 lane, and install x4 Samsung SM961 SSD NVME modules configured in RAID 0 using SoftRAID LITE software. We're seeing around 5GB/sec read/write times. Its a pricey solution though (around £2100 for the PCIe card and x4 1TB SSD modules). To load the above samples takes around 16 seconds. Initial loading and config of the channel took about 110 seconds.

2) With a SEDNA PCIe SATA card installed in a x4 lane with x4 Samsung M.2 SSD 1TB modules in RAID 0, we get around 960MB/sec Read and 700MB/sec Write. Interestingly the load times for the above libraries is about 17 seconds. Not a lot of difference from the Artemis card solution. We also tried in x16 lane, but the SEDNA card only has x4 lane support, so no difference in performance. To load the samples takes around 21 seconds. Initial loading and config of the VEP channel took about 280 seconds.

3) Same exercise, but loading the samples from our NAS took about 2 minutes. Where the NAS is a QNAP with WD RED Pro HDDs (RAID5) and 2.6TB SSD read/write cache (x4 SSDs in RAID0) and connected directly to the MacPro 5,1 via 20Gb/sec SFP+. Would expect a slight increase in performance if the samples were stored on SSDs instead of HDDs and if we had a faster network connection of say 40Gb/sec. Initial loading of the VEP channel took about 6 minutes, but that could be because Time Machine had kicked off whilst we were loading up the channel. 
This method of loading has also highlighted a random 'load hang' issue with VEP6, whereby loading can literally hang because the samples haven't loaded and VEP6 hasn't noticed. Our first 2 attempts to load the samples hung VEP6 which required the parent task to be killed.

So, not particularly scientific, but provides an idea of the broad differences between storage mediums.

For info, in production, we normally pick out and download the samples from our NAS into locally stored templates (SEDNA storage), and work from there. So for us NAS is a way to store all of our libraries, samples, production audio-cues and live performances, and for backups.


Does anyone else here have any other setups to compare?

Cheers,
JonB


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## babylonwaves

jpb007.uk said:


> 2) With a SEDNA PCIe SATA card installed in a x4 lane with x4 Samsung M.2 SSD 1TB modules in RAID 0, we get around 960MB/sec Read and 700MB/sec Write. Interestingly the load times for the above libraries is about 17 seconds. Not a lot of difference from the Artemis card solution. We also tried in x16 lane, but the SEDNA card only has x4 lane support, so no difference in performance. To load the samples takes around 21 seconds. Initial loading and config of the VEP channel took about 280 seconds.



i've run some test with a MacPro 2013 and a RAID0 array of 4x 1GB Samsung EVO840 in an OWC housing attached with thunderbolt. The 4 SSDS give me a throughput of about 1.3GB/s READ. It looks like at least Kontakt 5.5 cannot make use of the bandwidth though. As a comparison I've attached a single EVO840 SSD and ended up with pretty much identical load times. I've tested loading a SC Hammersmith patch with all mics enabled. I don't have the size at hand but it was pretty big, if anybody is interested, I can dig it out.


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## jvillalvazojr

Vischebaste said:


> Hi jono and Synthpunk, thanks for the ideas.
> 
> Jono, unfortunately even Disk Utility isn't showing the drive.
> 
> Synthpunk I did have a breakthrough - I found out about the additional SATA cable hanging down alongside the CD drive, connected it, and it works through this! I guess that points to the problem being with the Icy Dock converter? It'd still be handy to get to the bottom of the issue for connection of additional SSDs.
> 
> My brief research seems to suggest that the Mac Pro will transfer data as fast (if not faster) through the optical drive cable than a drive connected through the HD bays - can anyone confirm or deny this?
> Cheers!




Hello!

I am actually having the same issue where the Samsung EVO SSDs are not mounting to my Mac Pro (Late 2013) I currently have (3) 2TB SSDs inserted into a Blackmagic Multidock, which is connected to the Mac Pro via Thunderbolt. I tried a different Thunderbolt cable and still can not get the drives to be recognized by my computer. If anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate it!


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## Shad0wLandsUK

jvillalvazojr said:


> Hello!
> 
> I am actually having the same issue where the Samsung EVO SSDs are not mounting to my Mac Pro (Late 2013) I currently have (3) 2TB SSDs inserted into a Blackmagic Multidock, which is connected to the Mac Pro via Thunderbolt. I tried a different Thunderbolt cable and still can not get the drives to be recognized by my computer. If anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate it!


Is Disk Utility seeing the drives?

And if you are comfortable enough, you can type this into terminal (be advised though, even though this will not harm anything as long as you paste exactly what I put)

Type the following into a command line (Terminal) window: diskutil list

And with that you should get a list of drives (screenshot attached)

This is the terminal equivalent of what Disk Utility displays to you in the GUI


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## jvillalvazojr

Shad0wLandsUK said:


> Is Disk Utility seeing the drives?
> 
> And if you are comfortable enough, you can type this into terminal (be advised though, even though this will not harm anything as long as you paste exactly what I put)
> 
> Type the following into a command line (Terminal) window: diskutil list
> 
> And with that you should get a list of drives (screenshot attached)
> 
> This is the terminal equivalent of what Disk Utility displays to you in the GUI



Thanks for the reply! I typed in the terminal command you recommended and the Drives are not being recognized by Disk Utility. It recognizes my other external drives: 4TB Seagate USB, 1TB G Drive USB and 6TB Pegasus via Thunderbolt. I've never had an issue of drives mounting in the past, perhaps I am overlooking something? Any other recommendations would be appreciated!


Edit: Also, if it helps create a better visual, when I insert the SSD drives into a slot on the Blackmagic doc, it does not illuminate red like it's supposed to. Am I supposed to format the SSD somehow prior to inserting it into the dock? Maybe I got a dud from Blackmagic?


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## Shad0wLandsUK

jvillalvazojr said:


> Thanks for the reply! I typed in the terminal command you recommended and the Drives are not being recognized by Disk Utility. It recognizes my other external drives: 4TB Seagate USB, 1TB G Drive USB and 6TB Pegasus via Thunderbolt. I've never had an issue of drives mounting in the past, perhaps I am overlooking something? Any other recommendations would be appreciated!
> 
> 
> Edit: Also, if it helps create a better visual, when I insert the SSD drives into a slot on the Blackmagic doc, it does not illuminate red like it's supposed to. Am I supposed to format the SSD somehow prior to inserting it into the dock? Maybe I got a dud from Blackmagic?


Can you tell me the exact model of the Dock or provide a link so I can read a little more into it please?

I would say perhaps the drive needs formatting, but usually in arrays you do not do this until you insert eh disk and then configure it with the systems software.


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## jvillalvazojr

Shad0wLandsUK said:


> Can you tell me the exact model of the Dock or provide a link so I can read a little more into it please?
> 
> I would say perhaps the drive needs formatting, but usually in arrays you do not do this until you insert eh disk and then configure it with the systems software.



http://documents.blackmagicdesign.com/MultiDock/2014-01-01/Blackmagic_MultiDock.pdf

It's the Blackmagic Multidock 2. I know I would have to format the drives using disk utility but since I can't get them to mount I am unable to do that. It is supposed to be a plug and play system that doesn't require any software. I'm also reaching out to Blackmagic to see what they can do as well but I haven't gotten a response. I appreciate you taking the time to help.

EDIT: I'm planning on exchanging this unit for another to see if the problem persists. I just wanted to touch base so you don't spend any more of your time on it. Enjoy the long weekend! Thanks again for taking the time.


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## FriFlo

For all cheese grater owners: with this PCIe m.2 carrier, and four m.2 drives installed, you can smoke the specs of both Mac Pro 6.1 internal storage as well as anything connected via thounderbolt.
http://amfeltec.com/products/pci-express-carrier-board-for-m-2-ssd-modules/
You just attach 4 (or less) m.2 SSDs and raid them as one drive in Mac OS (resulting in a very fast 1-4 tb drive). It ain't cheap, but so is the Mac Pro 6.1! 
Samples load very quickly from that drive and due to the ultra low access time, you can set the ram buffer in Kontakt very low, load big templates and play a lot of voices without popping.
I have not done any testing to compare to internal sata 2 SSDs (which I also use), so they might be just as good in terms of voice count. There is a big jump in loading time, though!


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## chimuelo

I like them so much I got a box of 850 Pros.
512s went down to 210 USD last year at Christmas, I stocked up.


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## Johann F.

charlieclouser said:


> Don't worry too much about SATA II vs SATA III - the raw speed of either an 850 Pro or Evo is way below the available headroom on even SATA II. In theory, with a RAID array of SSD drives, it might be possible to saturate a SATA II bus to the point where one might wish they had SATA III, but in practice this will never be an issue, and the internal configuration of a silver Mac Pro pretty much prohibits creating such a setup.
> 
> I'm sure you will notice a huge boost in disc speed from an 850 Evo - as soon as I got one, it was like the clouds had parted!





kingseamus said:


> Glad to know that SATA II shouldn't be causing any bottlenecks for me, Charlie. I'm sure there will be a massive improvement when I load up more demanding sample libraries.
> 
> And thanks pdub for the mention of bus-powered USB 3.0 cases as another option for drives. Was the USB 3 PCIe card easy to install? Was getting the power cable connected a pain at all?



Please, that's just bad advice. SATA II *will *bottleneck:

SATA II (revision 2.x) interface, formally known as SATA 3Gb/s, is a second generation SATA interface running at 3.0 Gb/s. The bandwidth throughput, which is supported by the interface, is up to 300MB/s.

SATA III (revision 3.x) interface, formally known as SATA 6Gb/s, is a third generation SATA interface running at 6.0Gb/s. The bandwidth throughput, which is supported by the interface, is up to 600MB/s. This interface is backwards compatible with SATA 3 Gb/s interface.

There's a huge benefit in sticking your 850 EVO-PRO to SATA III.

I have a few 850 Pros and they all hit around 540MBps which is pretty close to advertised. Just tested an old 840 EVO and got 536MBps. Stick those drives to SATA II and you will lose half of bandwidth, simple as that.


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## Michael Antrum

You could try one of these PCIe cards which takes 2 x SSD drives and gives you SATA3 - I have one in my Dual Xeon Mac Pro 4,1 (now flashed to 5,1).

The card was £ 30. 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dual-SATA-III-to-PCI-E-X1-SSD-Adapter-Card-for-MAC-PRO-OSX-10-8-10-12-Bootable/322494996069?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

I'm going to put another in when I get some more SSD's.


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## Johann F.

jononotbono said:


> That's really interesting man! I say this because I speed tested my 850 Evo in my Mac Pro 5,1 in one of the Drive Bays (I use is for my OS drive) and it gave read speeds of 250mbs. I thought the 850 Evo could give read speeds of 500mbs? Sorry if I have the wrong end of the stick here!



That's because your Mac Pro 5,1 has SATA II ports. SATA II = 300MB/s.
850 Evo read speed is up to 540MB/s. You are correct.

To take full advantage of advertised speeds, you need SATA III.

Whoever said the speed of a 850 Pro or Evo is way below than SATA II is *absolutely wrong*.


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## charlieclouser

Johann F. said:


> That's because your Mac Pro 5,1 has SATA II ports. SATA II = 300MB/s.
> 850 Evo read speed is up to 540MB/s. You are correct.
> 
> To take full advantage of advertised speeds, you need SATA III.
> 
> Whoever said the speed of a 850 Pro or Evo is way below than SATA II is *absolutely wrong*.



Oops, yeah, you're right and I was wrong. Been a few years since I booted up my silver Mac Pros... I based my comment on the quoted speed of the SSDs versus the quoted speed of the SATA II *bus*, not the individual *port* speed (which I didn't even realize was a thing until now).

So...yeah. SATA III everybody.


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## jononotbono

Bloody hell. I guess we'll let you off this time Charlie. 

So... other than plugging an SSD into a PCIe adapter and straight into the motherboard of the Silver 5,1 Mac pros, are there any other ways to use Sata III SSDs to get their 500mb/s read speeds? I'm longing for the Black Magic Dock Thinderbolt solution but upgrading to a 6,1, plus the Black Magic Dock, plus having to change my Motu HD192 PCIe interface to a Thunderbolt solution is far too rich for my blood at the minute.


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## Johann F.

charlieclouser said:


> Oops, yeah, you're right and I was wrong. Been a few years since I booted up my silver Mac Pros... I based my comment on the quoted speed of the SSDs versus the quoted speed of the SATA II *bus*, not the individual *port* speed (which I didn't even realize was a thing until now).
> 
> So...yeah. SATA III everybody.



There's no such thing, I think you are mistaking Gbps (gigaBIT per second) with GBps (gigaBYTE per second). SATA II and III are 3Gb/s (3 gigabits per second = 375MB/s) and 6Gb/s (6 gigabits per second = 750MB/s) respectively. It's just to mess your head into thinking it's faster than actually is.


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## charlieclouser

Johann F. said:


> There's no such thing, I think you are mistaking Gbps (gigaBIT per second) with GBps (gigaBYTE per second). SATA II and III are 3Gb/s (3 gigabits per second = 375MB/s) and 6Gb/s (6 gigabits per second = 750MB/s) respectively. It's just to mess your head into thinking it's faster than actually is.



So is it the case that there is no "per-port" speed limit, and that each port can operate at the full bandwidth of the bus?


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## Mike Fox

I have an 840 and 850. Zero problems.


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