Mac Pro / SSD sleds

Mac
#1

G’day,

Am hoping tax time will finally see a SSD get itself into my Mac Pro 2010.

My current thoughts are - 256GB drive (thinking should find one around $100 on eBay), mounted in one of the standard bays for the time being, and maybe look at a PCIe card down the track (as that’ll be another $100).

My question then comes to installation of a SSD into the Pro… I note that a 2.5" drive, and 3.5" drive have the exact same connector…? As such a sled like this would work?

Can someone thus explain the benefit of a more expensive option like this?

https://www.servermonkey.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/940x587/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/m/b/mb882sp-1s-1b-2.jpg

What is that chip doing…?

And… Considering they are so different - how can the OWC option - a piece of metal - cost $30 (MacFixIt), $40-$50 on eBay, but only US$17 (AU$22) from Amazon US…

Cheers

cosmic

#2

The fun part is finding an adapter that has the same mounting points as a 3.5" drive

I had something similar to this, that I put the SSD in, and then just attached to one of the MacPro HDD slides.

There are lots of cheap 2.5->3.5 adapters that don’t keep the power and I/O aligned, and/or mounting holes to suspend the HDD from the slide.

Cheers,

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#3

Have you got a spare PCIe slot? That’s how I added mine. Faster than using optical bay for sure and let me keep my 4x SATA bays for HDDs.

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#4

It’s the extra $100-$150 for the PCIe card that’s the problem with that option… But I will look at it for future - In fact that’s why I was hoping to find a cheap sled - so I don’t waste too much money when the goal is PCIe… Hoping to get a 256GB SSD plus sled for $100.

#5

New 250gb SSDs are still $100 minimum… :thinking:

You can get a PCIe sled from eBay from around $50.

#6

I can 3D print you an adapter if you don’t want to spend any money. PM me your postal address.

#7

I got mine off Amazon for about that (x2, I am only using one of them right now though).

#8

@Jongleur
Well, a year later, but I’ve just ordered something along these lines, plus a 500 GB Samsung EVO SSD. $133 all up. Fingers crossed it fits well.

I gave up for the moment on a PCIe option - couldn’t find a card that looked reliable for much below $100 - but will continue looking.

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#9

I can verify this one works with my MacPro5,1 :slight_smile:

Came with 2 sets of screws, 1 of which fit my Samsung EVO. A very minor amount of fiddling to open one of the mounting posts and lining up the screws, but really no dramas, and “mated” with the MacPro sled / SATA connection without fault.

2 Likes
#10

image
image2138×2851 3.62 MB

Yes, yes - should have done it yonks ago… !

Super duper fast. Can’t believe how quickly it boots to the desktop - and not just the desktop… and wait… cos it’s… not ready just… yet. Even FCP7 loaded in around 6 seconds! Yikes. I’m definitely going to have to buy a 2nd, smaller SSD to act as a scratch disk.

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#11

Back when SSDs were were much more expensive, I added a 60GB SSD to my PowerMac (QS2002) and with its 1.8Ghz Duet Dual G4upgrade was freakin’ fast. Never was max out the RAM and get an SSD ever more true.

Glad your MP5,1 has a new lease on life. Time to move the Sonnet Tempo Dual Pro from my MP1,1 into my “new” MP3,1 so it to can have screaming good time.

#12

Will have to find a Tempo or the Accelsior for my machine…