Upgrade Older Mac Pro Tower ( silver) to SSD

[KevWind]

I realize this is probably a limited interest subject (i.e. Owners of desk top towers that have additional hard drive and Pcie slot) .

So my home studio computer which I purchased specifically to run Pro Tools HD Native, via the PTHDN PCIe card from Avid. The computer is a Mid 2010, Mac Pro, 333 Gz 6 core "Westmere", with 24 GB of Ram which has 4 Hard drive slots and 4 PCIe slots available. It came with a pre installed Apple 1 TB HDD (Hard Drive Disk ) main OS boot drive and a 2 TB HDD session storage drive .

So in order to get the advantage of SSD performance I had two choices, sell it and go to the new Mac Pro (Trashcan as they are lovingly referred to ) and have to also purchase a Thunder Bolt PCIe chassis (thus looking at $ 6k and up ) or upgrade my current machine.

I opted for number two and just thee days ago installed a Samsung SM 951 512 GB. PCIe SSD and PCIe card adaptor for slot. ( cost $354 ) Now this combination of specific Samsung PCIe SSD SM 951 in this 6 Core "Westmere" Mac, is said to equal or better the performance of a brand new Mac Pro

So far I am quite pleased I have not run any actual bench mark tests
But the boot time improvement is striking.
With the former Hard drive disk the start up time, from pushing the power button on the Mac the to desk top appearing and fully loaded was 1 minute 40 seconds. With the SSD it is 36 seconds

The initial start up boot time for loading Pro tools from click icon to session option window with the HDD was 35 to 45 seconds ( depending on session size)
With the SSD it is 17 to 18 seconds

I will be downloading some bench marks apps later today and will report the findings

[Trevor B.]

I'm an old geezer who finds setting up an eReader a challenge, so for those of us less versed in the internal working of computers and the corresponding terminology here's a link that explains the basics in a way that I find helpful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_%28computing%29
What I do readily understand is that getting what you need for $354 is a far better deal than having to spend upwards of $6k!

[muscmp]

my mac pro tower died and went to the city's recycling program. i bought a 27" imac and learned a big lesson---don't buy the top of the line, buy just below. that can apply to a lot of products. even tho i still use firewire for my ensemble, i've given up on noisy firewire hard drives. i've switched to usb instead. much quieter.

play music!

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Trevor B.

I'm an old geezer who finds setting up an eReader a challenge, so for those of us less versed in the internal working of computers and the corresponding terminology here's a link that explains the basics in a way that I find helpful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_%28computing%29
What I do readily understand is that getting what you need for $354 is a far better deal than having to spend upwards of $6k!

I am by no means a computer geek tech . Although I had installed new third party RAM in both an old G 4 MacBook Pro and I also installed the 24 GBs of third party RAM in this computer. Which is simply a matter of unplugging (snap fit) the old RAM sticks and plugging in the new RAM sticks.

As for this upgrade. It is in fact very similar, simply plug the SSD module into the adaptor card ( it can only snap fit plug in one possible way) and screw the little keeper screw in. Then plug the adaptor card into the computer (again only possible one way) it literally took all of 5 minutes

The only thing that took a good bit of research about 6 months was to try to figure out exactly what SSD brand and adaptor to use for my exact Mac, for max results and in what SSD configuration in the case and e SATA PCIe card as opposed to to and SSD and adaptor into one of the Hard Drive bays.

Here is the quick vid I looked at for installation info, showing how easy it was, on the vid it says 15 minutes but it only took 5 or so . It is a promo for OWC product which I did not use because the Samsung has significantly faster specs but the procedure is the same .

[Trevor B.]

The video certainly makes the PCIe card installation look very doable and the fact that you're already seeing a big improvement is what matters, not my "intimidation" factor (lol).

[paulp1960]

Hi KevWind that is a nice computer despite the age it is still a powerful machine.

I was wondering which version of OS-X you are running as you will want to make sure that TRIM is enabled to properly do the garbage collection and tidy-up on your new ssd.

On later versions of the OS if you look at system information near the hard drive entry where you will see your ssd, nearby it should say whether trim is enabled.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by paulp1960

Hi KevWind that is a nice computer despite the age it is still a powerful machine.

I was wondering which version of OS-X you are running as you will want to make sure that TRIM is enabled to properly do the garbage collection and tidy-up on your new ssd.

On later versions of the OS if you look at system information near the hard drive entry where you will see your ssd, nearby it should say whether trim is enabled.

I am running OSX Yosemite 10.10.5
I will check about the TRIM thing again . One main source of information was a the Mac Pro forum on the Mac Rumors Forum The was an extensive specific thread about eSATA PCIe cards in older Mac Pro's and honestly I do not remember the particulars but part of that discussion was about TRIM. I will have to go back and reread But if I remember correctly was mention that enabling TRIM was considered important on older OSX versions and or certain types of SSD's
For anybody with a Silver Mac that might be considering upgrading here is the link to that thread. Couple of warnings If this stuff is new to you like it was to me when I fist stumbled on this thread about 6 or 8 months ago it may seem intimidating and the tread is huge over 1600 replies and counting. I had to read it over a number of times to begin to get some of gist of what is being discussed
http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/...e-ssd.1685821/

[KevWind]

OK so here are some benchmark speed tests
This is a free app from the App store and one that is said to be pretty accurate
It measures reading and writing video frame
It is called " Black Magic Disk Speed Test"
This is the 5 GB test (the recommended one)

So here is the PCIe SSD test




And here is the HDD test

[endpin]

I have been running a MacBook Pro for a few years with an aftermarket Samsung SSD. I still get reasonable performance with TRIM not enabled. Haven't checked this out lately, but my understanding is that Apple disables TRIM on aftermarket drives (even if is the same brand they install).

[Feste]

I have a twenty year old Power Mac in my closet. Sure wish I could make it hum like yours KevWind. I just installed a new 3TB and 12GB more memory in a 2011 IMac last weekend. Pretty easy actually. I almost went for the SSD drive but decide to wait for further price drops. I have another 2007 iMac that I did the same to a couple of years ago. The sweet thing about Macs is how easy they are to upgrade. I'm afraid those days are disappearing though. The new iMacs aren't upgradeable, at least in tens of harddrive. The finally figured out that you could make them last instead of buying a new one. Like everything else these days they have become disposable. A real shame.

[KevWind]

Well of course my machine actually has a pretty fast Processor to begin with, although it has only the single processor which is a 6 core Duo with 12 virtual cores. So In my situation it was arguably the Hard Disk Drive that was a primary bottle neck. There are of course some further up grades I could do, like upgrade the graphics card, (which if I were to start to do a lot of video editing might be viable). And ultimately it is also possible to put a second 6 core processor in the machine, but I don't foresee that being a need for my useage . So I have had 5 good years of use out of it and now expect at least another other 5 if not more

[paulp1960]

With Yosemite 10.10.5 you can type

sudo trimforce enable

in a terminal window. Some older versions of OS-X would not allow trim for 3rd party ssd devices but 10.10.5 should be fine.

You should ensure this is set otherwise over time your ssd performance will drop off.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by paulp1960

With Yosemite 10.10.5 you can type

sudo trimforce enable

in a terminal window. Some older versions of OS-X would not allow trim for 3rd party ssd devices but 10.10.5 should be fine.

You should ensure this is set otherwise over time your ssd performance will drop off.

OK thanks.....Quick update I just completed typing the command in the terminal window and it worked great easy pizey so thanks again .
Also (you may already be aware) , but was told by a guy over on the MacRumors sight that to view and verify if TRIM is enabled, you go to:
Apple Icon > "About This Mac" > System Report > SATA/SATA Express and in the second section of specs ( the actual SSD) towards the bottom it will say "TRIM Support" and either YES or NO

[paulp1960]

You are welcome - enjoy your new performance.