Hello all,
Looking to get some feedback on the potential workability of this upgrade for my early 2008 MacPro (16GB RAM running OSX 10.6.7). I've been reading through the threads here on this subject (SSDs in older macs and SATA3 PCIe cards) so hopefully not being redundant, but have there been and definitive success reports? I work in video post production so I need speed though not necessarily a lot of space.
Here is what I'm thinking:
BOOT DRIVE: Internal 240GB SSD (OWC SATA3)
- Power via optical bay via adapter cable
- Data via PCIe SATA3 card and cable running out the back
Was thinking of this card:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-PCI-E-S...UK_Computing_ComputerComponents_InterfaceCard
as it seems to be the same as this but cheaper:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/MXPCIE6GS2/
SCRATCH DRIVE: 2x 300GB Velociraptor SATA2 in software RAID 0 in drive bays 1+2
SCRATCH DRIVE/PROJECT DRIVE: 2x 1TB 7200 SATA2 drives in RADI 0 in drive bays 3+4
BACKUP/STORAGE DRIVES: 2x large 5900 drives connected via external Icy Dock stations that connect to 2 internal eSATA ports on logic board via extension cables. Possibly an extra SATA drive in the optical bay too via SATA-IDE converter. I have an external firewire optical drive.
Questions:
- I am using a flashed PC graphics card: 1GB ATI Radeon HD 4870 which takes up so much space I only have room to use the two top x4 PCI slots. WIll these slots be able to fully support the PCIe SATA3 card for the SATA3 SSD?
- Will the SSD be bootable with the PCIe card linked above? It appears to be the same one that OWC sells but cheaper?
- Is the speed increase with the PCI card/SATA3 SSD really worth all the fuss or should I just get a SATA2 SSD? I've read on barefeats that SATA3 SSDs can actually be slower than SATA2 SSDs when not in a SATA3 connection
- Any bottlenecks you can see for limiting my speeds? Will the total transfers max out at 1gbps and do you think this will push that?
Many thanks for your time!
Looking to get some feedback on the potential workability of this upgrade for my early 2008 MacPro (16GB RAM running OSX 10.6.7). I've been reading through the threads here on this subject (SSDs in older macs and SATA3 PCIe cards) so hopefully not being redundant, but have there been and definitive success reports? I work in video post production so I need speed though not necessarily a lot of space.
Here is what I'm thinking:
BOOT DRIVE: Internal 240GB SSD (OWC SATA3)
- Power via optical bay via adapter cable
- Data via PCIe SATA3 card and cable running out the back
Was thinking of this card:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-PCI-E-S...UK_Computing_ComputerComponents_InterfaceCard
as it seems to be the same as this but cheaper:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/MXPCIE6GS2/
SCRATCH DRIVE: 2x 300GB Velociraptor SATA2 in software RAID 0 in drive bays 1+2
SCRATCH DRIVE/PROJECT DRIVE: 2x 1TB 7200 SATA2 drives in RADI 0 in drive bays 3+4
BACKUP/STORAGE DRIVES: 2x large 5900 drives connected via external Icy Dock stations that connect to 2 internal eSATA ports on logic board via extension cables. Possibly an extra SATA drive in the optical bay too via SATA-IDE converter. I have an external firewire optical drive.
Questions:
- I am using a flashed PC graphics card: 1GB ATI Radeon HD 4870 which takes up so much space I only have room to use the two top x4 PCI slots. WIll these slots be able to fully support the PCIe SATA3 card for the SATA3 SSD?
- Will the SSD be bootable with the PCIe card linked above? It appears to be the same one that OWC sells but cheaper?
- Is the speed increase with the PCI card/SATA3 SSD really worth all the fuss or should I just get a SATA2 SSD? I've read on barefeats that SATA3 SSDs can actually be slower than SATA2 SSDs when not in a SATA3 connection
- Any bottlenecks you can see for limiting my speeds? Will the total transfers max out at 1gbps and do you think this will push that?
Many thanks for your time!