Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

smcgil9899

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 17, 2008
47
0
Is there anyway to get USB 3.0 on a 17" 2011 MBP? I seen a serial card with 2 USB 3.0 ports from Sonnet. Will this work? My computer does have a Thunderbolt port.
 
Last edited:

Bazzy

macrumors 6502
Jun 8, 2009
294
10
Hi All,

I too would love to find a reasonable solution to this - most reviews of the various Expresscard USB 3.0 adapters (e.g. Amazon etc) have not been very encouraging - would really like to find one that is reasonably priced & fully works with OSX without issues!!

Bazzy!
 
Last edited:

Astroboy907

macrumors 65816
May 6, 2012
1,387
14
Spaceball One
Is there anyway to get USB 3.0 on a 17" 2011 MBP? I seen a serial card with 2 USB 3.0 ports from Sonnet. Will this work? My computer does have a Thunderbolt port.

I actually got this to work 4 days ago on my Late '08 MBP (15")

Basically, I got this card (Brand GMYLE) on Amazon for $10 total (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846)

Obviously it probably wouldn't work on mac... but i tried. Once I got the card I tried installing some drivers (caldigit, LaCie, etc), and none worked. On a whim tried Oyendigital drivers (their card is similar, and I based off of a comment on amazon that it worked with some issues)

Tried my 1 USB3 drive on USB2 using blackmagic disk speed test (MAS), got around ~30mB/s Read/Write

Tried it in expresscard and got ~40mB/s read and write in the beginning, but it was jumping around to ~100+ mB/s read and WRITE. True indeed, my drive is faster- I am very happy that it works ATM

Pros:
Supports USB3 AND USB2 devices
FAST- ~100 mb/s WRITE
Hot Swappable (Works perfectly, BTW)
Flush with laptop

Cons:
Gets a bit warm in slot, but ok by me
Ports are a bit close, and card is a bit easily pulled out by pulling device plug.
Does NOT support USB3 power specs (gets ~600ma total, rather than ~900ma per port)
Cannot support 2 powered (eg external portable hard drive) devices at once, but it can do 1 at a time (< havn't tested this yet.., but highly probable)
Due to bus speed might not hit full USB3 speeds

----------

Hi All,

I too would lobe to find a reasonable solution to this - most reviews of the various Expresscard USB 3.0 adapters (e.g. Amazon etc) have not been very encouraging - would really like to find one that is reasonable priced & fully works with OSX with issues!!

Bazzy!
See above
 
Last edited:

Bazzy

macrumors 6502
Jun 8, 2009
294
10
I actually got this to work 4 days ago on my Late '08 MBP (15")

Basically, I got this card (Brand GMYLE) on Amazon for $10 total (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846)

Obviously it probably wouldn't work on mac... but i tried. Once I got the card I tried installing some drivers (caldigit, LaCie, etc), and none worked. On a whim tried Oyendigital drivers (their card is similar, and I based off of a comment on amazon that it worked with some issues)

Tried my 1 USB3 drive on USB2 using blackmagic disk speed test (MAS), got around ~30mB/s Read/Write

Tried it in expresscard and got ~40mB/s read and write in the beginning, but it was jumping around to ~100+ mB/s read and WRITE. True indeed, my drive is faster- I am very happy that it works ATM

Pros:
Supports USB3 AND USB2 devices
FAST- ~100 mb/s WRITE
Hot Swappable (Works perfectly, BTW)
Flush with laptop

Cons:
Gets a bit warm in slot, but ok by me
Ports are a bit close, and card is a bit easily pulled out by pulling device plug.
Does NOT support USB3 power specs (gets ~600ma total, rather than ~900ma per port)
Cannot support 2 powered (eg external portable hard drive) devices at once, but it can do 1 at a time (< havn't tested this yet.., but highly probable)
Due to bus speed might not hit full USB3 speeds

----------


See above

Hi,

Thanks for the above - did this USB 3.0 card work with portable hard drives when connected?

Bazzy!
 

boomhower

macrumors 68000
Oct 21, 2011
1,570
56
I'm hoping for a reasonably priced TB-> USB 3 adapter comes out soon. I don't need or want a $250 station with a bunch of ports, just something that goes TB-> USB 3.
 

smcgil9899

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 17, 2008
47
0
I'm hoping for a reasonably priced TB-> USB 3 adapter comes out soon. I don't need or want a $250 station with a bunch of ports, just something that goes TB-> USB 3.

That is what I want also, just something simple.
 

Astroboy907

macrumors 65816
May 6, 2012
1,387
14
Spaceball One
Yes please!

After much trial: in short. No. It didnt work

Tried oyendigitals drivers first, nada. The drive spun up like it was connected to something, but never read (actually did that for the entire test, with everything I tried)

Went on to caldigit drivers, nothing, then tried a hacked lacie driver, still nothing.

Reinstalled all drivers, nothing.

So it may just be a lion thing, OR the way I attempted to install it on my system was a bit wacked and somehow it decided to work. Basically, my installation was: Caldigit drivers > LaCie Drivers (installed mulitple times, and removed rather messily) > OyenDigital drivers


It *may* work as a USB2 card, but IDK. I didn't really try that...
Sorry man!


Edit: This was on a 10.6 partition, was not upgraded to 10.6.8/other
 

Astroboy907

macrumors 65816
May 6, 2012
1,387
14
Spaceball One
Aww man, thanks for trying though. I'm stuck on 10.6 due to a decent amount of PPC software and I'm not that big a fan of some of the features in Lion. Looks like I'm sticking with eSata for a while.
Thanks again!

Well, dont give up *too* quickly. I'd say, if you can afford $10 shipped, its worth thinking about... and if it doesnt work at all (even as USB2), sell it to a windows guy :D

And yeah, lack of rosetta on lion sucks.. :( thats why I got the partition, to update a peice of software whose updater to intel was of course, a PPC app :D
 

luz42

macrumors newbie
Oct 29, 2012
5
0
my GMYLE USB 3.0 expressCard works with CalDigit drivers!

In contrary to @astroboy907's experience, who found Oyen digital driver to work with his card, mine did not (ordered from gmyle.com October 2012).

After some googling I found that, apparently, these GMYLE USB 3.0 express cards were produced in different batches with different chipsets.

So I tried the other driver options, and in my case the CalDigital driver (http://www.caldigit.com/KB/index.asp?KBID=108) works, on a MacBook PRO 17" 2010 with Mac OS X 10.8.

Thanks for all the hints in this discussion, which encouraged me to try the GMYLE card in the first place!
 

rev.b

macrumors regular
May 1, 2009
232
0
Portugal
In contrary to @astroboy907's experience, who found Oyen digital driver to work with his card, mine did not (ordered from gmyle.com October 2012).

After some googling I found that, apparently, these GMYLE USB 3.0 express cards were produced in different batches with different chipsets.

So I tried the other driver options, and in my case the CalDigital driver (http://www.caldigit.com/KB/index.asp?KBID=108) works, on a MacBook PRO 17" 2010 with Mac OS X 10.8.

Thanks for all the hints in this discussion, which encouraged me to try the GMYLE card in the first place!

Hello there.
I just got one of those cheap Gmyle BC628 from ebay, but I couldn't get it to work. I just installed Oyendigital and Caldigit drivers, but nothing. Power does get through, as a usb dvd drive spins, but nothing is recognised.

Here is my system profile for the card
screenshot20121126at758.png


Did you just ran the .pkg's or did something different?
 

zackkmac

macrumors 6502a
Jul 7, 2008
879
129
Denver
Hello there.
I just got one of those cheap Gmyle BC628 from ebay, but I couldn't get it to work. I just installed Oyendigital and Caldigit drivers, but nothing. Power does get through, as a usb dvd drive spins, but nothing is recognised.

Here is my system profile for the card
Image

Did you just ran the .pkg's or did something different?

Any luck on this? I'm also stuck in the same boat.
 

MasterDrow

macrumors newbie
Dec 2, 2012
1
0
Any luck on this? I'm also stuck in the same boat.
I too am having this problem. Are either of you (zackkmac, or rev.b) running OSX 10.8?

The reason I ask is because I am running OSX 10.7 and it looks like Oyendigital updated their drivers to only work on 10.8 so I theorize that for 10.8 users the drivers will work but for 10.7 and below they are no longer providing the driver. (again just a theory)

A response would be kindly appreciated.
 

zackkmac

macrumors 6502a
Jul 7, 2008
879
129
Denver
I too am having this problem. Are either of you (zackkmac, or rev.b) running OSX 10.8?

The reason I ask is because I am running OSX 10.7 and it looks like Oyendigital updated their drivers to only work on 10.8 so I theorize that for 10.8 users the drivers will work but for 10.7 and below they are no longer providing the driver. (again just a theory)

A response would be kindly appreciated.

I'm running 10.8.2.
 

nxtlukas

macrumors newbie
Nov 28, 2012
16
0
Working solution for GMYLE card BC628

I finally got the GMYLE card (BC628) to work with 10.8.3!! I can only recommend this 10$ card if you're ready for some hacking :) Here's what I did (This will probably not work with every GMYLE card as the chipset may vary):
1. Remove the card from the slot
2. Download a patched PXHCD.kext (Link for the one which worked for me, else see below)
3. copy the downloaded kext to /System/Library/Extensions/
4. Open Terminal and type the following commands:
a) sudo chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/PXHCD.kext
b) sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/PXHCD.kext
c) sudo rm -R /System/Library/Extensions.kextcache
d) sudo rm -R /System/Library/Extensions.mkext
NOTE: if step c) or d) returns any error don't worry just proceed
e) sudo reboot
5. After reboot open diskutilty and repair permissions
6. Now shutdown your computer
7. Connect your USB 3.0 card
8. Turn on your computer
9. You're already done if it works, else proceed to 10.

10. Open System Profiler and check Extensions (whether the PXHCD.kext is loaded successfully or not..)
11. If it is not listed open terminal and type:
sudo kextload -v /System/Library/Extensions/PXHCD.kext
12. Now check your System Profiler whether the USB Super-Speed Bus is present or not.

13. If the kext did not load automatically but did after 11. you would have to do this after every reboot.
The best workaround I could imagine is:
14. download this shell file: Link
15. Put the load_kext.sh into /Users/Shared
16. Tell OS X to load this on every boot by running:
sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /Users/Shared/load_kext.sh
And accepting with your password. The card should work now after the next reboot; it's also hot-pluggable.

I downloaded the kext from this forum: Link and re-uploaded the 1.0.10 so that you won't have to register for InsanelyMac...
The instructions are partly copied from here: Link
And last but not least Thanks to Apple for explaining Login hooks here: Link

Hope this helps,
Luk
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.