SSD in my Mac Pro 1,1

jabbo5150 · Oct 7, 2012

Hi all, I am running a Mac Pro 1,1 2.66 Ghz Dual-Core Intel Xeon with OS 10.6.8. I plan on going to Lion, but have not yet

I want to install an SSD as a boot drive

OWC recommended their Mercury Electra 3G and said NOT to enable TRIM

Is that the best choice for me? Or should I look at something else? My OS and applications will take up roughly 77GB of space, so would a 120GB be sufficient or should I go with a 180 or 240 or higher?

Do I need to enable TRIM? Would TRIM enabler even work on a 1,1? Is that something that has to be added to the startup items or is it set it once and forget about it. Will I have to change any TRIM settings when I go to Lion? Thanks

Weaselboy · Oct 8, 2012

jabbo5150 said:
Hi all, I am running a Mac Pro 1,1 2.66 Ghz Dual-Core Intel Xeon with OS 10.6.8. I plan on going to Lion, but have not yet

I want to install an SSD as a boot drive

OWC recommended their Mercury Electra 3G and said NOT to enable TRIM

Is that the best choice for me? Or should I look at something else?

I'm not particularly a fan of OWC as they tend to be overpriced. Many users here like the Samsung 830. You can get a 128GB 830 for under $100.

jabbo5150 said:
My OS and applications will take up roughly 77GB of space, so would a 120GB be sufficient or should I go with a 180 or 240 or higher?

Depends on how much data you have over top of the OS and apps. I have the OS and apps, 1GB of documents, 6,000 photos and about 1,800 music files all on about 60GB of a 128GB SSD. This is plenty for me.

jabbo5150 said:
Do I need to enable TRIM? Would TRIM enabler even work on a 1,1? Is that something that has to be added to the startup items or is it set it once and forget about it. Will I have to change any TRIM settings when I go to Lion? Thanks

You will get varying answers in this. I am of the view that the newer SSDs have sufficient built in garbage collection and the TRIM hack is not necessary. I also don't like the idea of hacking a core system file like this. Although, many users run the hack without issue.

You just run the TRIM hack utility once and it turns on TRIM and that is it. It does need to be run again at each start. However, OS version updates undo the hack and you need to run it again.

jabbo5150 · Oct 8, 2012

Weaselboy said:
I'm not particularly a fan of OWC as they tend to be overpriced. Many users here like the Samsung 830. You can get a 128GB 830 for under $100.

I am not necessarily married to the idea of OWC partially for cost as I have noticed other drives can be a fair amount cheaper.

Weaselboy said:
Depends on how much data you have over top of the OS and apps. I have the OS and apps, 1GB of documents, 6,000 photos and about 1,800 music files all on about 60GB of a 128GB SSD. This is plenty for me.

My Apps and OS alone take up about 77GB. That's not counting my home folder, which admittedly needs to be cleaned out, but which is huge (like 95GB). I was planning on moving that to a separate drive. Is 128 sufficient if I just have 77GB of apps and OS on there?

Weaselboy said:
You will get varying answers in this. I am of the view that the newer SSDs have sufficient built in garbage collection and the TRIM hack is not necessary. I also don't like the idea of hacking a core system file like this. Although, many users run the hack without issue.

You just run the TRIM hack utility once and it turns on TRIM and that is it. It does need to be run again at each start. However, OS version updates undo the hack and you need to run it again.

This is my first adventure with SSDs, so I have no idea about these sorts of things. I know OWC and others with the Sandforce controller have said no TRIM is necessary, but other people have said those companies don't know what they are talking about. Doesn't matter to me, I just want whatever is optimum for my system

davea11ee · Oct 8, 2012

Best Cost and Speed

Best solution I've found is Lacie 4big Quadra with eSata out. I bought a eSata adapter cable (http://www.newertech.com/products/esata_cable.php) for $15 that plugs into the 2nd optical drive port that I don't use. I used black magic disk speed test, and I'm getting 235 mb/s read/write through it. And I have 12TB to work with. That is the best deal I've found in regards to speed and cost.

Weaselboy · Oct 8, 2012

jabbo5150 said:
My Apps and OS alone take up about 77GB. That's not counting my home folder, which admittedly needs to be cleaned out, but which is huge (like 95GB). I was planning on moving that to a separate drive. Is 128 sufficient if I just have 77GB of apps and OS on there?

Certainly.

jabbo5150 said:
This is my first adventure with SSDs, so I have no idea about these sorts of things. I know OWC and others with the Sandforce controller have said no TRIM is necessary, but other people have said those companies don't know what they are talking about. Doesn't matter to me, I just want whatever is optimum for my system

A lot of people reported conflicts with the TRIM hack and Sandforce controlled drives, and I believe that is why OWC recommends against the hack.

Like I said, lots of opinions on this. Your drive will not be harmed by NOT running TRIM. If later on you find the write speeds of your SSD have dropped due to no TRIM, you can always enable it then and TRIM the drive back to like new performance.

You will want to get a SSD kit with the desktop drive mount adaptor since you have a Pro with full size drives and the SSDs are 2.5".

jabbo5150 · Oct 8, 2012

davea11ee said:
Best solution I've found is Lacie 4big Quadra with eSata out. I bought a eSata adapter cable (http://www.newertech.com/products/esata_cable.php) for $15 that plugs into the 2nd optical drive port that I don't use. I used black magic disk speed test, and I'm getting 235 mb/s read/write through it. And I have 12TB to work with. That is the best deal I've found in regards to speed and cost.

That seems like a cool idea. It works on the 1,1 Mac Pro? Still, I want to replace my boot drive, so I need a solution for that as well

ssgbryan · Oct 8, 2012

jabbo5150 said:
Hi all, I am running a Mac Pro 1,1 2.66 Ghz Dual-Core Intel Xeon with OS 10.6.8. I plan on going to Lion, but have not yet

I want to install an SSD as a boot drive

OWC recommended their Mercury Electra 3G and said NOT to enable TRIM

Is that the best choice for me? Or should I look at something else? My OS and applications will take up roughly 77GB of space, so would a 120GB be sufficient or should I go with a 180 or 240 or higher?

Do I need to enable TRIM? Would TRIM enabler even work on a 1,1? Is that something that has to be added to the startup items or is it set it once and forget about it. Will I have to change any TRIM settings when I go to Lion? Thanks

I have a pair of OWC 240Gb SSDs in a raid on my 1,1. They are up in the optical drive bay using the 2 SATA ports that aren't used in the 1,1.

There is no need to enable TRIM, since these have a sandforce controller.

jabbo5150 · Oct 8, 2012

ssgbryan said:
I have a pair of OWC 240Gb SSDs in a raid on my 1,1. They are up in the optical drive bay using the 2 SATA ports that aren't used in the 1,1.

There is no need to enable TRIM, since these have a sandforce controller.

I assume that goes for all SSDs that use a Sandforce controller? Is the connection any slower if you use the optical bay? We have similar machines as I have that same video card

derbothaus · Oct 8, 2012

jabbo5150 said:
I assume that goes for all SSDs that use a Sandforce controller? Is the connection any slower if you use the optical bay? We have similar machines as I have that same video card

TRIM had negative effects on my OWC 6G SF-2281. Lots of pausing. I have the original, original firmware though. So it could be my laziness to flash that is the issue. YMMV. No noticeable difference on or off for me performance wise except for it's problems.

ssgbryan · Oct 10, 2012

jabbo5150 said:
I assume that goes for all SSDs that use a Sandforce controller? Is the connection any slower if you use the optical bay? We have similar machines as I have that same video card

The SATA connection runs at the same speed as the other bays. And yes, the Sandforce controller eliminates the need for the TRIM command.

lcooperdesign · Nov 19, 2012

ssgbryan said:
The SATA connection runs at the same speed as the other bays. And yes, the Sandforce controller eliminates the need for the TRIM command.

@ssgbryan - I'd be very interested to see some speed tests on your RAID setup as I have been looking in to doing something similar with my Mac Pro 1,1.

I've been unsure as to how the 3Gbps limit in these machines would affect the performance of a 6Gbps SSD. I know they're back-compatible but wasn't sure if that meant these drives would still saturate the 3Gbps available to each drive.

Do you have such test results and do you know what benefits I could expect to see from having a sole SSD that is not in RAID config?

Thanks in advance.

ssgbryan · Nov 19, 2012

lcooperdesign said:
@ssgbryan - I'd be very interested to see some speed tests on your RAID setup as I have been looking in to doing something similar with my Mac Pro 1,1.

I've been unsure as to how the 3Gbps limit in these machines would affect the performance of a 6Gbps SSD. I know they're back-compatible but wasn't sure if that meant these drives would still saturate the 3Gbps available to each drive.

Do you have such test results and do you know what benefits I could expect to see from having a sole SSD that is not in RAID config?

Thanks in advance.

Well, a 6Gbps SSD will be limited to SATA II bus speeds. The good news is that the price difference between a 3G & a 6G is trivial. By purchasing the 6G SSD, you have the option of speeding them up by getting a Sata III card.

Here are my disk results from Xbench:
Sequential Uncached Writes:
246.89 MB/Sec (4K blocks)
270.77 MB/Sec (256K blocks)

Sequential Uncashed Reads:
28.41 MB/Sec (4k blocks)
325.15 MB/Sec (256K blocks)

Random Uncached Writes:
88.40 MB/Sec (4K blocks)
284.89 MB/Sec (256K blocks)

Random Uncached Reads:
22.05 MB/sec (4K blocks)
291.24 MB/Sec (256K blocks)

lcooperdesign · Nov 20, 2012

ssgbryan said:
Well, a 6Gbps SSD will be limited to SATA II bus speeds. The good news is that the price difference between a 3G & a 6G is trivial. By purchasing the 6G SSD, you have the option of speeding them up by getting a Sata III card.

Here are my disk results from Xbench:
Sequential Uncached Writes:
246.89 MB/Sec (4K blocks)
270.77 MB/Sec (256K blocks)

Sequential Uncashed Reads:
28.41 MB/Sec (4k blocks)
325.15 MB/Sec (256K blocks)

Random Uncached Writes:
88.40 MB/Sec (4K blocks)
284.89 MB/Sec (256K blocks)

Random Uncached Reads:
22.05 MB/sec (4K blocks)
291.24 MB/Sec (256K blocks)

Thanks for the reply ssgbryan. I've been looking into the Sata III card upgrade option and that seems to be whole new can of worms on the Mac Pro 1,1 front! Lots of talk about the RocketRAID 640 (not cheap) but then also reports of compatibility with much cheaper options such as this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Express-Adapter-Converter-ASMEDIA-ASM1061/dp/B008BZAVVE/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1353438367&sr=1-1

According to this: http://tonymacx86.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/increasing-disk-performance-sata-6gbs.html

Hmmm... maybe worth a punt?

Anyway for the time being I need to decide whether to buy two of these and RAID 'em:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-128...1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1353439116&sr=1-3

or buy one of these:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-256...1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1353439116&sr=1-2

Do you have any advice on what would be better?

Deepwinter · Dec 26, 2015

I'm looking to add a SSD for my Boot drive also, Im on a really tight budget, So price is a concern would I be better going for a PCI SSD option (is That Bootable) or using one of the available SATA ports, also would i need to use the optical bay power for the SSD.

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SSD in my Mac Pro 1,1

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