USB 3.x PCIe Cards for Classic Mac Pro

tinycg · Jan 8, 2013

Success and Failure

Not looking to bump by double posting but.. last card was definitely dead, put the new one in and powered it and OS X is very happy.

However.. in an effort to remove the molex connector from the extension cable Mango pointed me too I got 3 of the 4 pins out fine and then ripped the wire out of the 4th pin. YAY.

I know radio shack et al have molex pin connectors you can put together. I'll honestly say I'm not that mechanical, does anyone have tips for this?

Should I buy another cable and take it slower, or try to fix the current one?

ActionableMango · Jan 8, 2013

tinycg said:
Not looking to bump by double posting but.. last card was definitely dead, put the new one in and powered it and OS X is very happy.

However.. in an effort to remove the molex connector from the extension cable Mango pointed me too I got 3 of the 4 pins out fine and then ripped the wire out of the 4th pin. YAY.

I know radio shack et al have molex pin connectors you can put together. I'll honestly say I'm not that mechanical, does anyone have tips for this?

Should I buy another cable and take it slower, or try to fix the current one?

Hard to tell what is going on without a picture. If the wire simply came out of the metal bullet connector, you should be able to open up the connector by prying it or by shoving an awl, ice pick, or punch in to it. Then shove the wire back in there and crimp it down with pliers. Could solder it too, if you have that sort of thing.

I would be shocked if you found Molex parts at Radio Shack. They mostly sell mobile phones, batteries, and RC cars now. I'm not entirely sure what their business model is and wonder how they manage to stay open.

tinycg · Jan 9, 2013

I was shocked that they had molex connectors too, but I saw them in a set of trays. This was even a RadioShack in a mall haha. Seems at least this one is going more towards the hobbyist.. they still sell phones and all that other stuff.

Attached a photo of my 'trying to hard' attempt after easily getting the other pins out haha.

ActionableMango · Jan 10, 2013

Black Magic speed tests

Drive is a Seagate 3TB USB 3.0.

MP 5,1 Front USB 2.0 port:
R 35
W 31

Same MP, Fresco Logic FL1009-200 USB 3.0 card:
R 168
W 166

Mac Mini 6,1 USB 3.0:
R 182
W 180

That's basically 5 times faster. I'm happy.

YYR123 · Jan 10, 2013

State of usb3 on mp !!!! Hahahaha doesn't exist -!!!!!!

tinycg · Jan 11, 2013

ActionableMango said:
Drive is a Seagate 3TB USB 3.0.

That's basically 5 times faster. I'm happy.

I had previously deleted Black Magic Speed Test (didnt need it anymore) upon reinstalling it, it wont let me select a drive. I want to test my 2TB USB 3.0 haha.

And, YYR123... I don't think you've read this thread, because actually it does and we're doing it, most of us through the native drivers in 10.8.2.

jasonvp · Jan 11, 2013

I have the aforementioned 2-port card and the SATA power extension cable. The splitter cable is apparently coming to me via slow-boat. As soon as I get it, I'll do the install and report back on my success. I have no USB 3 devices as of yet, but that could change....

Thanks for all the work on figure this out, guys.

jas

ActionableMango · Jan 11, 2013

YYR123 said:
State of usb3 on mp !!!! Hahahaha doesn't exist -!!!!!!

It works quite well for me. Perhaps you should read the thread.

YYR123 · Jan 11, 2013

Truly sorry I thought we were talking about off-the-shelf USB 3.0

jasonvp · Jan 11, 2013

jasonvp said:
I have the aforementioned 2-port card and the SATA power extension cable. The splitter cable is apparently coming to me via slow-boat

The splitter arrived, but when I went to assemble everything I realized I'd forgotten the molex extender. I did assemble everything with the case cover off, and had enough cable to power the USB 3 card with extension cables running everywhere. It worked, OS X saw it, no errors, etc. But it was impossible to put the case cover back on with all the cabling in the way.

Mango: my assumption is that when you ran the Molex extender, you did so towards the left side of the case (if you're looking at it from the front)? Is that where the hole in the firewall is?

jas

ActionableMango · Jan 11, 2013

jasonvp said:
Mango: my assumption is that when you ran the Molex extender, you did so towards the left side of the case (if you're looking at it from the front)? Is that where the hole in the firewall is?

Yes, the left side. I followed the same path that the existing SATA cabling uses, which goes behind a removable panel along the left side of the case and through a square opening near the front of the case. At that point the SATA cabling goes behind the backplane. From that same point I ran the Molex cable in front of the backplane and behind the PCI fan.

I had to temporarily remove one of the Molex connectors to get it through the hole. Alternatively I think the Molex connector might fit through the hole if the SATA cabling wasn't already there. So if you prefer, you might unplug the SATA cabling, pull it into the optical bay, then run the Molex into the optical bay, and then run the SATA cabling back through the hole. I would have tried that first but I couldn't find where the SATA cabling went once it routed behind the backplane.

It sounds like a horrible mess, but once you get the optical bay back in place it is a relatively clean installation, assuming you have a nice Molex extension cable.

jasonvp · Jan 11, 2013

ActionableMango said:
It sounds like a horrible mess, but once you get the optical bay back in place it is a relatively clean installation, assuming you have a nice Molex extension cable.

Cool, thanks for the description; I think I can fake it from here. I have teeny screw drivers that should make disassembling a Molex connector pretty simple. I have a little more room inside the optical bay area because my second bay has a single 2.5" SSD in it (in a 5.25->3.25->2.5 series of adapters..

) Lots of extra space around the drive.

jas

adww12321 · Jan 11, 2013

Thanks

thanks to everyone for the advice

I got the fresco 1009 card, and the aforementioned cables.

I used the inside of a BIC pen to push out the pins from the molex connector -- worked perfectly. once the connector was off it was easy to route the cable up into the dvd bay & make the connection.

I'm doing a large copy right now, it is peaking at 105MB/sec; so far, so good

----------

adww12321 said:
thanks to everyone for the advice

I got the fresco 1009 card, and the aforementioned cables.

I used the inside of a BIC pen to push out the pins from the molex connector -- worked perfectly. once the connector was off it was easy to route the cable up into the dvd bay & make the connection.

I'm doing a large copy right now, it is peaking at 105MB/sec; so far, so good

i should also mention that this fresco card is working perfectly with an external hub. I'm charging my iPhone from a usb connection via a USB 3 hub built into my LCD, connected to the fresco card. yay.

nigelbb · Jan 11, 2013

I have the Molex extender cable for my ORICO card but I had to go away before I got a chance to fit it. Good news that it works with a USB3 hub I am really hoping that it doesn't interfere with my Magic Mouse like the Sonnet Allegro USB3 card does.

Erlang · Jan 11, 2013

nigelbb said:
I have the Molex extender cable for my ORICO card but I had to go away before I got a chance to fit it. Good news that it works with a USB3 hub I am really hoping that it doesn't interfere with my Magic Mouse like the Sonnet Allegro USB3 card does.

USB3 interfering with Bluetooth is a documented problem, Intel published a paper on the problem, essentially BT antenna location and good USB3 screening of enclosures and cables, is the answer. OWC have released a EMI screen modification for Mac Minis, and as I get a little interference I might fit some screening to my MPro BT module to see if that helps, I'll do it when I re-route my Orico Molex cable.

tinycg · Jan 11, 2013

Erlang do you have a link to that on OWC as I couldnt find it, or reference to it. I might be interested in that myself.

My new extension cable and a usb3 I should be able to pick up tomorrow and get my case back in order, so far I've been running several days and no issues at all which is awesome. I still can't get the speed test to let me select a drive though which is odd haha.

adww12321 · Jan 11, 2013

adww12321 said:
thanks to everyone for the advice

I got the fresco 1009 card, and the aforementioned cables.

I used the inside of a BIC pen to push out the pins from the molex connector -- worked perfectly. once the connector was off it was easy to route the cable up into the dvd bay & make the connection.

I'm doing a large copy right now, it is peaking at 105MB/sec; so far, so good

----------

i should also mention that this fresco card is working perfectly with an external hub. I'm charging my iPhone from a usb connection via a USB 3 hub built into my LCD, connected to the fresco card. yay.

I'll follow up my own post one last time -- I've now transfered several terabytes using the card, overall xfer rate of 70MB/sec, and even rudely disconnected the HD once just to see what would happen... There were no stability problems or issues.

The built-in ML driver seems to work perfectly (this is very different than my experience with the CalDigit card, which actually caused the machine to dump core/have the gray screen of death once, FWIW)

As of now, i'd say if you are willing to route the power cable, this is the optimal solution for MacPros and USB3.

Erlang · Jan 12, 2013

tinycg said:
Erlang do you have a link to that on OWC as I couldnt find it, or reference to it. I might be interested in that myself.

My new extension cable and a usb3 I should be able to pick up tomorrow and get my case back in order, so far I've been running several days and no issues at all which is awesome. I still can't get the speed test to let me select a drive though which is odd haha.

Here the link to the Intel paper http://www.usb.org/developers/whitepapers/327216.pdf

Here is the link to the OWC Mac Mini BT shielding http://blog.macsales.com/15990-shielding-resolves-usb-3-0-conflict-with-bluetooth

rk25123 · Jan 12, 2013

ActionableMango said:
I didn't think I needed to power the 2-port version either, but I had to. The MP recognized the card upon bootup, but disabled the card with a message about how a USB device was using too much power so it shut the card down.

I too have all bays full, both HDD and optical. Nevertheless, I used a y-cable in the optical bay to get power. You can indeed run power there through the tightly integrated case. See this post. I can provide pictures if it helps.

This is the particular card I used.

Everything is powered now and works perfectly with native drivers, which was the whole point. I didn't really want to hook up extra power, but now that I have, I can confidently use a bus-powered device if need be.

Here are the cables I used:
1) This one splits the SATA combo plug into separate data and power. It sits in the optical bay.
2) This one is the Y-cable for power. It sits in the optical bay.
3) The SATA-to-Molex adapter comes with the card and sits in the optical bay.
4) Finally, this cable runs from inside the optical bay to the card.

You have to temporarily remove one Molex connector from that last cable to thread it into the optical bay. I used the same route as the default SATA cabling.

In retrospect now that I've run power, I might as well have gotten the 4-port. The price difference is miniscule.

I don't mind forwarding one. PM me if you like.

Hi! Take a look at this cable:

http://www.lindy.it/prolunga-cavo-splitter-sata-03m/33440.html

Besides this I would only need a Molex extension cable, correct?

Thank you for your help!

ActionableMango · Jan 12, 2013

rk25123 said:
Hi! Take a look at this cable:

http://www.lindy.it/prolunga-cavo-splitter-sata-03m/33440.html

Besides this I would only need a Molex extension cable, correct?

Thank you for your help!

That looks to be correct, yes.

tinycg · Jan 12, 2013

Erlang thanks for the links, awesome.

rk25123, thats a seriously epic piece of cabling right there wow.

Following Mango's instructions this is by far the best solution for the Mac Pro, finally got a new extension cable and took my time with a small flat head screwdriver it went smoothly. There was a slight hiccup in feeding it the wrong way haha. It's now all hooked up, computer is closed up, running with a USB hub with no errors and tried a couple bus and a/c powered drives, all solid.

A+ for this solution if you're willing to put the time in and have 10.8.2

Edit: USpeed USB 3.0 Hub I picked up off Amazon is only being seen as a USB 2.0 hub and testing a USB3 drive on it does in fact only get 30-40MB/s which is definitely USB2. Has anyone else had this issue?

rk25123 · Jan 13, 2013

tinycg said:
thats a seriously epic piece of cabling right there wow.

It is, isn't it?! I was having trouble finding the cables suggested by ActionableMango in my location, so when I saw it I was like WTF?! Epic, indeed.

ActionableMango said:
That looks to be correct, yes.

Thanks again for the help!

tinycg · Jan 14, 2013

What USB 3 Hubs have people had success with?

jasonvp · Jan 14, 2013

tinycg said:
What USB 3 Hubs have people had success with?

I bought two of these hubs from NewEgg. Per the attachment, they show up in SysInf, but again I don't have any USB 3 devices (yet) to test with.

Thanks to Mango, I have everything cabled up, tidied up, and closed up.

jas

tinycg · Jan 14, 2013

Thanks Jason, this is how the Uspeed USB 3 hub here shows up for me in sys info.

jasonvp said:
I bought two of these hubs from NewEgg. Per the attachment, they show up in SysInf, but again I don't have any USB 3 devices (yet) to test with.

Those seem to be out of stock wherever I looked

USB 3.x PCIe Cards for Classic Mac Pro

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