USB 3.x PCIe Cards for Classic Mac Pro

[crjackson2134]

ORICO PFU3-202I w/Molex extension cable available.

Tested only... Works out of the box with 10.8.3 and above (native OSX drivers). If interested, PM me please.

 

[Earl Urly]

PFU3-4P works!

Am using the Orico PFU3-4P PCIe card in slot 4 along with Orico's 4-port hub mentioned earlier as compatible, along with the SATA cable/converter and everything is smooth sailing under Mountain Lion v.10.8.4 in an Early 2008 Mac Pro.

The 5V cable from the optical SATA to the card's 4-pin molex slot is absolutely needed for normal operation.

What's weird is that a Lexar 128 GB USB 3.0 JumpDrive is getting only 42.2 MB/sec for reads and 32.4 MB/sec for writes, but a cheap no-name USB 3.0 16 GB drive from MicroCenter gets 50 MB/sec reads but only 10 MB/sec writes. Will test out a 64 GB Patriot Supersonic next..

 

[ActionableMango]

You really put it in slot 1? Where is your video card?

USB thumbdrives are often limited by their memory R/W speed, even on a USB 2.0 interface. Unfortunately they typically are not rated for speed, only size and interface.

 

[Earl Urly]

whoops

Sorry, corrected that, it's in slot 4, the last x4 slot.

Also had to use Plugable's VIA 812 updater to update the firmware in the Orico hub, the chipset is the VIA VL812 and it was at firmware 85.71, updated it to 85.81. Dunno what it solved but better safe than sorry, and they said it fixed most of the issues people were having with their hubs on Apple's own built-in USB 3.0 hardware on the newest Retinas and Pros. Had to flash it from BootCamped Windows 7 but at least it worked.

Does anyone know what chipset Apple is using in their built-in ports? Presumably Intel's..

 

[Chastepe]

CalDigit PCI USB 3.0 Card - Issues

I bought a CalDigit PCI USB 3.0 Card for my Mac Pro 4,1 (Mountain Lion 10.8.4) and I have been testing it for about a week now. I am using an external 2TB WD Passport for Mac (USB 3.0 Version) and so far I had several OS X crashes and Kernel Panics. More specifically the 'copy-paste' process froze when I transferred very big files (more than 80GBs) and I had to force shut it down via the power button. In addition, I noticed that when my external hard drive was mounted to one of the card' s USB 3.0 ports the computer had Kernel Panics and it restarted (Each Kernel Panic occurred without me doing anything related with my external HD - Mac Pro just restarted with no reason!) . Note that I use Western Digital' s encryption software so I have to unlock the drive in order to use it. To sum up, I emailed CalDigit' s technical support, I got a reply with a 7 step general suggestion for panics but they also asked me for the Kernel & Panic logs. When they examined the logs they came back to me with the following reply:

"Dear customer, Can you remove some of the Western Digital's software / driver? The WD drive should be driver-less, and it will work without any driver or software. Our engineer said: there seem to be an issue on a WD software. - http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?wdc_lang=en&fid=wdsfMyPassport (including those drive utility / security / turbo driver etc…)
Best regards,
CalDigit - Support"

So...! For now I will keep my hard drive the way it is, and I will only mount it when I need to transfer files - I don't want to lose the password encryption as it is very useful...I also told them that I would hope for a future driver release that would address this issue. Overall, when the card does work with no issues, the speeds I get are very fast - I tested a file transfer of the same file both with USB 2 and later with USB 3 and I calculated that it is 61% faster.

If they reply me back with any more information, I will let you know. CU

 

[crjackson2134]

Did anyone notice a change in boot speed, revving fans on boot up, or sleep issues?

I've tried 2 different cards (different brands) and they both work, but they both have drawbacks.

The first one is an Orico card. I don't like having to steal power from another device and dealing with the cabling, but it works good. The drawback is that it's not particularly fast (compared to my other card), and you should be mindful that you CAN overtax the thing if you put power hungry devices on it's ports. That said, it does use native drivers, and the work very well (no panics, no sleep issues, great compatibility with most types of devices).

The second is the RocketU 1144CM by High Point. I don't like the fact that it does't support sleep mode, and it boots up strangely (compared to the Orico). It takes a lot longer to boot, and the case fans sound like a jet engine until it displays the desktop background. Once booted it gets deadly silent once again. This card is blazing fast and just as stable so far.

I really like the RocketU, but the lack of sleep support, the fans roaring on boot, and the slow booting bothers me. If the thing would boot quickly again and not rev the fans, I could forget about sleep support (but that's not the case).

I have contacted HP tech support, but it's after hours now and I'll have to wait. I'll work with it a few days and if it doesn't grow on me I can still return it.

I wonder if resetting the SMC would help the fans. I'll try that tomorrow, and try in different slot positions to see if that helps.

EDIT:

I reset the SMC and it seems to have fixed the fan revving issue. Boot is still slightly delayed but I guess I can live with it.

It's fast, here it is with my Seagate Barracuda in a no name generic usb 3 enclosure.... The drive is the limiting factor here.

 

[rGiskard]

Highpoint RocketU broken by 10.8.4?

Anyone else have their Highpoint RocketU USB 3.0 card crap out after updating to 10.8.4?

I finally tried downloading the full 10.8.4 ESD image and doing a fresh install off a flash drive. I then installed only the HP drivers and rebooted several times, still no go.

------------------Edit:

Silly me, had to reset the NVRAM.

Still looks like it's time to ditch this card. I need something with sleep support and it would be awesome to be able to use a USB 3.0 SD card reader.

 

[crjackson2134]

Sadly I'm left without sleep support. HighPoint tech support just updated my trouble ticket with the following:

New Priority: Medium

Status: Active -> Awaiting Customer Action

Dear customer, what you have discovered is that the RocketU 1144CM controller does not support sleep. There is currently no plans to have sleep support for the RocketU controller.

Regards

HighPoint Support Team

 

[crjackson2134]

Silly me, had to reset the NVRAM.

Still looks like it's time to ditch this card. I need something with sleep support and it would be awesome to be able to use a USB 3.0 SD card reader.

I kind of need sleep too, but I'll have to make due without it I suppose. Either that or return the card and run the slower Orico. I don't really need a 3.0 card reader, just drives. I have however plugged in a few USB 2.0 devices and they all work so far

 

[texem]

Sadly I'm left without sleep support. HighPoint tech support just updated my trouble ticket with the following:

I wrote in the beginning of this thread my bad experience with HighPoint (see article #11) . Be prepared that possibly with the next OS X major release that hardware not only suffers from sleep problems but no longer supported as with my 1144A. So please be be warned.

 

[Cubemmal]

I bought a CalDigit PCI USB 3.0 Card for my Mac Pro 4,1 (Mountain Lion 10.8.4) and I have been testing it for about a week now. I am using an external 2TB WD Passport for Mac (USB 3.0 Version) and so far I had several OS X crashes and Kernel Panics.

Yep. I'd get random kernel panics which end up in the CalDigit driver about once every few weeks. Got in a long email chain with the company which came down to "you can send the card back to us and we'll test the onboard firmware, which is probably be fine". I gave up and don't use it anymore ... if nothing is connected to the card it doesn't seem to panic anything.

 

[pastrychef]

It's fast, here it is with my Seagate Barracuda in a no name generic usb 3 enclosure.... The drive is the limiting factor here.

Wow! That's extremely fast for a regular hard drive!!

 

[crjackson2134]

I wrote in the beginning of this thread my bad experience with HighPoint (see article #11) . Be prepared that possibly with the next OS X major release that hardware not only suffers from sleep problems but no longer supported as with my 1144A. So please be be warned.

Yes, I was aware about the issue you had with obsolesce. I spoke on the phone with High Point before I made the purchase. The card is already supported in OSX 10.9. If it becomes unsupported after 10.9 then I'll have to look else where. HP stated that if it becomes unsupported on later releases they will release new driver support. The reason sleep isn't supported (according the HP) is because of RAID problems on wake from sleep and lack of chipset support for wake from sleep. It seems that they did try to implement this feature but it caused too many problems. I'll live with it I guess... I get to play with it for a little while, and if I decided it's not for me, I can send it back for a refund.

----------

Wow! That's extremely fast for a regular hard drive!!

It seems to be faster than the internal SATA speeds. It got around 150~160 when hooked up inside the box. Could be my imagination though.

 

[digitalgum]

So I'm about to buy a USB 3.0 card.

Is the general vote here that Orico PFU3-4P PCIe card would be most suitable??

 

[GP-SE]

So I'm about to buy a USB 3.0 card.

Is the general vote here that Orico PFU3-4P PCIe card would be most suitable??

I got this: Fresco Logic FL1009-200
works great, just plug and play, no drivers to install\modify.

 

[sunsetsothickly]

I got this: Fresco Logic FL1009-200
works great, just plug and play, no drivers to install\modify.

Looks interesting - are you using the power adapter cable that amazon sell with it? Are you using it solely with drives or have you tried any other devices?

 

[GP-SE]

Looks interesting - are you using the power adapter cable that amazon sell with it? Are you using it solely with drives or have you tried any other devices?

I'm using the power adapter, I never tried it without the adapter. Also I've used it only with my external hard drive enclosure (generic 2.5" drive). I get fast speeds, and haven't had an issue.

 

[ActionableMango]

A quick refresh

The following cards use a Fresco Logic chipset which works with native OS X drivers provided in ML 10.8.2 and newer. This has been verified by several people.

Fresco Logic FL1009-200
Orico PFU3-202I
Orico PFU3-2P
Orico PFU3-4P

They are all around $20. They are fairly fast with one device hooked up, but with more than one they slow down quite a bit.

The one that stands out as different from the others is the Orico PFU3-2P, which most people have reported does not required hooking up to supplemental power when you are using devices that are self-powered. All of the other cards require supplemental power even when hooking up self-powered devices.

The Orico PFU3-4P has four ports.

Orico PFU3-202I has two external ports and a multi-pin header for something inside (internal USB?).

These cards, as well as most other USB 3.0 solutions, seem to interfere with bluetooth and do not work with every USB 3.0 hub.

 

[crjackson2134]

These cards, as well as most other USB 3.0 solutions, seem to interfere with bluetooth and do not work with every USB 3.0 hub.

Yeah, I guess I should have mentioned that the RocketU is not causing any interference with my BT. I really like the Magic Mouse and that would have been a deal breaker for me. I think I'll keep this one installed. I've also found that it doesn't prevent the monitor or drives (including the USB3) from sleeping. The rest of the system doesn't seem to sleep however. I got another email from HighPoint today.

Dear customer, we are not aware of any increased boot up time with the card installed.

Every component in the Mac Pro system needs to support sleep mode, if only 1 component does not support sleep mode then the entire system will not. Our developers have attempted to have the RocketU support sleep mode but it cannot be implemented.

Moving forward, we will close this support ticket.

Regards

HighPoint Support Team

 

[sunsetsothickly]

Orico PNU3539-U3E?

Anyone have experience with this card in a Mac Pro? NEC based. Actually - just reading some reviews... might forget I mentioned it. Sounds pretty ordinary...

 

[sunsetsothickly]

What about this?

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-...-MPEXUSB3S2/dp/B004NO0LK8/ref=pd_sim_sbs_op_1

Please excuse my ignorance, but would this work in the slot currently occupied by an Airport Extreme card? Similar to the USB 3.0 and eSATA mods for older Mac Minis and iMacs?

 

[d-m-a-x]

Nikon D800 tehther?

Anyone have luck with an Nec chipshet and the D800? I just bought the camera and was kind of looking forward to super speed, but it seems like no one has gotten it to work. Suprisingly it is faster than the 5d markII on usb2 eventhough the files are twice as big

 

[pastrychef]

Just wanted to report another success story with an Orico PFU3-4P card. I don't have any USB 3.0 peripherals yet, but I did copy about 500GB of data to a USB 2.0 connected drive and it worked fine. It also seemed MUCH faster than using my Mac's built-in USB 2.0 ports.

I use a Magic Mouse and an Apple Wireless Keyboard Pro. Both are Bluetooth and I did not see any interference. I'm drawing power from one of the hard drive ports to power the Orico card. I could have just as easily used one of the optical drive power connectors, but I currently have two optical drives installed and was too lazy to pull one out.

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

The following cards use a Fresco Logic chipset which works with native OS X drivers provided in ML 10.8.2 and newer. This has been verified by several people.

Fresco Logic FL1009-200
Orico PFU3-202I
Orico PFU3-2P
Orico PFU3-4P

Has anyone tried the Orico ENU3536-U3E 34mm ExpressCard version in an older MBP?

 

[ActionableMango]

Has anyone tried the Orico ENU3536-U3E 34mm ExpressCard version in an older MBP?

I wouldn't know. You might want to ask on the MacBook Pro (laptop) forum; this is the Mac Pro (desktop) forum.

At quick glance this appears to use an NEC chipset which, if you are somewhat lucky, might work with the Lacie drivers that are floating around.