Adapter for HDD and SSD in optical drive bay?

[macstatic]

I've previously installed a dual 2.5" adapter bracket inside my 2nd optical drive bay to accomodate two SSDs. Works great except I didn't know that TRIM wouldn't be enabled for the SSD connected to my SATA PCIe card.
So now I've decided to move that SSD to a regular Mac Pro drive bay and then move one of my hard drives to the optical bay and connect it to the SATA PCIe card (as it doesn't need to be bootable nor have TRIM support). This would give both SSDs TRIM support.

The thing I'm struggling to find is an adapter bracket (5.25") which takes a hard drive (3.5") and an SSD (2.5"). Are brackets like that available?

 

[pastrychef]

My SSD is connected to a PCI-e card and TRIM works fine on it.

 

[ybz90]

There should be no reason TRIM doesn't work. What adapter do you have?

 

[Macsonic]

I've previously installed a dual 2.5" adapter bracket inside my 2nd optical drive bay to accomodate two SSDs. Works great except I didn't know that TRIM wouldn't be enabled for the SSD connected to my SATA PCIe card.
So now I've decided to move that SSD to a regular Mac Pro drive bay and then move one of my hard drives to the optical bay and connect it to the SATA PCIe card (as it doesn't need to be bootable nor have TRIM support). This would give both SSDs TRIM support.

The thing I'm struggling to find is an adapter bracket (5.25") which takes a hard drive (3.5") and an SSD (2.5"). Are brackets like that available?

Not sure if this solves your problem, you can check out the Multi-Mount drive from OWC HERE.

 

[macstatic]

There should be no reason TRIM doesn't work. What adapter do you have?

It's a cheap eBay adapter (Silicon Image SIL-3132). According to an earlier thread TRIM doesn't work with all 3rd party SATA adapters. Moving the SSD to an internal drive bay (using a 3.5" to 2.5" adapter) however should solve the problem.

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Not sure if this solves your problem, you can check out the Multi-Mount drive from OWC HERE.

Yeah, that's it!
Until I read the following....

The 2.5" to 3.5" bracket is designed for use with the 3.5" to 5.25" bracket or in bays where standard, separate connection cables are used. Compatible with side mounted bays. Not compatible with front mounted bays like those in the Mac Pro.

Hehe... I seem to have figured out the SSD+HDD adapter bracket thing myself in that previous thread of mine

 

[pastrychef]

Ah. The SIL-3132 doesn't use built-in drivers...

ASM1061 based cards, also very cheap (often under $20 on Ebay), probably cheaper than the OWC bracket. It's bootable, uses OS X built-in drivers, and shouldn't have any problems with enabling TRIM.

 

[ybz90]

Yea that would do it. SI controllers work fine but they're pretty low-end; I think I have one in a PATA drive for my PowerBook since they're pretty much the only PATA SSD out there (the merits and worthwhileness of which are debatable in the first place).

Do you have free PCI-e slots? Velocity Solo cards work very well and they have dual and single SSD cards. They are SATA 6Gbps out of the box and I get pretty good read/write speeds (~400MB/s) on an admittedly midrange Toshiba SSD. Even if you get the single, there's a second SATA header you can use. That could free up up that optical bay for just a 3.5".

 

[funwithdesign]

Not compatible with front mounted bays like those in the Mac Pro.

That statement on the OWC page is slightly misleading. What they are talking about is that the adapter will not work in the 4 hard drive bays on the MacPro. They call them front loading for some reason.

The multi-mount adapter works in the MacPro's optical bay no problem. lots of people are using it on this forum. In fact in the gallery for that adapter on OWC's page it shows it installed in the MacPro optical cage.

 

[macstatic]

The multi-mount adapter works in the MacPro's optical bay no problem. lots of people are using it on this forum. In fact in the gallery for that adapter on OWC's page it shows it installed in the MacPro optical cage.

Thanks for clearing that up. I now have two options it seems: replace my existing drive bracket adapter or replace my PCIe SATA card.
As for the latter, I looked it up on eBay resulting in this and this among others. It says various Windows flavors are supported, but there's no mention of OSX/Mac at all. Still, it would work fine in a Mac Pro 5.1 without any drivers?

 

[ybz90]

Thanks for clearing that up. I now have two options it seems: replace my existing drive bracket adapter or replace my PCIe SATA card.
As for the latter, I looked it up on eBay resulting in this and this among others. It says various Windows flavors are supported, but there's no mention of OSX/Mac at all. Still, it would work fine in a Mac Pro 5.1 without any drivers?

These use the ASM1061 chipset, which should be okay. I know of people who have used these but there have also been reports of problems including slow speeds.

If I were you, I'd just get the Velocity Solo X1 -- http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=848709&Q=&is=REG&A=details

~$40 shipped from B&H and no tax unless you live in NY/NJ.