DCBassman
macrumors 65816
The reason I asked is that I did the same. Installed MX on a USB3-NVMe case, and once installed, it was invisible as a boot device. Hmmm...
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ToniCH
macrumors 65816
Cannot help you with that, I boot from the internal drive and have not tried any Linux on the Trashcan. EDIT: infact it had Ubuntu, when I bought it but it also had an Apple drive.
Which NVMe -drive are you using? Not all work perfectly with Macs. Mine are Samsung 970 EVO Pluses. Some of this model did not work with the factory original firmware but they received update later on which fixed the issue.
Also, what firmware/Boot ROM does your MP 6,1 have? It must be upgraded to certain level to enable NVMe bootability.
Read this: Mac Pro PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI at MacRumors
And: Mac Pro 6,1 "Trashcan" NVMe SSD Upgrade Guide at Reddit
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DCBassman
macrumors 65816
Hmm, odd. Rechecked the drive right down to basics and found I'd not partitioned it correctly. Reinstalled MX on it, then plugged it into the MP. Nothing. Appears in Disk Utility. Not a clue. Although it seems unlikely, I will try another cable.
I'd add that I used the MP to make the original install. I'd previously done this using a 256GB flash drive, and that works well. So I didn't think there's be a problem...Edit to add it's a Samsung PM991 drive. Cannot find anything that says this is a problem. EditEdit: Oh yes I can. Totally incompatible! Oh well, back to non-Mac machines for this one!
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ToniCH
macrumors 65816
Did you check what boot rom your MP6,1 currently has? The newest one is 481.0.0.0.0.
Now that I said that I don't have a thunderbolt case I made a search once again in local classifieds and there was a 3xPCIe to thunderbolt -expansion case for sale for less than the usual single NVMe tb cases sell. Bought it as I do have several NVMe to PCIe cards and one is even a switch so super fast. I'll report back when I get it running and see if it is worth what I paid for it. 😎
Now that I said that I don't have a thunderbolt case I made a search once again in local classifieds and there was a 3xPCIe to thunderbolt -expansion case for sale for less than the usual single NVMe tb cases sell. Bought it as I do have several NVMe to PCIe cards and one is even a switch so super fast. I'll report back when I get it running and see if it is worth what I paid for it. 😎
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DCBassman
macrumors 65816
After a rehash between machines, I have MX running on an mSATA SSD in a standard USB3 caddy, and that works well enough.
DCBassman
macrumors 65816
Yes, it's up to date.
What's odd is that the NVMe drive, if erased to APFS as a storage drive, works as expected. I just cannot get it to be a viable OS boot.
ToniCH
macrumors 65816
But, if you already found out that the drive is uncompatible then there is little point in thinking about it. It probably doesn't become compatible no matter how many times you try it. Someone has already done all the testing and determined it being one of those that do not fully work with Macs.
Minghold
macrumors 6502a
I've lately come to realize that an anomalous percentage of my favorite machines in my Mac collection are 2013 models. My favorite 13" MBP models, favorite 27" iMac, etc. That particular year seemed to have the least hardware defects among the last three decades. (2014 began the long, slow slide from the apex: the incredibly slow 1.x ghz "cripple-chips" appeared in all the bottom-rung entrees, and the 15.4" MBPs had bad speakers. And that awful, flaking anti-glare screen-coating that screamed deliberate planned-obsolence.)
MacInTO
macrumors 68000
I still cannot believe they put those 1.x ghz chips in machines. I think I've seen them in 2014 mac minis.
I'm a Mac Pro fan also - especially with two cinema displays connected! I have the 6-core model with 64GB RAM and have no complaints. I'm doing mostly photo editing so I barely tax the machine. I also like my 2012 15" MBP with the matte/high res display. I also have the little brother, a 2012 mac mini with the same processor.
tresni
macrumors newbie
Can confirm the 1.x ghz chips in 2014 mac minis. I have 4 of them that are still kicking around doing light server loads. Only major drawback, 3 of them only have 4GB of RAM and I _really_ wish they had significantly more... Would make it much easier to run some of the game servers my family wants me to run.
Minghold
macrumors 6502a
2014 was when Appke began crippling it's own hardware, and 2019 is when they began crippling the software that ran on it. Case in point: The bottom-rung "library-grade" 21.5" 2014 iMac had 8gb ram, a 1.4ghz i5, and a 500gb 5400rpm drive that adequately ran an HFS+ operating system. It had the same, albeit slightly brighter, screen as the demonstrably faster, half-decade older 2009 21.5" iMac with a 7200rpm drive and user-upgradable ram. The only advantage the 2014 had was USB3 ports and faster wifi.
Apple withheld from Mojave the necessary kexts to run on the 2009-2011 DVD-model series, and this took the community many years to figure out (with the obviously compromised Opencore team then distancing themselves from after v0.43). Mojave (debuted late 2018) default clean-installed into an APFS file-system, which drastically slowed down machines with rotational or Fusion drives even further -- but at least Mojave could run from HFS+ if later cloned to it with a third-party tool, introduced dark-mode, helping the things use less energy while being easier on the eyes. A year later, Catalina made APFS mandatory, and also deprecated 32bit, eliminating about the only software that would launch and run fast on those cripple-chips.
Almost immediately, people were dumping their formerly $1,199 21.5" iMacs on Marketplace for under $100. In another few years, I'm snapping them up from recyclers for twenty apiece, and all they need is Mojave cloned into an HFS+ partition to perk them back up. (But Apple cynically made Catalina an upgrade path, ensuring that most of them came to rest with an unusable OS that killed their favorite software.)
The bottom-rung 2014 Macbook Airs with 1.4ghz chips did a lot better due to their SSDs, but 4gb soldered ram limited them to casual use once 32bit was deprecated. Mojave with Mowiji runs nicely on these; at least they'll be able to run a modern browser, Peggle Nights, CS6, and various music software, which is all most people want out of a laptop.
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JulianStaples
macrumors regular
Back to #trashcanchat, I think I'll be doing some re-pasting/cleaning this weekend. It was already idling a little hotter than seemed normal, but this last week I'm regular seeing CPU temperatures of 70C+ when it's just sitting there. No weird process spikes in Activity Monitor. CPU/GPUs idling and the RAM pressure as flat as the screenshot I posted before, so I think it's time for a bit of maintenance. 🧑🔧 🫣
ToniCH
macrumors 65816
Yes, it is a good plan to do once in a while.
This is what I am seeing while watching youtube and surfing the forum right now.
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Minghold
macrumors 6502a
What OS? What does Activity Monitor memory consumption look like? What's in your Library/Launch folders? Have you disabled MDS_stores (AKA that pestilent scourge)? What are your MacsFanControl settings?
JulianStaples
macrumors regular
Those are the temps I crave. 😊 I haven't repasted/cleaned it since I picked it up last year tbf. Easy enough for my idiot hands to mess around tearing broken £20 eBay finds apart, more risky with a Mac that's actually worth something. 😅 Still, it's got to be done.
OCLP Sequoia. Activity Monitor is always a flat line as posted before. Everything reads idle in AM. MacsFanControl set to ramp up when the CPU creeps over 60C (using CPU PECI sensor, that might be the wrong one?). Has been running as cool as a cucumber for the last six months with those settings tbf.
To be fair, it seems to have calmed down this evening. Back at 55-60C at idle. Maybe a classic OCLP/indexing issue seeing as I updated to 15.7.5 a few days ago. Will still break out the thermal paste this weekend as a matter of course. Can't hurt to do a bit of maintenance.
Minghold
macrumors 6502a
Even Sequoia, pig that it is, shouldn't be consuming 19.5gb ram at idle. That's over twice what I'd expect. (The flat green line is just telling you that you're not nearing max. Check the Activity Monitor CPU section, and toggle the CPU and threads tabs.)
ToniCH
macrumors 65816
I only cleaned the system and repasted the cpu. I dropped the cpu while doing it and didn't feel like doing the gpus at that point. Haven't revisited it since but my temps seem IMO quite ok. I did't ramp up the fan speeds a bit and modified the trigger points to improve cooling. Additionally I placed the trashcan on a ceramic coaster which lifts it maybe 1.5cm off the table giving a more relaxed path for air to enter the input.
I will repaste the gpus too some day. But as long as they seem to hover at these temps I am not worried. Right now gpu temps are between 38-46°C.
Mine is running Monterey and often consume 20GB or even more. But, I have this funny way of using a browser where I have 150-200+ tabs loaded. They all take memory. I too have 64GB though so plenty free for other tasks.
A quick test:
1. mine was using 25.4GB RAM with the browser on, even though Brave has a memory saving feature for inactive tabs.
2. closed the browser: 12.7GB used
3. reopened the browser: 20.2GB used. So restarting Brave will clean something off the memory space and free some memory (5GB in this case). This used to be the thing I had to do frequently when I was using an iMac with 32GB as the machine clearly got slower. At that time Braves memory saving didn't work as well as it does now and it filled the ram with continued use.
4. EDIT: after reboot with the browser and all those tabs open, email open etc. it is taking 14.8GB or RAM. So, reboot really cleans RAM from stuff. I reboot very rarely, probably have 30 days or more uptime in most situations. Hmmm...funny thing.. Thunderbird used 900 megs of RAM before reboot, now it only takas 475 megs. So, it also has some kind of memory leak or something?
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ToniCH
macrumors 65816
Well, it arrived. Bigger than expected but understandable as it can house 3 PCIe -cards. Unexpectedly it arrived with some kind of video capture card (Blackmagic Intesity Pro). Anyways, I installed an Samsung EVO 970 Pro NVMe using a cheap Silverstone PCIe-adapter. Here are some pics of the box and in the next post I will put comparison between buses. Note: this is a TB2 box.
ToniCH
macrumors 65816
Here is the speed comparison. I will at some stage do a test with my expensive NVMe to PCIe switch card which should give better speed as long as the bus allows it.
So, Samsung EVO 970 Plus and MP 6,1. Internal bus vs external Inateck USB3 case vs. this PCIe to TB2 -case.
So, compared to the USB3 a good improvement but not as fast as the internal bus. I suspect the SilverStone NVMe2PCIe card is the bottleneck here. I am using 2m TB2 cable here which is not ideal, will use a shorter one later on but I need to rearrange my desk a bit to make it fit. I'll post the results with the better adapter card when I get time to dig it out of my cMP.
Was it worth it? Well, yes I think so. I paid 60€ for it used which is reasonable for me. This box has potential, it has the 3 slots and also has 2 TB connectors and supports chaining TB devices. It also has its own PSU so the devices do not use the Trashcans psu. The fan is a bit loud but could be swapped to silent one as it is clearly unnecessary effective to my use. Here are my NVMe drives, the internal one with a good heat sink and the second one in the box without any heat sink.
So, Samsung EVO 970 Plus and MP 6,1. Internal bus vs external Inateck USB3 case vs. this PCIe to TB2 -case.
So, compared to the USB3 a good improvement but not as fast as the internal bus. I suspect the SilverStone NVMe2PCIe card is the bottleneck here. I am using 2m TB2 cable here which is not ideal, will use a shorter one later on but I need to rearrange my desk a bit to make it fit. I'll post the results with the better adapter card when I get time to dig it out of my cMP.
Was it worth it? Well, yes I think so. I paid 60€ for it used which is reasonable for me. This box has potential, it has the 3 slots and also has 2 TB connectors and supports chaining TB devices. It also has its own PSU so the devices do not use the Trashcans psu. The fan is a bit loud but could be swapped to silent one as it is clearly unnecessary effective to my use. Here are my NVMe drives, the internal one with a good heat sink and the second one in the box without any heat sink.
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Amethyst1
macrumors G3
I have the same SSD in a TB2 case attached to my 2015 iMac 4K and get around 1400 MB/s read and write. Is the SSD the only device on that particular TB2 bus (the MP has three buses)? Is it connecting using four PCIe lanes as it should? Check System Profiler > PCI. Is the box connecting at 20 Gb/s (Thunderbolt/USB4 section in System Profiler)? There may have been both a TB1 (10 Gb/s) and a TB2 (20 Gb/s) version of the Magma ExpressBox 3T.
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Minghold
macrumors 6502a
When I use the phrase "at idle" to describe the situation during an Activity Monitor exam, I mean with nothing else running except startup items, after startup (i.e., so nothing is lurking in caches) following a shutdown with the restore box unchecked. I have that utility's icon on the dock, where I can launch it immediately after boot, and watch it for a minute. E.g., my tweaked MacOS "Mojo" (Mojave) settles in at about 1.95gb out of 8gb ram after a minute, and Sonoma with MDS_stores disabled uses about 2.75 of 8.
20gb out of 64 is way too much unless, as noted, a browser with hundreds of tabs is open. But yeah: kill MDS_stores, always, early, often, and everywhere.
Fun note: I sold a R2D2/dome-type iMac the other day, which had MacOS Tiger running in 235mb of 1gb total ram. There were only eleven items running in Activity Monitor (three of which were Dock, Finder, and Activity Monitor itself). The GUI visual aspect of the desktop environment was what I'd call better-looking than most 2026 linux distros, or Monterey onward Mac, or any version of Windows after 7. --Just goes to show that probably 90% of the OS by this point is hidden telemetry, artificial slowdown* routines, and brain-drain slop code.
(* These slowdown lurches come with regularity every other OS or so: System 6 > 7, 8.1 > 8.5, Tiger > Leopard, Slow Leopard > Lion, El Capitan > Sierra, etc., all without improving visual appearance in any noticeable sense after the debut of cat names.)
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Amethyst1
macrumors G3
And the low-end 21.5" 2014/2015 iMacs too. I see them as basically a MacBook Air in a different form factor.
I have booted Jaguar with 32 MB RAM. "Thrashing the hard drive" didn't even begin to describe it.
ToniCH
macrumors 65816
Yes, it is reported as 4x. And the card is a 4x card. This is a weird M.2 to PCIe 4x and Sata 6G adapter (2xM.2 or M.2+Sata -drives). I swapped to another bus but got identical results.
Just noticed your additional question:
It is reported: "device connected, speed max 10Gb/s x 2". And each port on the box itself reports the same (one connected one not). Hmm... I wonder what that means?
The box supports 8x cards though. I will try the Lycom card next, it is a smarter switch type card with 8x support. It was much faster in the cMP than the basic type adapter cards. Lets see in next few days how it goes.
BTW. the fan on this box is a hot swappable and very easy to slide out so I swapped a Noctua 80mm fan in there. Became instantly much quieter. No change in drive temp yet.
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