Which is faster - Thunderbolt or PCI SSD?

[pianoman88]

I sold my MacPro 5,1 a couple of years ago and purchased a 1012 mac mini server. It's served me well - especially the thunderbolt port (two 840 Pro SSDs Raid 0) - but it's starting to slow down now that I've begin working in Premiere Pro CS 6.

I found a MacPro 5,1 locally for a good price. The only thing holding me back is the SSDs. What PCI cards would you recommend? I'm starting out with 2 SSDs with 30% free space so I anticipate adding a second card.

What kind of speeds will I see, compared to Thunderbolt 1?

Thanks

 

[MassMacMan]

I have a 4.1 -> 5.1 early 2009 Mac Pro with 2 SSDs, both mounted in an Apricorn Duo sled. On sale now with rebate, they run about $100. I get about 450-500 Mb/sec R/W speeds on either SSD.

They're not running as a RAID array, and both Thunderbolt and PCIe cards can run almost twice as fast in an array.

 

[Pressure]

The new SSUBX Appple SSD will get you around 1,500MB/s read and write from a single disk and the $9 Sintech PCIe adaptor. As an added bonus you get Native TRIM support.

 

[Kniteman77]

The new SSUBX Appple SSD will get you around 1,500MB/s read and write from a single disk and the $9 Sintech PCIe adaptor. As an added bonus you get Native TRIM support.

Do you have a link to a relevant source or info there?

I'm coming up blank when I google "SSUBX Apple SSD"

 

[mikeboss]

Do you have a link to a relevant source or info there?

I'm coming up blank when I google "SSUBX Apple SSD"

it's all in this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1685821/

 

[brentsg]

The Thunderbolt scenario will wind up being bottle necked by the drive's SATA interface.

 

[dmylrea]

A single SSD will perform the same in an external thunderbolt case or via a PCI-e add-in card.

Thunderbolt is a faster "pipe", so if you were talking an array of multiple SSD's, you could get faster speed from Thunderbolt, since it has more capacity.

 

[Kniteman77]

it's all in this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1685821/

Thanks mikeboss! This is _exactly_ what I was looking for.

Now I just have to figure out if it's worth the extra $ on top of the Samsung 850 + Velocity Duo x2 solution to this problem. Really wish Samsung would just come out with the SM1715 already.

Still have a huge to do list for these MacPro's I'm trying to mod.

Got working ram that isn't messing with the fan speeds, and I'll have the firmware flashed from 4,1 to 5,1 by the end of the day. Still need to get some washers to space out the heat-spreaders on the 6 core 3.33 ghz Xeons I've got, and figure out if I want to go with the R7950's I've got lying around or buy 2 GeForce 980's. Tearing resistors off the back of 300+ dollar graphics cards is a pretty big mental hurdle.

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A single SSD will perform the same in an external thunderbolt case or via a PCI-e add-in card.

Thunderbolt is a faster "pipe", so if you were talking an array of multiple SSD's, you could get faster speed from Thunderbolt, since it has more capacity.

IIRC Thunderbolt is basically a 2.0 PCI Express 4x lane wrapped in some additional stuff to allow for the daisy chaining and addressing multiple devices on the same bus.

 

[MacVidCards]

A single SSD will perform the same in an external thunderbolt case or via a PCI-e add-in card.

Thunderbolt is a faster "pipe", so if you were talking an array of multiple SSD's, you could get faster speed from Thunderbolt, since it has more capacity.

Completely, 100% incorrect.

TB2 limits a single SM951 to a lower speed than if placed in a 2009-12 cMP.

You'll get 1,200-1,300 in TB2, and 1,500 in a slot.

Barefeats found same numbers I did. The lie of TB2 is exposed.