Q: A1247 Apple RAID card compatibility

I'm researching of upgrade my Mac Pro 3.1 (2008) as it has slow SATA-II connection and now it works very slow on OS X 10.11.6. So, I looked for buying RAID card. But understand that it is SATA-II compatible, not SATA-III.

Also, I don't understand difference between hardware RAID and software raid included in OS X. I have speed up with soft-RAID 0.

Returning to your question.

It is surely uncompatible. And I think it is because of two reasons:

1. It is SATA-II (but Mac Pro 2010 has SATA-III).
2. It has the iPass cable. Someway it maybe incompatible with newest Mac Pro's.

The Apple RAID cards are only needed for RAID 5. Their batteries have been troublesome. You should not be looking to the Apple RAID card to speed up your Mac. it will not solve the problem of slowness and will give you a world of different problems.

The first step to speed up a Mac running 10.11 is to be sure you have more than 4GB of RAM, which in the case of 10.11 does improve overall performance. For Mac Pro 2006 through 2008   1,1 2,1  and 3,1 which use FBDIMMs, filling all slots with properly working pairs of modules switches the RAM to double-wide, and returns about a 17 percent speedup in RAM access (which is good, but not game-changing).

The second easy thing to look at is getting an SSD for the Boot drive. The minutia of whether you have SATA II or SATA III does NOT make a tangible difference in operation day-to-day. Just putting an ordinary SSD in a SATA II drive bay as your Boot drive will speed up your Mac in every way. If you can also move to a Boot drive plus additional Data drive organization, that will make a modest additional improvement, as fewer tasks compete for the boot drive.

User Tip: Creating a lean, fast Boot Drive

Sometimes posting an EtreCheck report will highlight something that is not right in the setup of your Mac. Readers will be happy to go over it looking for known troubles. It is not definitive, but can sometimes point out issues you may not have seen.

I already have SSD, read - 250, write 150. But it was about 300-400 on SATA-III. So, I'm sure I have to buy RocketRAID controller with SATA-III to use it as single drive, instead of RAID. And it will give me speed and will work with BootCamp.

Also, I didn't understand your article.

I'm not using my HOME directory. I use other HDD for my data. Are there any reasons to move HOME directory if it is almost empty?

Get a PCIe-based blade SSD.

AgentVideo.ru wrote:

 

I already have SSD, read - 250, write 150. But it was about 300-400 on SATA-III. So, I'm sure I have to buy RocketRAID controller with SATA-III to use it as single drive, instead of RAID. And it will give me speed and will work with BootCamp.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6852207

Hmm, i will think about this idea. But it is too expensive, i think.

I would like to buy RAID card (HighP. RocketRaid) which will give me up to 6 SATA-III ports and more. Then I can use any SSD or HDD at full power.

Also, will the system boot from such disk? And if it works in BootCamp.

By the way, I don't like idea to use SSD for data, I'm little bit worry that they can stop working in any moment and no way to save data.

This line of PCIe blade SSDs

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDPHWE2R480/

are bootable for Mac and for BootCamp is bootable in slot 3

This line of PCIe cards with standard 2 1/2 inch SSD are not Boot Camp bootable

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDACL6GE480/

So, I should choose not standard 1/2 SSD to use with it,

but only (looks-like flash-drive) PCIe small SSD's (as I understand that means blade)?

There are two kinks of PCIe SD cards. One accepts standard 2 1/2 inch SATA SSDs and allows the Mac Pro tower to access those drives using SATA II speeds in lieu of the slower SATA II speeds of the SATA II bus in the tower Mac Pros.

Some PCIe cards accept a blade SSD and operate faster than SATAII speeds.

I already have SSD, read - 250, write 150.

The no-cost alternative is to be happy with those really good speeds and save your money for something you want more then THE fastest boot drive speeds.

There is not actually a directory whose name is HOME. That term is a shortcut for the directory that appears in the Finder with the little house Icon. Technically:

/Users/<your_user_short_name>

Moving that directory off the boot drive can speed things up by reducing contention for the Boot Drive. If you are already storing most data on another drive, that is exactly what those articles intend to accomplish automatically, once you change the HOME folder location.

AgentVideo.ru wrote:

 

I'm researching of upgrade my Mac Pro 3.1 (2008) as it has slow SATA-II connection and now it works very slow on OS X 10.11.6. So, I looked for buying RAID card. But understand that it is SATA-II compatible, not SATA-III.

 

Also, I don't understand difference between hardware RAID and software raid included in OS X. I have speed up with soft-RAID 0.

 

Returning to your question.

It is surely uncompatible. And I think it is because of two reasons:

1. It is SATA-II (but Mac Pro 2010 has SATA-III).
2. It has the iPass cable. Someway it maybe incompatible with newest Mac Pro's.

No classic Mac Pro has SATA III drive connections, they all have SATA II including the 2010 and 2012 models. As mentioned by others here the fastest upgrade is a PCIe card with a PCIe SSD drive. It is however possible to upgrade the main drive bays to SATA III if you wish although they will still not be as fast as a PCIe SSD.

To do this the steps depend on which model classic Mac Pro you have, as you have a 2008 aka. MacPro3,1 it is actually easier and cheaper. In your case all you need is a PCIe SATA III card and a cable. You unplug the existing miniSAS cable from the Mac Pro logic board, use an extension cable and then connect it to a suitable PCIe SATA III card.

Extension cable - https://eshop.macsales.com/item/MaxUpgrades/SZDCMSASR2MS/

Suitable PCIe card - https://www.startech.com/uk/Cards-Adapters/HDD-Controllers/SATA-Cards/PCI-Expres s-SATA-III-RAID-Controller-Card-Mini-SAS-SFF-8087~PEXSAT34SFF

Another suitable card - https://www.attotech.com/products/adapters/sas-sata/6gb-pcie-30/ESAS-H644-000

This one is a RAID - https://www.attotech.com/products/adapters/sas-sata-raid/6gb/ESAS-R644-000%20ESA S-R644-C00

See - http://blog.macsales.com/12247-upgrade-your-06-08-mac-pros-internal-bays-to-sata -3-0

It is also possible in the 2010 and 2012 models but they require new special drive sleds as well increasing the cost.

Note: A traditional hard disk even if a SATA III drive will not see a noticeable improvement - they are simply too slow, a SATA III SSD drive will however see a big improvement.

PS. The Apple RAID cards are SATA II only and also limited to a maximum drive size of I believe 2.7TB. The card for a 2008 is different to a card for a 2010/12 Mac Pro.