are there PCI thunderbolt cards for mac pro 3.1?

Warren,

Thanks... I didn't realize there was the Thunderbolt -> Firewire adapter... so that makes sense... at least that is a definite workable solution... as you say, I give up some significant performance not being able to utilize USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt... but certainly workable... I'll test that out a bit both headless and not with my MacBook Pro.

If you plan to use the older MacPro as if it's a hard drive for any length of time, it might be better to pull the drives and put them into a JBOD (just a bunch of disks) USB3 or Thunderbolt enclosure. Either should give you better speed and, perhaps more importantly, lower power use (reducing your power bill).

-Warren

I definitely get that, it's just those enclosures, at least the Thunderbolt ones, cost around $400 for a 4 drive enclosure... so my original question was simply is there a way to re-purpose the MacPro and save $400...

Why are PCI cards available for PC's then? Intel specifically began pushing PCI thunderbolt cards last year for the PC. I would love to get a thunderbolt card into my old MacPro so that I could future proof my peripheral purchases.

Show me a Thunderbolt card for a PC that adds Thunderbolt capability. I have seen PC Thunderbolt cards that can add Thunderbolt ports to a computer that has Thunderbolt built into the logic board.

Those cards, for ASUS and Dell, were for system motherboards that had support already.

Went chasing down some links - may have been in this very thread, earlier.

It was a different thread. About 2-3 weeks ago or so