installing ssd into mac pro

There are no flex cables involved. The connector on the drive must mate with the connector on the backplane board in the 2009 through 2012 Mac Pro.

To do that, the left side of the drive must align with the left side of the sled (as installed) for the connectors to line up. The US$5 adapters just give you 2 little rails -- that does NOT suffice to line up the connector flush left.

The holes in these 2.5" drives are sized for DVD-reader mounting screws (3mm metric). The screws in the Sled are Hard drive mounting screws (SAE #6-32).

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If you are handy (and cheap) you can remove the left side screws from a standard sled and use one DVD mounting screw, a washer, and some double-stick tape to mount the drive to the left side of the sled, as far back as it will go. It will be difficult, but not impossible to get it into position and get the connector to mate (a bright light helps a lot).

Since it does not vibrate, you could also put it in the Optical drive bay.

Or you can pay the US$20 and be thankful there is a way that does not cost a lot more.

OWC said in "help line" conversation about an hour ago they said this is what I needed for my $85.99 Samsung 840 EVO 120GB SSD to fit correctly in my Mac Pro 1,1.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/ADPTADRV/

I ordered it:

Sub-Total: $14.50

Tax: $0.00

Shipping Freight: $3.59

Grand-Total: $18.09

Good luck.

John

The sleds and adapters are unique to the 2009 through 2012 Mac Pro, and fit no other computers that I know of. Mac Pro 2006 through 2008 use a sled with different spacing, and require different solutions. PCs use completely different setups.

Trans International also sells a replacement sled with 2.5 and 3.5 fingers, for a bit more money. (One model fits ONLY 2009 through 2012, another fits ONLY 2006 through 2008):

http://www.transintl.com/2-5-hard-drive-sled-for-mac-pro.html

If you are using it for the system, then go ahead using the native SATA drive bays.

If using for Aperture, Lightroom catalogue/library; or using for scratch, then consider putting one or two SSDs on controller card like Sonnet Tempo SSD Pro or others.

And 1TB Samsung 840 EVO is a mere $525, 500GB was $289 over the weekend. RAID can help those uses but not the system. But some programs will use the system boot drive no matter what (plug-ins) and require about 80GB of space or more. Therefore for CS6 and CC I would get larger SSD, otherwise 120GB is often all anyone needs. Enough for system and 5GB user home library takes very little room unless you have large application suite.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E3W19MO/

Google this: 'OWC MountPro'

I've used it and it fits perfectly in 2009-2012 Mac Pro.

As Studio K suggests, check out this at OWC. Since you have a 5,1 Mac Pro, it should fit as perfectly in yours as it does in mine.