USB 3.0 Mac Pro 2008 El Capitan

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/allegrousb3pcie4port.html

http://www.caldigit.com/Fasta-6GU3pro/

Not that I know of There are less expensive ones but they only work with Mavericks and older.

FrancescoMacPro wrote:

It's possible something less expensive?

The SonnetTech card specifically says it is El Capitan compatible and previously they also confirmed it was Yosemite compatible. The CalDigit card does not specifically say so you might want to double check that but they are a Mac specialist supplier so should be up to speed.

In terms of a cheaper card there is this one. See http://www.inateck.com/pci-e-card-usb-expansion-for-mac-pro-kt4004/

They (Innateck) have as you will see if you read the details on that page specifically said it is not compatible with Yosemite or higher. However certainly with regards to Yosemite many, many people have said it worked fine for them, for example Amazon reviews of this card. I seem to remember one person suggesting the slot you put it in may make a difference. So this card is a cheaper card, it uses almost exactly the same components as the SonnetTech Allegro card, it does not come with a driver but relies on the built-in driver in OS X, it officially is not supported for Yosemite or El Capitan.

Being quite cheap it might be worth a punt.

Another option to consider is that USB3.1 cards are now coming on to the market. These are backwards compatible with USB3 and USB2. People have used them successfully in a Mac Pro but again this is not officially supported. See this as an example http://www.asrock.com/mb/spec/card.asp?Model=USB%203.1/A%2BC

The CalDigit card lllaass linked to does work with El Capitan. I'm using one on a 2010 Mac Pro. I imagine it'll work with a 2008 Mac Pro but you should call CalDigit directly if you're interested in one. Note that while USB 3.0 connections are supported, booting from one isn't. Booting is supported with an eSATA connection.

Got this nanoTECH' 4 Port card , work out of box with my Mac Pro 4,1 running El Capitan , nice quality & pretty fast performance , shipping is fast too, just a week from Hong Kong to UK 😁

http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-Port-SuperSpeed-USB-3-0-PCIe-Card-Apple-Mac-Pro-Native -OSX-10-8-2-10-11-x-/262144029569?hash=item3d09007381

I also bought one of these Nano Tech cards. Mine is in an early 2009 Mac Pro. I have been having problems with all the devices plugged into the card unmounting each time my Mac goes to sleep and then reconnecting when it wakes along with the warnings about the drives being disconnected improperly. Last night I tried to run a scan on a drive to recover some accidentally deleted music file using Data Rescue 4. About 2 minutes into the scan the drive would unmount/disconnect. After retrying and having this happen three times in a row I moved my USB 3 drive dock to my built-in USB 2 port and had no further problems scanning and recovering the files. Have you had any similar issues with your card and drives unmounting/disconnecting on their own? As a step of troubleshooting, I recently wiped my boot drive and installed 10.11.2 from scratch. I have not even added any third party software yet, so I know there is no software conflict contributing to the problem.

Inateck model KT4004, Amazon ASIN B00I027GPC not expensive and works. My friend run it in his 2008 eight core Mac Pro with EC.

Hi! Did the Inatek KT4004 actually work for you under Yosemite or El Capitan? The manufacturer clearly states that it's not compatible with these OS's, and I'm looking for a USB3 card for my 2008 Mac Pro as well. Thanks!

MyKidsDad wrote:

Hi! Did the Inatek KT4004 actually work for you under Yosemite or El Capitan? The manufacturer clearly states that it's not compatible with these OS's, and I'm looking for a USB3 card for my 2008 Mac Pro as well. Thanks!

I don't have one of these cards myself but have seen some comments elsewhere about it.

Inatek still do not officially support anything later than Mavericks 10.9.5 for this card, as far as I recall Inatek have not detailed why. It could be to do with a known issue of unmounting of external drives when waking from sleep or something more substantial. I also seem to recall at least one user comment suggesting that which slot you put it in in a Mac Pro might have an effect with most people saying they have no problems in Yosemite. I have seen no comments about this card and El Capitan.

For what its worth I recently came across this http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-Port-SuperSpeed-USB-3-0-PCIe-Card-Apple-Mac-Pro-Native -OSX-10-8-2-to-10-11-x-/262144029569?has… which like the Inatek card does not need an additional power cable or an additional driver. It also claims compatibility with both Yosemite and El Capitan.

El Capitan however is known for rendering a lot more PCIe cards incompatible, even USB3.1 cards, yes 3.1 that previously worked fine in Yosemite with the built-in Apple drivers no longer work at all. For example this Asrock card worked in Yosemite using the built-in Apple driver although only at USB 3.0 and no longer works in El Capitan. See http://www.asrock.com/mb/spec/card.asp?Model=USB%203.1/A%2BC

I therefore have become a lot more paranoid about compatibility of USB PCIe cards for the classic Mac Pro. The only one I know of which currently ships with an official El Capitan compatible driver rather than relying on the built-in Apple drivers are the Sonnet ones. (The driver is supplied by Sonnet and presumably written by them.)

See http://www.sonnettech.com/product/allegrousb3pcie4port.html

and http://www.sonnettech.com/product/allegroprousb3pcie.html

Note: The first Sonnet card has a single USB3 bus which the four ports share and is I believe therefore more similar to other such cards on that basis, but the second card has four separate buses which would provide greater performance especially with USB3 external drives. The second card also visually looks more similar to the eBay one I listed although it is different and I have no idea if the eBay one has four buses or not.

Thank you for the detailed reply! I appreciate that very much!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-Port-SuperSpeed-USB-3-0-PCIe-Card-Apple-Mac-Pro-Nati ve-OSX-10-8-2-to-10-12-x-/252170465748

I know this is a little late but this card works absolutely fine in my 2008 pro, nice and cheap too! Now supports Sierra too, but works fine in El Capitan.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-Port-SuperSpeed-USB-3-0-PCIe-Card-Apple-Mac-Pro-Native- OSX-10-8-2-to-10-12-x-/252170465748?

I know this is a little late but this card works fine in my 2008 pro El Capitan. Nice and cheap too !

Inateck model KT4004: "This PCI-E Card is incompatible with Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite or Above"

I purchased it and it does not work, every time the MacPro stops the disks are ejected and an error message appears.

Read also this discussion in the Apple Forum:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7429897?start=0&tstart=0

It seems there are no USB3 card compatible with El Capitan.