Adding USB 3.0 or card reader to old Mac Pro?

I wanted to ask if there was any way to add a USB 3.0 or SD card reader PCIe card to my Mac Pro 1,1? I kinda already looked into it, but there's so many brands and choices, plus 3rd party drivers I'd have to install and I'm just really stuck at this point.


Has anyone here actually added USB 3.0 or card reader to their motherboard and actually gotten it to work with external drives or any peripherals? I need some suggestions on products, instructions, drivers, anything really.


I don't want to take out the two eSATA PCIe cards already attached unless I can for sure buy something that will work out of the box and install easily and work reliably. I don't need both, just one or the other would majorly help my workflow.


Also, any suggestions on a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter to attach my SSD to a drive sled would also be helpful. Right now my SSD is just plugged directly into my #2 SATA port and holding itself up (it's super light BTW, so no risk of damage in my mind).


Specs:

Mac Pro 1,1

OS X 10.7.5 Lion

Dual Intel Xeon 5160 @ 3.00 Ghz

16 GB DDR2 667 RAM

ATI Radeon 5770 Sapphire

240 GB Sandisk SSD Plus (boot/app drive) & 3 TB 7200 RPM Toshiba HDD (file storage)


Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Mar 25, 2016 12:10 PM

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5 replies

Mar 25, 2016 4:12 PM in response to kyrjbsqr

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Another card that would work is the first-generation CalDigit USB 3/eSATA card but it will take some time to find one. They can sometimes be found on eBay. It needs to be the first version of the card, because the newer one only works with 10.8.2 and above. If there is a decent picture of the card in the listing, look for a 2010 date on the card.

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Adding USB 3.0 or card reader to old Mac Pro?

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