How do I install an SSD drive in an Early 2008 Mac Pro?

I remember getting one of the last form-factor 2.5" adapter for MP 3,1 from OWC few years back. It was around $30. Few weeks later, they are all sold out. I was lucky. Until the shipment arrived, I put the SSD in the drive bay 1 with some temporary support (small wood stick). It stayed fine (but remained somewhat precarious).

Also, I now have this 250GB SSD on optical drive connect. I used one of SATA extension cables that I installed few years ago, splitting power source from ATAPI optical drive (I still retain two). Wasn't sure of the result until I booted, and it worked (as drive 5)! Tucking away was little problematic, as it ended up staying behind optical drives in the maze of wires, but managed to keep air flowing somehow.

I can add another SSD the same way but want to address "tucking" situation first. Am now thinking to put it on top of optical drive - if cables are long enough allow it, that is.

There are replacement drive sleds for the Mac Pro 4,1 and the 5,1 but not the older models like your 3,1.

See - https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MMP35T25/

However the previous suggestion made of getting a 3.5 to 2.5 adapter like this one - https://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/ADPTADRV/ will still work for all classic Mac Pro models.

When I had that Mac Pro model I had installed inside:

two optical drives both Pioneer blu ray

then one optical drive upper bay esata and lower optical bay two SSD

and four hard drives two being SSD.

Total cost to enable this set up was about $30.00

When I inserted the SSD into the normal data spots I did not use a sled of any kind. I used those plastic tie straps and tightened just enough to keep it level. Ran it like that for three years without issue. Total cost of the strap was $1.50

There is one more way not previously mentioned to add ONE SSD to a silver tower Mac Pro. The cost is nothing, and the wonkiness is 100 percent. I tried this in my 2009 model when I had no special sleds on hand, but it looks like it would work for the older models as well.

Install it in bay one with NO sled (press it onto the SATA connector. Then add a block of wood (or any non-conducting material) to prop up the bottom of the drive on the top of the fan assembly immediately below. The block will be thinner than the nominal one inch height a rotating drive would normally occupy. This relieves any stress and supports the drive. It may also act to block airflow from going around the (now nearly empty) bay-1 position.

I left the standard sled out of the machine when I did this, but picture-straighter personalities could place the sled back in the machine if needed.

I stuck one in my 2008 MacPro 3,1. A Crucial 480 gig. I bought a cheap 2.5 to 3.5 adapter carrier and shoehorned it in. It was not as smooth as I would have wished, but it works. As usual OWC has (or had) solutions to this issue. just pick up the parts at MicroCenter. Another option is to put the drive in place of the CD-ROM. Unfortunately the "IO bus" on the older Mac Pro's is slow. Still I figure this will tide me over until my next Social Security check.

I'm guessing your SSD drive is a normal SATA type connection. You can just plug it into any empty drive slot by just inserting it into the SATA connector on the MacPro motherboard. Using one of the 2.5" to 3.5" adapter carriers is only needed if you want to remove the SSD by removing the same aluminum drive bracket as a normal SATA hard drive. SSD drives are so light they easily and securely fit on the SATA connector by themselves without any adapter. One thing I noticed when I did this on my MacPro3,1 system (early 2008) is that the screws from the drive tray might dictate you ever so slightly move the SSD out of the way to allow the tray to be inserted, but it probably depends on the physical size of the SSD drive and where the SATA connector is located in relation to the top edge of the SSD drive itself.

The bottom line in my opinion is the aluminum drive trays are not needed for SSD drives but are for the much heavier traditional hard drives.

Good luck...

As the others said, a replacement sled is not necessary, only a size adapter. I used this one:

NewerTech AdaptaDrive 2.5" to 3.5" Drive Converter Bracket

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

I got it on sale for around $11, but the regular price is still much less than if you get an entire drive sled that fits a 2.5" drive.

In my case it needed no adjustments, just took a few minutes to install the drive on adapter and the adapter in your existing sled, then just slide it in.

What does a "size adapter" do? I guess it would be needed if you really want to use the aluminum drive trays that are used for normal hard drives, but the SSD drives are so light and such a tight fit onto the SATA connector they seem redundant to me.

My SSD just inserted right out of the box with nothing extra needed into the SATA port on the motherboard. When I first did this I was a bit skeptical, thinking that the SSD might just "fall" out over time with being used. But further contemplation made this seem to be of little likelihood, since there is no physical motion of any kind going on inside the SSD to potentially jar it loose.

The SSD is easily removed and inserted without any sort of tray attachment at all. Just hold on to the edges of the SSD itself and use a small amount of force to either insert or remove

Just hanging the SSD by its SATA connector with no support underneath is inviting trouble since vibration or bumping the tower could caue with the time the SSD slowly moving out and then when it fal out it could damage the connector on the logic board.

Indeed, if there's one thing about electronics it's that I don't like straining connectors ever. Having it fall out in the middle of a read/write would not be a good thing for data integrity.

As Network 23 said a drive adapter like the NewerTech one is the easiest solution, I have one of these as well. However as librarian7 said the built-in drive bays of not only the 2008 Mac Pro but also the 2009, 2010, and 2012 models are a limiting factor. This is because all the classic Mac Pros only have SATA II drive bays which are limited to 3Gbps speed. For an SSD you would get better performance if you had SATA III which is potentially twice as fast.

Therefore the best way to fit an SSD to a classic Mac Pro is not in the internal drive bays but instead to buy a PCIe adapter. You can either get a PCIe adapter which supports SATA III allowing the use of an existing SATA style SSD drive like the following.

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

http://www.apricorn.com/vel-solox2.html

Or you can get a newer even faster type of SSD which does not use the SATA interface at all but is itself a PCIe device, these typically use a connector standard called M2. The following would be examples.

http://www.amazon.com/Lycom-DT-120-PCIe-Adapter-Support/dp/B00MYCQP38

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempopcie3ssd.html

Svenisak wrote:

I find John Lockwoods suggestions especially interesting. Although right now, I'm looking for a fast and cheap solution. It's definitely something to keep in mind for future when high capacity (2Tb) SSDs comes down in price. One question, though. Can these be used as bootable system drives. OSX is known to be a bit particular about the bootdrives.

As far as I can see all the ones I listed do support booting in to OS X at least as long as you don't have a Mac Pro 1,1 or 2,1. There is some information about boot support on those links. It looks like in some case you need to install a Windows driver which would either have to be slipstreamed in to the installer or installed before you swap the SSD to this card. This appears to apply to the Apricorn one for example.

I was offended by the prices of adapters several years ago. They were MUCH higher then. So I worked out some methods to do it myself.

First was to remove the drive from its sheet metal "can" and place only the circuit card directly on the slot connector. I did this initially with my first SSD, a 32GB model, which had a connector and ONE chip. There was negligible weight and a very small lever arm, and it worked for a long time (but eventually 32GB was just not big enough for anything).

The next experiment was to remove all the captive screws from a sled, and add one DVD-Mounting screw with a washer under the head in the one screw position that lines up. (You need to hold the Drive connector towards the left edge of the sled, as Installed.) I added double-stick tape under the other screw position on the same side, and wiggled the drive-with-sled into position. It worked OK when the adjacent slot was empty, but can be troublesome when the adjacent bay is filled, because you can't see to push it into alignment.

One concept is to make a drive-sized piece of sheet metal, bolt it to the drive, and bolt that to the sled. Only the left side bolts would interfere with this approach. Or reduce to a smaller (about 2-in by 4-in) metal rectangle with nuts and bolts to support the far edge of the drive on a standard sled.

I was tempted to take a wrap of duct tape around the drive and sled, but the slides in the enclosure need to grip the outer 1/2-in of the sled, so no tape can be in that area.

I know it's just a piece of machined metal, but we pay for stuff like that all the time. I've got cables and adapters that cost more than $15 each. A dinner entree that lasts less than 20 minutes often costs more than $15. It also depends on whether a home-built solution would cost more than $15 of one's time, depending on what tools and materials are readily available.

I figured, it's my data we're talking about and it's basically nothing compared to the cost of the Mac Pro itself. And it's much cheaper than most replacement Mac Pro drive sleds.

But each of us makes our own decisions on this, and that's OK.