Mac Pro (Mid 2012) - max size for SSD

There are several different types of SSD that could be used.

Option 1 the easiest is to get a SATA SSD drive and as others have mentioned a 3.5" to 2.5" adapter and then you can fit it in one of the standard drive bays.

Contrary to what people have said here it is possible to upgrade the drive bays from the original SATA II to SATA III, it is merely that it is not really cost effective to do so. You need to first get special replacement drive sleds as per https://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_ ID=189&ParentCat=351 and you also need to get a PCIe SATA III controller card which has a mini-SAS internal connector e.g. https://www.startech.com/uk/Cards-Adapters/HDD-Controllers/SATA-Cards/PCI-Expres s-SATA-III-RAID-Controller-Card-Mini-SAS…

So, using a SATA SSD drive in one of the bays is option 1.

Option 2a would be to get a standard M2 connector AHCI PCIe SSD drive and a PCIe adapter card like this https://www.amazon.com/Lycom-DT-120-PCIe-Adapter-Support/dp/B00MYCQP38/

Option 2b would be to get a standard M2 connector NVME PCIe SSD drive and the same PCIe adapter as above. NVME is a newer standard than AHCI and NVME is specifically designed for SSD drives, however whilst you should be able to use such a drive as a data drive you may not be able to use it as a boot drive.

Option 3 would be to get a similar PCIe adapter designed specifically for Apple's own proprietary connector AHCI PCIe SSD drive. See http://www.microsatacables.com/apple-2013-2015-macbook-pro-air-ssd-to-pci-e-1x-a dapter

This would let you use a genuine Apple SSD drive as originally fitted in an iMac or MacBook Pro 2015 or MacBook Air.

Option 4 would be to get a PCIe SATA card on to which you can directly attach a standard SATA SSD drive, these cards are SATA III so you also avoid the limitation of the standard internal drive bays only being SATA II. See https://www.apricorn.com/upgrades/vel-solox2

Option 5 would be to get the Amfeltec Squid card and up to four AHCI PCIe SSD drives, by using RAID0 i.e. striping across all four drives you can get four times the speed of just one drive and also it combines them so that 4x1TB drives would also give you a total of 4TB of capacity. See http://barefeats.com/hard210.html and http://amfeltec.com/squid-pci-express-carrier-boards-for-m-2-ssd-modules/?view=l ist

Option 1, 2a, 3 and 4 can be used for boot drives, as mentioned I do not believe Option 2b can used for booting and I am not sure about Option 5.

If you did upgrade the internal drive bays to SATA III as described above then it would still allow booting with a SATA SSD drive.

PS. I believe there are no size i.e. capacity limits on the Mac Pro that would apply, so if you can find a 2TB or bigger drive it should work. The Apple proprietary PCIe SSD drive has only ever shipped in up to 1TB capacity so obviously that means you can only get and use a 1TB module.

They can take 2 TB. The main concern is the cooling of the SSD. Also the speed of the SATA bus can't be upgraded. Most drives have the ability to connect to the built in temperature sensor. http://www.macsales.com/ is an old Mac hardware company that likely knows which SSDs will work.

A friend is using a 960GB PNY CS2100SSD in Bay1 with TRIM support and has no problems -- been using it for more than a year. Don't think there is any real limit as far as what will work technically as long as it doesn't exceed the electrical limits of the SATA port or the PCI bus if you go that route. Also would recommend getting a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter that will let you mount it to the drive tray in a Mac Pro system. And make sure the drive has TRIM support and you enable in operating system (see "man forcetrim" terminal command). Only official Apple SSD drives come with TRIM enabled by default as far as I know.

Good luck...

Hi,

i cannot tell anything about special limits fot ssd in you mp 5.1, but in my mp 5.1 i have a 8tb disc as boot drive for osx. Works perfect.

The two tb discs, the ram capacity of 64gb, the video cards that are mentioned in your link are the biggest configurations apple has sold for this machine, but all of them is not the technical limit.

greetings from germany

Chris

I think you meant to say:

sudo trimforce enable

or for more info:

man trimforce

.

Oops -- sorry about that. Dang dyslexia...😉

Thanks for noting that...

Hey John Lockwood--

What you posted looks like the heart of what should be a User Tip, especially if you ever find yourself writing the same information again.