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970 evo mac pro

Hello all,


Been looking for this info but have not found anything. Im looking to upgrade the SSD in my 2013 Mac Pro (trash can) with a 970 evo (via adapter) I've read that these have been a issue in some earlier macbooks but works fine with 2015 models and up. I know the Mac Pro was pretty future proof so I wanted to see if someone was using this or the 960 evo in their Mac Pro and how's its working out?

Mac Pro, iOS 12.1

Posted on Nov 22, 2018 7:12 PM

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Posted on Nov 23, 2018 6:21 AM

I''ve being using this set up for about two weeks on my late 2013 Mac Pro: my initiation to get it done properly is as follows:

1- Save you data to start because you'll be removing the default Apple internal SSD.

2- just make sure BEFORE swapping the SSD that with High Sierra with all Security updaters or Mojave was installed on that computer before pulling the default SSD. You are trying to get the latest firmware update into that computer.User uploaded file

3- I used the Simtech with the Samsung 970 NVMe placed into it. Seat it properly then only install either High Sierra or Mojave onto that Samsung. Anything earlier is not going to work. Don't even use Disk Utility to try and make it an HFS disk. Not going to do the job.


4- the 2013 Mac Pro boots, sleeps and wakes properly.


5- ASP shows as TRIM = YES. amazing


6- ASP shows link width as 4 another amazing


7- HEAT I used Intel power gadget to measure and the heat difference between the Apple default and this Samsung was one degree, This was placing stress using Handbrake on one full encode. I have not used a heat sink on the Samsung. If you read the Samsung readme found online they spout off about their superior product to control heat. I'm pretty sure heat will not be a big issue especially not using a program such a Handbrake. But if over time it does then I'll just swap in my Apple default. Keep that default around in case you need to make any other firmware update.


Good luck for me so far so good.


ps I did try this on my late 2013 rMBPRO , it took my install but remained screen black but turned on and would not boot. So I pulled it and replaced the Apple default and got it back to normal. I'm thinking that I did not pull the battery connector and that might have caused an SMC problem which I could not clear. I'm going to try it again but I'm not hung up on this one.

61 replies

Mar 5, 2019 7:53 PM in response to DonH49

Sorry it was confusing for you. I'll restate. I was asking a question as to whether anyone else had taken the new NVMe drive, put it in a portable enclosure, CCC'd their current bootable drive image onto it and then put it in the slot in the internal system. That is the only real question. Why I choose to test each NVMe is an internal studio process unrelated to the question; I probably shouldn't have included that.


If no one has done it, I guess I'll report back when I do. Just seemed kinda obvious as a step to explore and discuss instead of rebuilding from scratch as a default - as all these type threads seem to suggest. I don't do Apple migrations either; don't like them. A CCC of the OS drive to a new drive is not a migration in Apple terms; its a hardware bit for bit copy to a new drive. I have done this once and the enclosed Samsung 860 Evo 1TB SATA III did boot from the enclosure. Was a slow boot but was fine. I was just curious if it had been done as a part of this internal replacement process.


Thanks,

Mar 29, 2019 11:49 PM in response to NewOceanRecords

What an awesome thread. Unravelled a lot of confusion for me, and led to the discovery of DriveDx, which is pretty awesome.


My story: Bought a 2nd hand 2013 Mac Pro a few months ago - the previous owner had put a 500GB Samsung 960 EVO in it, although I didn't pay any attention to what SSD it was until today when the Mac Pro started repeatedly getting kernel panics either shortly after startup, or during boot up. Solved by re-seating RAM and SSD and doing an SMC reset (stupidly all at once, so I don't know exactly which action solved the issue).


Until I looked at the SSD I had always assumed it was some Apple-specific pinout SSD like my Late 2013 rMBP has. 500GB was never enough for me but I'd assumed the only option for these 2013 Mac Pros was the OWC AuraX range (which are $$$$ for a 1TB), so I bought a 1TB Barracuda and whacked it into a USB enclosure, and use that to store some of my less performance-intensive audio samples, iTunes library, etc. I thought I'd get 500-600MB/sec out of it and figured that'd be enough - but it turns out you only get 370MB/sec performance via USB enclosures.


So thanks to this awesome thread I can see now that if I really want 1TB of storage at 1300+MB/sec I could upgrade the internal one to a 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD rather than this out-rigger approach I've used (and just knowing that I could be running it all faster, will probably drive me to upgrade it eventually anyway :-p ) ....


BTW, I'm also seeing DriveDx is showing the EVO 960 getting a bit hot when I run BlackMagic disk speed test - that's good to know, I'd better order me a heatsink.


Thanks to everyone for posting such a great amount of information, and thanks to the folks who were happy to be guinea-pigs. I also appreciate the focus on empirical data & answers.


Mar 31, 2019 3:18 PM in response to smashingly

Bugger. My Mac Pro's kernel panics got worse, to the point where it won't even boot. Running Disk Utility in (Internet-downloaded) Recovery Mode shows that the SSD doesn't even appear in the list of attached storage devices. So, to prove that it's the SSD and not something wrong with the Mac Pro, I swapped the SSDs between my Mac Pro and my rMBP (Apple-branded, 1TB). Voila, the problem is the EVO 960 - the rMBP exhibits the same issues with that SSD installed.


The rMBP started first time and I was able to run Recovery Mode (from the SSD, not the Internet) -> Disk Utility and verify that the SSD was present - I even ran First Aid on it. But after hitting Restart, it died shortly after loading the desktop and whilst loading startup apps, etc - heavy load for a boot drive.


Using a thermocouple to measure the temperature of the flash chips on the front-side (label-side) of the SSD, I can see that the chip nearest at the board-connector end gets way hotter than the others - it climbs to a max of 56 ºC (132-133 ºF) whereas the other chips stay at around 30-ish ºC. That max temp remains even after the rMBP has crashed (flashing folder "?" icon on screen), i.e. with no load on the SSD.


The EVO 960 is undoubtedly kaput, and it appears to be temperature-related - 'proven' through the fact that Recovery Mode loads off the SSD (not the Internet) and First Aid can be run on it - but 30-60 sec of boot-up and desktop load-up is too much for it. So my working theory is that the SSD has a temperature-related fault.


The SSD is still under warranty, but as FileVault is not enabled, there's no way I'm gonna send it back to Samsung for warranty replacement - not unless I can find a way of erasing it. I'm thinking that it might be worth buying a heatsink and seeing if I can keep the SSD cool enough for long enough to wipe the SSD. Bit of a long-shot, but at least it would allow me to ship the SSD back to Samsung for replacement without risking my security. If I erase the SSD via Recovery Mode then that'll eliminate the boot-up temperature-ramp that's crashing it out.



May 6, 2019 4:20 PM in response to jackfromlibertyville

I installed a 970 pro in a carrier without heatsink on a 5,1 mac pro and got similar messages. I moved the blade to a carrier with a heatsink and the messages disappeared. For the 6,1 however, you would need a smaller heatsink that attached to the blade. OWC have a really nifty one that also contacts the shell of the mac and radiates heat from the ssd to the outside. It came with one of their 1TB ssds. My client said how come the outside case is getting a bit warmer ? And I said don't worry, thats actually a good thing !

May 10, 2019 5:32 AM in response to macguru9999

Thanks for your help. I will be restorinh from Time Machine. Appears as though there is more than one way of doing this. Read a few comments about not being able to install OS over the internet due to the limitations of the adapter and others stating it is possible. Majority of users recommend booting from USB and then formatting the drive, I am just not sure how relevant it is if I am restoring from TM anyway...

May 10, 2019 8:06 AM in response to macguru9999

macguru9999-


TRIMforce for non-Apple SSD drives is a MacOS system-wide setting. When you enable TRIM with TRIMforce, You enable it for the entire MacOS. It is not on a per-drive basis, and not just for the Boot SSD. So, for example, you have three non-Apple SSD drives, enabling TRIMforce would enable TRIM for all of them, PROVIDED they were attached in a way that supports TRIM, such as a Mac Pro Silver Tower internal bay.


Unfortunately, the setting of TRIMforce is NOT respected in any Recovery Mode, so when running First Aid in Recovery, it does not do a large-scale TRIM for you.


However, the setting of TRIMforce IS respected in Safe Mode, and the First Aid that is run automatically on the Boot Drive as Safe Mode starts up DOES a large-scale TRIM on the Boot Drive.

May 13, 2019 6:24 AM in response to John Lockwood

The procedure of replacing the SSD was simple and I was able to install the new drive and restore from back up in less than 45 minutes. Trim support was enabled by default and it appears that the Mac is able to wake up from hibernation without any issues. One slight problem I noticed was the boot up time was really slow, the screen remains blank for nearly 15 seconds after the startup chime before the Apple logo appears. I have reset the PRAM/SMC and restarted the startup disk but still getting slower boot times than the stock SSD. When the OS loads, however, the drive operates as normal and speeds through tasks without issue.

May 13, 2019 12:34 PM in response to tabosko

The 970 evo PLUS does NOT work in the mac pro with its controller and software. I am told the evo did work although I have not tried it. The 970 pro DEFINITELY WORKS because I have tried it in my 5,1 Mac Pro, with firmware 141.0.0.0. I thought the boot time was too long however so I switched back to an AHCI ssd. The operating speed difference was nil using a single slot adapter.

970 evo mac pro

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