Using multiple pci bus slots

[lesmac]

I have two 250 gig ssd's on a pci slot in my 2009 mac pro.

I'm pretty sure there is another slot available and I want to explore adding more ssd's using the bus instead of a drive bay.

Anyone know if you can just fill all these card slots up with adapters with ssd's installed?

I might just change the ssd's to a larger capacity though but would still like to know if you can "fill er up'

Changing one card out on the pci bus to a 480gig would be my most cost effective short term solution if the sonnet card supports different capacity drives. I suspect this should not be a problem.

Have edited this post a bit and i feel I'm in danger of entering the realms of stream of conciousness.

Thanks

[Len911]

Lester, I would be cautious. I know you are on a Mac, and they don't call them IRQ interrupts, but they still have interrupts. For example, when installing an audio card, the instructions usually say if it doesn't work in pci slot 1, use slot 2, or similar in a Windows computer because of those IRQ gremlins,lol!

Most device drivers never need to take primary interrupts because their interrupt lines don’t cascade into the system’s interrupt controller. For example, FireWire and USB devices have a notion of interrupts, but are really just messages on a serial bus. These are commonly referred to as software interrupts because apart from the interrupt caused by the message itself, the interrupt is entirely simulated in software.

...PCI devices, however, are supported by hardware interrupts. A physical line runs between the PCI slot and the PCI controller, which routes that line to an interrupt input on the interrupt controller, which presents the value of that line as a bit value in a register and raises the processor’s interrupt line...

You can read the full reference here: https://developer.apple.com/library/con ... rupts.html

I'm not sure it really matters unless for some reason two different slots or ssd's are called upon at the same time.

[andygabrys]

You have to read the fine print on how many pci slots you have in the 2009 Mac Pro, but I have a 2010 Mac Pro 5,1 12 core and have the following:

The video card (which I think is double wide) in the usual slot.

A UA quad DSP card.

A sonnet tempo with 2 x 512 GB SSDs

And in my Mac I have 1 more slot that I believe I could add either another UAD or another Sonnet card and have it run at full speed - from what I remember from 2014 when I set this machine up. But like I said, sometimes the 4th card slot runs at slower throughput, and in some cases can only take a half length card. So you couldn't put another Sonnet card in and extend it to host 2 drives as you are now.

I would research your particular model on www.everymac.com as they usually have a really comprehensive list of specs by model and revision number.

And definitely the easiest and cheapest way to go is to replace one of the drives with a larger drive. As long as you run the two drives on the Sonnet as independent volumes (not in a RAID configuration) you can mix and match to taste. I don't run them in RAID as I upgraded one drive at a time and it runs great as I have it with different sample libraries on the two drives.

If you were wanting a RAID setup it would be better to get the Sonnet Tempo PRO as it has greater speed in RAID than the regular version.

In the US the Samsung EVO 850 is a beast of a drive with a full 5 yr warranty as well as great speed. It's a little more than a SanDISK or a Crucial drive but usually they have 3 yr warranties.

Hope that helps. !!

[lesmac]

Thanks Len and Andy, you guys are champions on this stuff and I really appreciate the time taken.

I'm pretty sure my 2 evo 250Gb ssd's aren't in a raid configuration from what I remember. I have my os on one and samples on the other. I have been using CCC to back up so changing out the sample drive to a bigger one will be the way to go for me. I have been very restricted by the small size drive. I should bite the bullet and get the evo 850.

I found a page with details on my macs pci bus lane allocation. I bookmarked it and will keep for future reference. I wont go there now but from what you say Andy it could be an option in the future. Probably some correspondence with OWC could clarify for my model.

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/m ... tions.html

Interestingly Pro tools 12 isn't supported for my model mac. I wont pursue running it even though it possibly could run ok with the ssd's. I haven't done a processor upgrade.

Thanks for the help.

[andygabrys]

Looks like you should be fine to add another pci card if needed

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/m ... specs.html

Scroll down to the expansion configurations.

[lesmac]

Thanks Andy, its good to know the old beast can be pimped for a little while longer.

I have found a samsung evo 1Tb drive for $430 aus so that should do me for now.

[lesmac]

Finally bought a 1TB eve for $315 US.