- #Mac pro mid 2012 sata cable microcenter install
- #Mac pro mid 2012 sata cable microcenter upgrade
- #Mac pro mid 2012 sata cable microcenter full
- #Mac pro mid 2012 sata cable microcenter pro
- #Mac pro mid 2012 sata cable microcenter Pc
#Mac pro mid 2012 sata cable microcenter pro
You will need to put your OS on a drive installed in one of the optical bays.įor the best performance, we suggest getting an OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 3G SSD and attaching it via one of the “extra” SATA 2.0 connectors on the logic board, located near the front of the Mac Pro. Once connected, the four drive bays in the Mac Pro are now being controlled by the RAID card, making it capable of both high-speed data transfer and more advanced RAID options.Īt this point, we run into a bit of a problem the Highpoint card isn’t bootable in a Mac. This is easily remedied, however, by using a mini-SAS extender cable to bridge the distance.
#Mac pro mid 2012 sata cable microcenter install
Once you install the Highpoint card in your Mac, you’ll notice that the mini-SAS cable that connects to the logic board is located near the front of the Mac Pro and the internal port on the card is located near the rear – much too far away from each other to connect. Not only does it feature six internal mini-SAS ports, it also has a built-in (hardware) RAID controller which supports RAID Level 0, 1, 5, 10, and 50 along with individual drive support and disk spanning, as well as an external port for more expansion options.īut we’re getting ahead of ourselves let’s concentrate on upgrading those drive bays. This Highpoint RocketRAID card fits the bill.
The trick is to find one with that mini-SAS connector on the inside.
The great thing is that mini-SAS is a fairly common connector for PCIe SATA controller cards. The backplane (where the drives in the bays are connected) consists of four pass-thru SATA connections which are, in turn, connected to the SATA controller on the logic board (located near the front of the Mac Pro) via a mini-SAS connector. On top of that, those RAID levels are all software-based, which can reduce overall performance.įortunately, if you happen to have a 2006-2008 Mac Pro, you can improve the performance in those bays, with only one small thing to lookout for. If you wish to put the drives in to a RAID array, you are limited to either a mirrored RAID 1, losing half your capacity, or a RAID 0, which is faster, but increases the risk of data loss. As they currently sit, they only move data at SATA 2.0 speeds, roughly three gigabits per second.
#Mac pro mid 2012 sata cable microcenter full
Unfortunately, the fast evolution of technology means that, after a while, that older Mac may seem a little slow and may not be able to take full advantage of current tech.
#Mac pro mid 2012 sata cable microcenter Pc
I am pleasantly surprised to see how much comment this article has generated.Most of the time, your average xpc has a longer useful life than its PC counterpart. Though in my own defense, getting cheap 3rd party upgrades is not that straightforward here in Bali! I'll be more careful about asking dumb questions next time. (b) It has user replaceable RAM, no (unlike some of the earlier minis) ? So it's hardly the end of the world if you get too little RAM. If you use it as a professional running Photoshop, maybe not. If you plan to use it as an HTPC, 4GB is probably fine. (a) None of us are psychic an we have no idea how you use your mac, or the state of your finances.
#Mac pro mid 2012 sata cable microcenter upgrade
Would this quadcore i7 system benefit from the 8GB RAM upgrade offered through the online store? Is 4GB enough these days? With both my current systems (1st gen MacMini and 13" MacBook) I went for the base grade memory option at purchase and have since regretted it, even though in both cases the onset of regret took quite a while to arrive :-).
If that's fighting the computer, I'm not sure what you expect - that it comes with a mini-robot that you simply tell "change the RAM for me"? Likewise, if you need more storage, you can probably do what you want with one or two or three external USB3 drives (if necessary joined together as a JBOD, or striped array, to make a larger disk) and some clever use of symlinks.Īs for RAM upgrades, that is an Apple supported upgrade that consists of twisting off the bottom of the mac mini and popping out the RAM. Not as nice and clean, but quite feasible. What this means is that if an internal drive dies, there is nothing to stop you hooking up a USB3 drive and booting off that. (b) Apple has a perfectly fine SW RAID system built into the OS.
Let me point out once again something that always seems to come as a surprise to Windows folks. Overall, not a bad package, if you get the base model, and do the necessary fighting to upgrade RAM/SSD/HD yourself. I don't expect much else to be repairable here, but yes fighting to change a HD/SSD sucks. Not terribly repairable-replacing the SSD or HDD is a pain