So we have 2800 megabytes per second write speed
and 3100 - 3070 megabytes per second read speed. That's insane. Old Cheesegrater Mac
Pro getting these speeds??? Oh my Lord. This is my beloved Mac Pro 5,1 cheese grater Mac
Pro if you want. Back in those days it was the most powerful Mac ever made. But in 2023 it is
already showing its age considerably. Let me ask you one question - if you could only upgrade one
single component which one would it be? Maybe you would just add nvme SSD disk or you would rather
choose having USB 3 ports? Okay and what would you say if I told you that you could add to your
old cheesegrater Mac Pro up to 16 terabytes of m.2 nvme SSD storage, get two 10 gigabits per second
USB-C ports and even get full 10G ethernet and all of that at the same time with just a single
expansion card? Do you think it's impossible? Morgonaut always bring you absolutely great offers
and news so take it for granted that it's really possible and in this video I will show you exactly
that in detail. The magical card I'm talking about is called McFiver from Sonnet Technologies
and by the way it's not only for old Mac Pros, officially it's compatible with the Mac
Pro 7 ,1 alias 2019 Mac Pro ,Windows 10, 11 and Windows Server, as well as Linux
computers with kernel 5.4 and higher. But as you will see in a moment it runs great
in old cheesegrater Mac Pro as well. Also what's great if you have any Apple silicon Mac, Mac Mini,
MacBook Air or MacBook Pro M1 M2 or whatever, you can take full advantage of the Sonnet McFiver
too just by connecting it via Thunderbolt - I will show you that in next video so make sure
you subscribe to my channel and enable all notifications so you won't miss it. So let's
install this bad boy inside right? let's go... Installation itself is extremely easy, just few
Phillips head screws and two minutes of your time. I installed two addlink 8 TB m.2 nvme SSD disks
which I also reviewed already few videos back, that gives me in total 16 TBs of nvme SSD storage. So let's shut down my Mac Pro and
install the Sonnet McFiver into my 2012 Mac Pro. The installation itself
is not any rocket science, if I can do it then you can do it too, simply slide it
into the PCI Express slot, easy like that. Bang. Perfect, we are booted back so let's have
a look too "About this Mac" and here you can see as a proof I'm really running Mac
Pro 5 ,1 - it's obvious :) Let's open Disk utility and format those two disks.
I will create a striped array of it, let's select those two and let's call
it 16TB-RAID0, let's keep it at APFS and and let's bump up the chunk size little bit,
so when I will look to the system report you can see here in the PCI Express section two nvme
controllers and both are connected by four PCI Express Lanes, that's interesting, I will get to
it later. Great news is you can use one of those nvme ssds inside as a bootable disk when it's not
RAIDed. The Sonnet McFiver is PCI Express gen 3x8 card, whoa hold on, now I can see you arguing that
the cheesegrater Mac Pro only has PCI Express Gen 2 slots so it's completely stupid idea to install
this card when you won't be able to use its full potential right? Well you'll be surprised but
you will not be limited even by chance and I will prove it to you right now. Let's measure
how fast or slow it is. I will start now my AJA System Lite test, point it to that 16 terabyte
array and let's see what the results we will get. 2000 megabytes, 2600 megabytes
per second uh oh my Lord. So we have 2800 megabytes per second write speed
and 3100 - 3070 megabytes per second read speed, that's insane, old Cheesegrater Mac Pro getting
these speeds??? oh my Lord. As I said you will not be limited by the PCI Express Gen 2 in the Mac
Pro and to move it even further I will attach now nvme disk to the USB-C port, to one of those USB-C
ports and let's measure the speed together. I will run two tests. So let's open Terminal and let's
run second instance of the AJA System Light test. So here we have second instance, USB-C disk on
the back which is my CACHE disk and let's run them at the same time. So as expected the
USB-C is 1000 megabytes per second, that's the 10 gigabits per second, but at the
same time when I will also run the second one okay do you think this is a limitation of PCI
Express Gen 2? I don't think so. 3000 megabytes per second still during the concurrent read and
write test, oh my Lord so no limitations. Can you see? That's insane :) These speeds are
higher than if you would connect any super fancy nvme RAID array to Apple silicon Mac via
Thunderbolt. And it's so old cheesegrater Mac Pro, isn't that insane? Sonnet Technologies do wonders.
So let's check one more time the System report, USBS so on the USB 3.1 bus we have the USB
connected nvme disk and in the ethernet as you can see those two "poor" 1G onboard Intel
ones as well as the Aquantia or Marvel if you want now on speed 10 gigabits per second. Whether
you want to upgrade your old cheesegrater Mac Pro, 2019 Mac Pro, any Apple silicon Mac, Windows
PC or Linux computer the Sonnet McFiver brings you incredible value. By getting a single PCI
Express x8 expansion card you will gain two m.2 nvme slots for up to 16 terabytes of SSD storage,
two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports and on top of that 10 gigabit Ethernet. All in single package. So that's
the magic of the Sonnet McFiver card. For those who have made it this far thanks for watching and
definitely check out my other useful videos here. If you want to support my work feel free to leave
a LIKE, SHARE this video with your friends and tell me what do you think of the Sonnet McFiver
in comment section down below okay? See ya...
