SSD Blade Drive for "Classic" Mac Pro

Question

Repost of earlier thread.
PCIe-SSD which surpass SATA III speeds can mean a lot, and for a 1,1 is the only way to boot from PCIe (whether SATA III or not).
http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/harddrives/index.html#d17feb2015
Samsung XP941 256GB PCIe 2.0 x4 M.2 SSD MZHPU256HCGL
M.2 Interface: PCIe Gen2 5Gb/s, up to 4 lanes
512MB LPDDR2 DRAM Buffer Memory
Support TRIM Command
Sequential Read: 1080MB/s, Sequential Write: 800 MB/s,
Random Read (QD=32): 120K IOPS, Random Write (QD=32): 60K IOPS
Works with (all)  Mac Pro. Not compatible with the MacBook Air or Retina MacBook Pro
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-XP941-256GB-PCIe-MZHPU256HCGL/dp/B00J9V53M6/
A smaller XP941 128GB that 'only' gets 450MB/sec writes instead of the 800-900MB/sec
http://www.amazon.com/NGFF-PCI-Express-SATA-Adapter/dp/B00M8HC5JC/
Lycom DT-120 M.2 PCIe to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter (Support M.2 PCIe 2280, 2260, 2242)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MYCQP38/
http://barefeats.com/hard183.html
SATA Express meets the ( '09 ) MacPro - Bootable NGFF PCIE SSD
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1685821
http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/08/samsung-sm941-pcie-ssd/
Next generation from Samsung:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150106006600/en/Samsung-Electronics-Mass -Producing-Extremely-Fast-Low-powered#.VOO5NoI5CUk

Answer 1

RAM City http://www.ramcity.com.au
Provides support and adapters for use with various M.2 blade SSD drives
Samsung XP941 512GB M.2 PCIe x4 80mm SSD
Quote:
When combined with a M.2 to PCIe adapter, the Samsung XP941 provides class-leading storage performance in desktop machines and is also fully bootable in all cMP Mac Pro models (2006-2012, excluding the 'tube' model). See the table at the bottom of this page for approximate throughput figures.
  * * * W A R N I N G * * * *
Do not run Parted Magic's secure erase on this drive. It will render it useless and void the warranty.
Secure Erase will brick the XP941.
https://www.ramcity.com.au/blog/how-to-install-windows-8.1-on-the-samsung-xp941- ss/138296
To use this SSD in a desktop machine or cMP Mac Pro (all 2006-2012 models prior to the current cylindrical shaped one), you will need a free PCIe slot, and an M.2 to PCIe adapter. Booting is supported in the Mac Pro.
Note, system boot on Windows desktop PC's is only supported on certain Z97 and X99 chipset-based motherboards with built-in M.2 sockets. Booting with the XP941 is not currently supported in a Windows PC with the XP941 drive in conjunction with the adapter , but it works perfectly without drivers as a storage drive.
Review our M.2 SSD compatibility list blog post if you are not sure if this drive is compatible in your machine.
You might also need....
A M.2 (NGFF) to PCIe adapter card - so you can install this drive in a standard desktop case or Mac Pro tower computer.
A PCIE M.2 SSD to USB 3.0 external enclosure - so you can clone, copy, or retrieve data from this drive or an existing one already in your system.
* To achieve maximum throughput in the 2008 Mac Pro, one or two of the PCIe 2.0 x16 slots must be used. These models have two x16 PCIe 2.0 slots and two x4 PCIe 1.0 slots. The latter PCIe 1.0 slots will only allow up to 585-753MB/s data transfer rates.
Data Throughput Rates
Throughput rates are provided in the table below. See the performance notes regarding slower PCIe 2.0 x2 and PCIe 1.0 slots
** From the review at barefeats.com: "Using the 'Expansion Slot Utility' in the System/Library/CoreServices folder, we reconfigured the PCIe slot speeds to various combinations of 4, 8, and 16 lane slots to benchmark the XP941. The transfer speeds above were achieved using the 4 lane slots. The 8 lane and 16 lane slots did not produce any faster transfer speeds. On other other hand, if you use a 1 lane slot, the transfer speeds drop to 200MB/s READ and 170MB/s WRITE. We tested with both OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard. OS X Tiger kernel panicked at startup. Though we didn't try it, it should also work with OS X Lion, the last Mac OS to be officially supported on the 2006 Mac Pro."
https://www.ramcity.com.au/buy/samsung-xp941-512gb-m.2-pcie-x4-80mm-ssd/MZHPU512 HCGL-00000
"How to Clone an existing drive to a new SSD" Windows but there were some good tips like this:
Samsung XP941 512GB M.2 PCIe x4 80mm SSD
https://www.ramcity.com.au/blog/how-to-clone-an-existing-drive-to-a-new-ssd/1382 97
https://www.ramcity.com.au/blog/how-to-clone-an-existing-drive-to-a-new-ssd/1382 97