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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Can Mac Pro Towers (4,1) use USB 3.0?

Will Keir

Will Keir

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UPDATE: USB 3.0 > eSATA

I have a few CalDigit VR2 Hard drives.
I have the Caldigit 2x USB 3 2x eSATA Card installed.

Using AJA System Test
4k 10Bit test sample.

- My main drive is 3x internal 450GB SAS 15,000 RPM Drives as a RAID 0
Write 303 mb/s
Read 373 mb/s

- External CalDigit VR2 4TB using FW800
Write 63 mb/s
Read 84 mb/s

-External CalDigit VR2 4TB using eSATA
Write 123
Read 123

- External CalDigit VR2 4TB using USB 3.0
Write 169
Read 186

-Windows 7 Internal SSD 500 GB Drive
Write 260
Read 270

Was hoping to see over 300mb/sec for the CalDigit VR2. I find hard drive speed has a lot to do with playback in Premiere Pro.
I can get almost 1/2 with the RAID 0 SAS setup with RAID Card. Only 1/4 using external drives.
 
Last edited:
USB3 under the most ideal conditions is 4.8Gbps, minus overhead.... Around 400MB/s maximum. So theoretically it's faster than 3Gbps SATA (270MB/s), slower than 6Gbps SATA (560MB/s).

And seeing that your VR2 is giving you about 123MB/s over eSATA, I wouldn't expect any more than that, but you never know how they implemented the interface inside the unit...

The CalDigit 6GU3 card with dual eSata and dual USB3 is nice and convenient. Not the best performing card by any means. There is actually only one 6Gbps SATA header and one USB3 header on the card, so both interfaces share that the bandwidth to each of their two ports.

123MB/s seems a bit slow for a VR2, but I haven't used them lately. The predecessor VR with eSATA interface on it did about that with two good drives in it. Still have a couple of those and use them. Very nice and reliable units.
 
I would advise against sonnet and call-digit solutions for mac pro.
They do not have dedicated lines, and the transfer slows down if lot of disks are copying data across.
I tested them with SSD's and it was disappointing.

I am looking on this card from Hipoint:
http://www.hptmac.com/product.php?_index=77


USB 3.0 looks as a good solution for usage both on towers and laptops.
I am getting 180MB/s with a g-tech 4TB USB 3.0 drive (which also has FW)
 
I have both VR1 and VR2, wonder why I'm I'm not getting full 270MB/s speed. The Pro Tower is certainly capable of this speed?

Jeff Kilgroe said:
USB3 under the most ideal conditions is 4.8Gbps, minus overhead.... Around 400MB/s maximum. So theoretically it's faster than 3Gbps SATA (270MB/s), slower than 6Gbps SATA (560MB/s).

And seeing that your VR2 is giving you about 123MB/s over eSATA, I wouldn't expect any more than that, but you never know how they implemented the interface inside the unit...

The CalDigit 6GU3 card with dual eSata and dual USB3 is nice and convenient. Not the best performing card by any means. There is actually only one 6Gbps SATA header and one USB3 header on the card, so both interfaces share that the bandwidth to each of their two ports.

123MB/s seems a bit slow for a VR2, but I haven't used them lately. The predecessor VR with eSATA interface on it did about that with two good drives in it. Still have a couple of those and use them. Very nice and reliable units.
Click to expand...
 
Jeff, using eSATA on your VR1, what speeds are you getting?
 
USB 3.0 equals.

Write 169
Read 186

Would love to hear what other users are getting.
 
Would love to hear from other users. Wondering if my expectations are high?
 
Will, I have that very same card arriving in the mail this week. I will test it with my aging VR1 and G-drives and let you know what I get. CalDigit claims 250 max, no? Are you and Jeff running RAID 1?

Jeff thank you for sharing that info about one header for both ports on this card. What kind of performance difference do you see when using multiple ports on a faster card? Even if USB3 is faster, does the "packet" style of data transmission slow you down when grading or processing? Perhaps you could recommend a card for us?

This week at Tekserve, Daniel Seeley tested the LaCie Thunderbolt eSata hub. Write speed was 130 to a single 2TB G-drive, we used the AJA 1920x15-something test.
 
Ryan,

Running RAID 0.

Jeff,

What application are you using to test drive speed?
 
Can anyone else post their read/write speeds using eSATA and USB 3 drives?
 
Here's a question:

So if I have 1 SSD installed testing at 265 MB/s Read and Write. Does adding another SSD in a RAID 0 double my transfer rate to 530 MB/s?

I heard the increase goes:

100% speed increase on first addition (drive 2)
150% second addition (drive 3)
175% third addition (drive 4)

So a 4x 500GB SSD RAID 0 setup could get me to speeds over 800 MB/s read and write?


Would love some feedback here. This thread is getting lonely.
 
Tried a different Speed Test App.

This is my internal 1.3TB SAS 15,000 RPM RAID 0 setup with Apple Raid card.

RAID0_SAS_DiskSpeedTest.png
 
USB 3.0 Using RAID 0 with CalDigit VR2 external.

USB3_SpeedTest.png
 
Anyone out there using internal SSDs? Looking to see what kind of speeds you guys get using at least two internal SSDs in a RAID 0. Thanks in advance for posting.
 
Would be great to get feedback on several sources here.
 
I used to have two internal SSDs in RAID 0 and got around 500 MB/s with them. I missed my optical drive, though, and went back to one. For a pile of cash, you could put SSD's in all your drive trays and probably max out the bus at 650ish MB/s I'm guessing.
 
I've thought about it!

Christopher Barrett said:
For a pile of cash, you could put SSD's in all your drive trays and probably max out the bus at 650ish MB/s I'm guessing.
Click to expand...

Did you have a RAID 0 with your optical bay and the internal mixed?
 
I've got 4 sets of VR2s on USB 3.0 windows Vista 64.

Get around 120-140 MB/S depending on which bench mark - swapped around to eSATA - not much difference.

Bit disappointing compared to the headline rates.

I've also had a couple of issues with the drives jumping in and out of sleep and not shutting down properly. But on the whole they're pretty nice units.
 
I just tested a LaCie little big disk 6TB Raid 0 Thunderbolt and got 302 MB/s Write and 307 MB/s Read. Not as good as my internal SSD at 427/435, but much faster than any of my USB 3.0 Configurations...
 
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