The original 640G HDD in my Mac Pro 4,1 is considered very slow now. So I bought a Samsung 840 Evo 1T SSD and connect it to the SATA 2 port via the 2nd DVD slot. However, with this configuration, I can only get half of it's speed (Blackmagic shows about 240 write and 250 read). So I decided to get a Tempo SSD to expend my Mac's capability.
I contact the OWC online support staff and ask them if this card bootable. The answer is yes, but only in a thunderbolt chassis configuration. That means I cannot install the card inside my Mac Pro's and make it bootable (they are actually wrong) . So, I gave up this option for a while.
Few days later, I downloaded the user manual from Sonnet website. It clearly state that the card is bootable in a Mac Pro 2009 out of the box, provided that the serial number of the card start from letter "B" (new revision). And the "A" revision card will be bootable after a firmware upgrade.
So, I order this card with another 7950 graphic card. I choose the cheapest DHL option, both cards reach my home in 3 days. By considering I live in East Asia, this is a very reasonable speed.
Right after I've submitted my order, I contacted the OWC online staff again and try to manage to get a new revision card. It's because risk always exist during firmware upgrade. If anything goes wrong during the upgrade process, ship the card back from Asia will cost me extra money and time. However, the answer from OWC is no choice to get which card because they won't check the serial number for customers. Since either card should be bootable at the end, so I keep my order.
When I was waiting for my card, I contact Sonnet support and get a email to confirm that no driver or firmware upgrade will be required for revision B card if running 10.9.2. I should able to put my current SSD on it and boot my Mac straight away.
Once the card arrived, I double check it is the new revision card. Then I install everything as per the manual. Unluckily, my Mac can't boot from the card.
I move the card to another PICe slot, nil help.
I boot my Mac from the old HDD (no matter OSX or recovery partition), then select the SSD as the start up disk from preferences (it shows up as a bootable partition there). Nil help.
Study the manual. Nothing there.
So, I decided to upgrade the firmware (which should be totally unnecessary) before I try to refund or put it on the shelf.
The firmware upgrade is simple. Download the software from Sonnet's website, run it, restart as per the on screen instruction, confirm and wait for a few seconds.
After this action, the card finally works as per the manufacture's claim.
I can choose the OSX or the recovery partition from the boot screen. The Blackmagic now shows 440 write and 500 read. Trim supported.
The only downside of using this card is the booting time (white screen time) will be greatly affected. I guess the Mac Pro need about 30-45 seconds to initialise this PCIe card, it basically offset all the boot up speed gain from the SSD. However, once the Apple logo appear, the desktop shows up in 5 seconds. All disk operation is lightning fast.
Since I never shutdown my computer, and only reboot few times per month. So this penalty is virtual nothing for me.
May be most of the people can't feel any differences with or without this card, but I am still happy to extract more performance from my relatively expensive SSD (compare to this card) and have more SATA slots for future use.
