[Macworld]

Post your comments for Add USB 3.0 to a Mac Pro with HighPoint's RocketU here

[hoju]

This review absolutely does not reflect my experience.

I had read with interest Bare Feats' review of the Highpoint Rocket Quad USB 3.0 card for the Mac, and went ahead and bought it for my 2008 Harpertown Mac Pro, along with four identical USB 3.0 hard drives.

Long and disappointing story short, the card just didn't work properly. I tried to contact their tech support for help, but they were execrable, utilizing an atrocious web-based help system straight out of 1996. I'm not exaggerating. When they did reply, their help was as good as their English.

Doing my own research, my totally unscientific conclusion is that the card does not work with Mac Pros older than 2010. On Amazon, the user reviews mirror my findings: People with 2010 Mac Pros love the card, and those with 2008 models have to suffer the pain of Highpoint's tech support that leads nowhere.

I wrote to Rob at Bare Feats, and he said he would contact Highpoint's engineers to look into this, but I don't know if he ever got an answer.

Regarding MacWorld's review, I'd be curious to know what year Mac Pro they tested in, and if they have a 2008 Mac Pro to test with.

[davidlfoster]

I have a 2009 Mac Pro (purchased in August 2009) and would very much like to know if this card will work with that particular model. There are a lot of differences between the different Mac Pro editions (some subtle, some nor so subtle).

[Paddy]

According to the story, MW tested the card in a 2.66GHz Quad Core Xeon. The newest Mac Pro that fits that description is the early 2009 Nehalem. http://www.everymac....alem-specs.html

I just wish Apple would get with the program and add USB 3.0 to Macs (and eSATA, while they're at it). FW drives/enclosures seem to be getting harder to find and I'm tired of paying a premium for them.

Meanwhile, my 2008 Mac Pro still has plenty of life left in it. I did get an eSATA card for it - which 10.6 promptly made obsolete, so I'm more than a little cautious about spending $$$ for something that may not be supported after the next OS update.

[bovey2006]

I have this card in a early 2008 Mac Pro. I purchased it 6 months ago for my usb 3.0 WD drives. The card would only work with usb 2 drives, at first. I emailed their customer support and asked when a new driver would be available to address this issue. I was pointed to their suport section, where a new driver was available to download ( version 1.0.1 I believe ). This driver is newer than the driver on the cd. I downloaded the driver, installed, and..........bingo, my WD usb drives are now seen and function great.
This card is a must have for any Mac Pro ( early 2008 and later ) user. I beleive this is a great alternative to thunderbolt, as thunderbolt is simply to expensive to implement.

[bovey2006]

bovey2006, on 05 March 2012 - 03:46 PM, said:

I have this card in a early 2008 Mac Pro. I purchased it 6 months ago for my usb 3.0 WD drives. The card would only work with usb 2 drives, at first. I emailed their customer support and asked when a new driver would be available to address this issue. I was pointed to their suport section, where a new driver was available to download ( version 1.0.1 I believe ). This driver is newer than the driver on the cd. I downloaded the driver, installed, and..........bingo, my WD usb drives are now seen and function great.
This card is a must have for any Mac Pro ( early 2008 and later ) user. I beleive this is a great alternative to thunderbolt, as thunderbolt is simply to expensive to implement.

I have to add that the original issue was with 3tb usb drives, now the new driver supports 3 and 4 tb drives

[tracyvalleau]

I have this card. It is -only- usable with drives and the odd memory stick. Will not work with hubs; will not work with card readers, nor, I'd assume anything USB3 that -isn't- a drive. (OK: I didn't try "everything" but I did try about a half dozen non-disk devices and none worked.)

[alexofindy]

I tried this card on my early 2008 Mac Pro (3,1), which has 16 GB of RAM, two quad-core processors, an Apple ATI 5770 display card and the original ATI 2600 card that came with the computer (i.e., two display cards). I used the newer highpoint drivers, which I downloaded from the Highpoint web site.

The card worked, but only barely, and the problems were such that I had to remove it.

The card did function, and it was fast, though I didn't time it. But only with USB 3.0 drives, and a few (not all) USB 2.0 drives; it did not work with other USB 2.0 devices, despite being marketed as USB 2.0 backwards compatible.

But the problems were too much. First, the ATI 5770 card has a known problem wherein it sometimes puts "snow" on the display when the computer wakes from sleep; the "fix" is to re-sleep the Mac and wake it up again, which gets rid of the snow. Without the highpoint card, this glitch happens about once a week. With the Highpoint card installed, it happens often, to the point where it's more than a nuisance. Also, when I booted my Mac to Windows 7, I often got error messages that my USB port was using too much power, and was being shut down. this required a reboot to correct.

And highpoint's tech support was absolutely useless.

I returned the card.

My conclusion: the power on my Mac's PCIe bus is not quite robust enough, at least with my two graphics cards, to support the Highpoint card.

As an aside, I also subsequently tried a Sonnet Allegro 3.0 card. This card worked, and with no apparent display card issues. However, with the Sonnet card installed, about 1 out 3 times my computer would not wake from sleep. (USB mouse plugged in to a usb 2.0 port, USB keyboard, blue tooth keyboard, and WOL all failed to awaken the Pro. ) Out went the Allegro card. I do wish to report, though, that in marked contrast to Highpoint, I received first rate tech support from Sonnet.

If someone has found a working USB 3.0 solution for a Mac Pro circa early 2008, please post the info!

[hoju]

Paddy, on 05 March 2012 - 02:11 PM, said:

Meanwhile, my 2008 Mac Pro still has plenty of life left in it. I did get an eSATA card for it - which 10.6 promptly made obsolete, so I'm more than a little cautious about spending $$$ for something that may not be supported after the next OS update.

Paddy,

After the Highpoint debacle, I ended up buying a NewerTech eSATA card (the cheap one without port multipliers, about $40-50). I'm using it with my Mac Pro and an OWC Elite Quad drive (or something to that effect) in a RAID 5, and am getting about 250 MB / second both read and write. Please note that these numbers came from Blackmagic Design's disk speed tester (free from both Blackmagic Design and the Mac App Store).

The caveat is that you need to be running Lion, and 10.7.2 or higher at that. The issue I've run into is that you have to unplug and replug the eSATA cable back in if you regularly turn off your external hard drive. Otherwise, it won't mount again, and even Disk Utility won't see it until you've done the plug jitterbug.

It's not Thunderbolt speed, but it is way faster than FW800 and has been very stable for my video editing needs.

[LeTap]

I've been meaning to add 4 extra USB ports to my Mac Pro 3,1 and searched for a suitable USB3 card -- I already have one USB2 card in the machine. The biggest hurdle for me is that some vendors are starting to behave like it's the 1980s all over again, when stuff for Macs cost twice as much as the identical stuff sold for WinPCs.

The cost of writing Mac drivers shouldn't (and I'm sure it doesn't) justify a doubling in price, and Mac users don't necessarily have deeper pockets than WinPC users.

I'm using a generic eSATA card (£19.99) in the Mac Pro and though Lion moved the kext files to the Incompatible Software folder, re-installing the drivers got the card working again.

I think I'll just get the same (generic) USB2 card (£19.99) that has served me well since early-2008.

[heisetax]

This seems to be not for me as my only USB3 drives are 4 TB Seagate models. Add to that I have a first gen 206 Mac Pro. I'll just wait for a new Mac Pro for this change.

[jaydahba]

we isntalled a Lacie USB 3 card in an 8-core mac pro 2 years ago and all we got were kernel panics - until the card was removed.
since then, i have two current 12 core models here with LaCie eSata cards, which -sofar- have been running without problems on Lion

[RMS141]

I bought one a good 4 months ago and have had no issues with it - solid card.(also a 2009 2.6Ghz Quad Mac Pro, OS X 10.7.3)
Don't forget, this is a RAID controller. It shouldn't surprise anyone that it doesn't work with hubs or misc. devices - it's for storage!
I also ran into trouble with a 3TB drive earlier this year, and can confirm the new driver corrects the issue.

[freelunch]

I installed a RocketU dual-port card in my Mac Pro (OS 10.6.8). The card performed well, with similar figures to yours. However, I could not get the computer to sleep - the fans kept racing, then I would have to force quit the Mac to get it to function again. HighPoint's site says they are working on new drivers, but I have not seen anything yet. I removed the card but am keeping it until new drivers cure the sleep problem.