Learn how to upgrade your Mac Pro with a bootable NVMe SSD and Mojave***.
Part 1a - Samsung 970 EVO on Amazon ➜ https://geni.us/TdDFSpi
Part 1b - Unboxing ➜ (3:55min)
Part 2a - Install ➜ (7:04min)
Part 2b - Bootable Install Media ➜ (8:30min)
Part 2c - Reboot & Fresh Install ➜ (15:42min)
Part 3a - Performance - 970 EVO ➜ (19:36min)
Part 3b - Performance - Disk Speed ➜ (20:59min)
Part 3c - Performance - Heat Development ➜ (23:05min)
Part 3d - Performance - Video Editing ➜ (25:32min)
Part 4 - Summary ➜ (29:39min)

# Tutorial Series # Old Mac Pro - Still Worth It?
Part 0 - Introduction ➜ https://youtu.be/lJF-rffIyq0
Part 1 - Bluetooth ➜ https://youtu.be/d9xPvreK8tg
Part 2 - High Sierra ➜ https://youtu.be/ecWEhbtvXHk
Part 3 - SATAIII SSD ➜ https://youtu.be/2gqkGPidI84
Part 4 - Radeon RX560 ➜ https://youtu.be/UoV4I-FlYdw
Part 5 - Memory ➜ https://youtu.be/1XYNqfnu4UA
Part 6 - CPU ➜ https://youtu.be/8cVhURcpi64
Part 7 - macOS Mojave ➜ https://youtu.be/uKAJCuWtp4Y
Part 8 - Radeon RX580 ➜ https://youtu.be/Dv73HrnsNkw
Part 9 - NVMe SSD ➜ https://youtu.be/A8hPC_DDq6Q
Part 10 - Fan Replacement ➜ https://youtu.be/fBiIJami8v0
NEW *Part 11 - USB 3.0 Upgrade ➜ https://youtu.be/fCkrZlB465E
NEW *Part 12 - NVMe Raid Card ➜ https://youtu.be/fo7lVMfXq1c

More and more people want to upgrade their Mac Pro with a fast off the shelf NVMe. While macOS High Sierra and the initial release of macOS Mojave did not come with NVMe boot support, Apple eventually included a Boot ROM update in their subsequent releases.

macOS versions:
• High Sierra (Boot ROM MP51.0089.B00) - NO
• Mojave 10.14. (Boot ROM 138.0.0.0.0) - NO
• Mojave 10.14.1 (Boot ROM 140.0.0.0.0) - YES
• Mojave 10.14.2 (Boot ROM 140.0.0.0.0) - YES
• Mojave 10.14.3 (Boot ROM 140.0.0.0.0) - YES
• Mojave 10.14.4 (Boot ROM 141.0.0.0.0) - YES
• Mojave 10.14.5 (Boot ROM 144.0.0.0.0) - YES
• Mojave 10.14.6 (Boot ROM 144.0.0.0.0) - YES

After watching this tutorial you will know how to create a bootable install media, and do a fresh install of Mojave directly onto your new NVMe drive.

If you are unsure, please back up your data before going through to this process, or pull out your old drive before starting the install.

You can easily do the Boot ROM update by downloading the installer from the App Store and starting it if you still have an older version the installer should offer you to update.

Please compare your current version by going to, -About This Mac, -System Report, -Boot ROM Version

While I like to create a bootable installer for Mojave, e.g. on a USB stick or hard drive, technically this step is optional. More here: ➜ https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

Also keep in mind that a normal adapter card only uses 4x lanes, compared to raid cards (HighPoint SSD7101A) or (Sonnet SSD M.2 4x4) with PCIe switch:
20GT/s * (8b/10b) = 1600MB/s @ Normal 4x Lane card on Amazon ➜ https://geni.us/r5LXt
40GT/s * (8b/10b) = 3200MB/s @ Faster 16x Lane card on Amazon* ➜ https://geni.us/9Gc0F
80GT/s * (8b/10b) = 6400MB/ss @ Faster 16x Lane card on Amazon* ➜ https://geni.us/9Gc0F

The effective data rate (Gbps) is always a bit lower because PCIe 2.0 seems to use about 20% for data encoding.

Overall I am very happy that Apple included the NVMe boot support for these faster drives. Doing a fresh install was easy, as I have done it multiple times by now.

Looking forward trying one of these faster raid cards later this year with my Mac Pro, because some viewers have already reported blazingly fast speeds of around 5000 MB/s read-write, which is excellent for 4K video editing.

But even with the normal 4x lane card, everything is working very good so far, although I am currently only editing 1080p footage. Hope this was useful, all the best for your upgrades!