Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

bunnspecial

macrumors G3
Original poster
May 3, 2014
8,321
6,399
Kentucky
I'm using a Mac Pro 5,1, and have a USB 3.0 card that works perfectly at USB 3.0 speeds in High Sierra or whatever other "new" OS I throw at it.

This particular card uses the same chipset as the "trash can"(6,1) Mac Pro, so is recognized and works natively in OSs newer than 10.9ish.

For a couple of reasons, I MUST be able to natively boot this computer in SL(please don't argue with me on this-one of my main uses for it requires direct access to Firewire with a PPC native program, something that I can't virtualize as FW pass-through doesn't work in any VM program I'm aware of).

In any case, does there exist a way to enable USB 3.0 support in Snow Leopard? I found references online to an older LaCie tool that worked with their specific Expresscard they sold, but that's all I've found. If anyone can suggest a utility that can do this, I'd be appreciative of it. This something that's in the "nice to have" category-not the "have to have"-so it's no big deal if not.
 

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
28,525
12,651
"In any case, does there exist a way to enable USB 3.0 support in Snow Leopard?"

Without the appropriate driver or kext, I think you're "out of luck".
Does it run in USB 2.0?
That may be "all you can get" out of it with Snow Leopard.
 

mrkapqa

macrumors 6502
Jan 7, 2012
441
75
Italy, Bolzano/Bozen
this card here functions with snow leopard but only until mavericks
[automerge]1593109879[/automerge]
or this one
CalDigit USB 3.0 Card
problem is these cards are only supported til mavericks so it would be nice if there be a usb3 card that goes from Snow Leopard all the way up but it seems not
 
Last edited:

Wowfunhappy

macrumors 68000
Mar 12, 2019
1,617
1,992
problem is these cards are only supported til mavericks so it would be nice if there be a usb3 card that goes from Snow Leopard all the way up but it seems not

I wonder if it's actually incompatible with 10.10+ or if they just say that because they haven't tested it and don't want to support it.

I don't remember the name now but there's another PCIe USB 3.0 card that claims to be incompatible with 10.10+ but actually works fine. I've personally used it on High Sierra.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.