Tips for Attaching Thunderbolt Devices on the 2013 Mac Pro

I’ve just started verifying performance on the 2013 Mac Pro with Thunderbolt devices, in preparation for a switch-over to it as my main workstation. As it turns out, it’s not a trivial thing to configure for those using high performance devices.

An initial shock was seeing the OWC Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD (in Helios enclosure) running at a degraded 450 MB/sec (650 MB/sec is expected).

It turns out that attaching the Helios/Accelsior to the same Thunderbolt bus as the 30-inch display meant that not enough bandwidth remained for full performance! Attaching it to a different Thunderbolt bus yielded full performance.

2013 Mac Pro: Thunderbolt Performance Tips

2013 Mac Pro rear ports