APRICORN VEL-SOLO-X1 $33.99 free ship @ newegg

[OrangeSVTguy]

Don't know if anyone's in the market for this but this is the cheapest I've seen them so I figured I'd put this out there.

$33.99 with free shipping after $15 rebate on newegg.com

APRICORN VEL-SOLO-X1 Performance SSD Upgrade Kit for Desktop PCs and MacPro

 

[lssmit02]

Card works fine in a Mac Pro 5,1

I have this card. I purchased it after I was having trouble with the X2. It works fine, and in fact I have a Samsung 830 in it, set up with a 1TB HDD as a fusion drive. So far, everything seems to work well. I had to return the X2 because of an apparent conflict between the Marvell controller in the Velocity X2 and the Marvell controller in my Caldigit Fasta 6gu3 esata/usb 3 card. The X1 uses the Asmedia 1061 controller chip, which resolved my problems.

 

[TitouDoc]

What kind of trouble did you have with the Velocity X2 and the FASTA-6GU3 card ?

I have this card. I purchased it after I was having trouble with the X2. It works fine, and in fact I have a Samsung 830 in it, set up with a 1TB HDD as a fusion drive. So far, everything seems to work well. I had to return the X2 because of an apparent conflict between the Marvell controller in the Velocity X2 and the Marvell controller in my Caldigit Fasta 6gu3 esata/usb 3 card. The X1 uses the Asmedia 1061 controller chip, which resolved my problems.

 

[lssmit02]

What kind of trouble did you have with the Velocity X2 and the FASTA-6GU3 card ?

Here's how I described the problem to Apricorn's tech support:

I have the Velocity Solo x2 card installed in a PCIe slot, with a Samsung 830 SSD attached, which I use as my boot drive. When I install a CalDigit FASTA-6GU3 combined esata and USB 3.0 card, the computer cannot boot from the Apricorn card. There appears to be a conflict between these two cards. The Caldigit support person said to tell you they are using the Marvell 9128 and Nec Renasus USB3.0 controllers. Any help would be appreciated.

After some back and forth, here's what the tech support guy said:

Yes, I got the screen shots. They are perfect, but unfortunately I don't see anything 'wrong'.
I can tell you that we are troubleshooting a different problem with the X2 (aka the Marvel 9182 chip) that seems to be related. The problem has been escalated all the way to Marvel, and at this time we are hoping that a firmware can be developed by Marvel that will correct the problem. While we at Apricorn are responding quickly to reported problems, I'm less than confident that Marvel will take the matter so seriously. All I can do now is agree with you that there is a problem, and let you know that I'll reply back to you as soon as we have a solution.

They weren't able to resolve the problem and suggested an exchange for the X1, because it uses the Asmedia chip. That did resolve the problem, and I'm getting excellent performance from the 830 even with the lower bandwidth (the X1 provides up to 400MBs in a PCI 2.0 slot, as opposed to 550 with the X2). No regrets, and I even got it on sale, so saved about $70!

 

[TitouDoc]

Have you tried different slot ? Another member of the forum report a succes with this 2 card by putting the Velocity solo X2 in top PCI slot (4).

 

[hfg]

I have been having confusing results with the Solo x2 cards and the CalData FASTA-6GU3 cards, but am able to boot OS X or Windows 8 installed on the x2 card with the CalData installed as well.

My problem is that I can't have 2 ea. Solo x2 cards installed, one with OS X, and one with Windows, and get Windows to boot ("Boot Disk Not Found") with or without the Caldata card. Using either x2 card alone boots the attached OS just fine, again with or without the CalData card.

So I don't think my issue is with the interaction of the CalData and Solo x2 cards. I have my CalData in the top slot (4) nearest the disk drives, and the Solo x2 cards in the middle slots, with the graphics card on the bottom slot (1).

Currently my 5,1 Mac Pro is running great with the following layout:

PCIe Slot-4: CalData FASTA-6GU3
PCIe Slot-3: Sonnet Tempo Pro dual SSD with OS X RAID-0 (pair of Crucial M4 512GB)
PCIe Slot-2: Solo x2 SSD with Windows 8 (Crucial M4 256GB)
----
PCIe Slot-1: Sapphire HD 7950 graphics

I have seen several threads here claiming that the CalData and Solo x2 cards are incompatible ... but they are working together for me (at least for now)!

-howard

 

[lssmit02]

Have you tried different slot ? Another member of the forum report a succes with this 2 card by putting the Velocity solo X2 in top PCI slot (4).

My recollection is that I did move it around to different slots, but was not able to find a combination that worked for me. It's entirely possible that I failed to get the right placements, but after fighting with it for a while, I decided just to get the X1. I have not noticed a difference in performance for typical use, so I'm happy with where I am. Plus, it was a lot cheaper. Keep in mind I'm running the 830, and not the 840, so the X1 provides enough bandwidth for most uses anyway.

Edit: I just tested the drive with Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, and I reliably get around 300MB/s+

 

[sarthak]

Would have snapped it up to use with my Agility 4 128GB as a boot drive. It's $59.99 - 15 mir on NewEgg.ca

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

I have been having confusing results with the Solo x2 cards and the CalData FASTA-6GU3 cards, but am able to boot OS X or Windows 8 installed on the x2 card with the CalData installed as well.

My problem is that I can't have 2 ea. Solo x2 cards installed, one with OS X, and one with Windows, and get Windows to boot ("Boot Disk Not Found") with or without the Caldata card. Using either x2 card alone boots the attached OS just fine, again with or without the CalData card.

So I don't think my issue is with the interaction of the CalData and Solo x2 cards. I have my CalData in the top slot (4) nearest the disk drives, and the Solo x2 cards in the middle slots, with the graphics card on the bottom slot (1).

Currently my 5,1 Mac Pro is running great with the following layout:

PCIe Slot-4: CalData FASTA-6GU3
PCIe Slot-3: Sonnet Tempo Pro dual SSD with OS X RAID-0 (pair of Crucial M4 512GB)
PCIe Slot-2: Solo x2 SSD with Windows 8 (Crucial M4 256GB)
----
PCIe Slot-1: Sapphire HD 7950 graphics

I have seen several threads here claiming that the CalData and Solo x2 cards are incompatible ... but they are working together for me (at least for now)!

-howard

Oh wow I'm definetely interested in that dual ssd sonnet card but $300 to me is more than I would want to pay. Apricorn had a 4 HDD/SSD version and there's was only $199.

 

[hfg]

Oh wow I'm definetely interested in that dual ssd sonnet card but $300 to me is more than I would want to pay. Apricorn had a 4 HDD/SSD version and there's was only $199.

The Sonnet card really rips ... over 1000 MB/s with fast SATA-III SSDs in RAID-0.