MP 7,1 OWC's Accelsior 4M2 PCIe M.2 NVMe SSD Adapter Card - Empty enclosure

[cobra521]

I just received an empty card, P/N OWCSSDACL4M2O, direct from OWC. I expect 2 HP EX950 2TB NVME cards this week, so no functional check yet. When I install them, I'll add another note.

Tom

 

[startergo]

Does anyone here actually have and use this card? All this negative critique on the card, I’m interested in real world use and benefits. Especially from a video editing perspective

I got the 2TB model. I did not do any speed tests yet. But it is touching (hard) my dual slot RX-580. If it is a 2.2 slot it is a no-go.

 

[cobra521]

I got the 2TB model. I did not do any speed tests yet. But it is touching (hard) my dual slot RX-580. If it is a 2.2 slot it is a no-go.

Is this for the 7,1? I note your signature says 5,1.

 

[startergo]

Is this for the 7,1? I note your signature says 5,1.

No 5,1

 

[cobra521]

The M.2s arrived today. The 4M2 card has four, and here's a BackMagic speed test result:

I'll be using the four HP EX950 2TB modules as JBOD, so the 6K data transfer rate won't show up here. Maybe later.

I arbitrarily put the card in x8 slot #7.

The About this Mac -> PCI Cards reports "optimal configuration."

The Expansion Slot Utility reports Pool A Allocation at 50%, Pool B at 0%.

If anyone can guide me as to how to monitor the temperatures of the cards, I'd appreciate it.

Tom

 

[tsialex]

The M.2s arrived today. The 4M2 card has four, and here's a BackMagic speed test result: View attachment 896601

I'll be using the four HP EX950 2TB modules as JBOD, so the 6K data transfer rate won't show up here. Maybe later.

I arbitrarily put the card in x8 slot #7.

The About this Mac -> PCI Cards reports "optimal configuration."

The Expansion Slot Utility reports Pool A Allocation at 50%, Pool B at 0%.

If anyone can guide me as to how to monitor the temperatures of the cards, I'd appreciate it.

Tom

Download BinaryFruit DriveDX, it has a 14-day trial mode. It’s the best app for SMART and temperature monitoring.

 

[cobra521]

^^^^^^

Got DriveDX, thanks. It will probably take me a few hours to learn what all the info it displays really means

 

[ncc1701d]

Hi, just seeing any updates for this. I was considering getting the 0TB Accelsior and adding Samsung SSD 970 Evo Plus 1TB blades (only 2 initially). will it still work with only 2 blades out of the 4 and are the blades easy to add?

 

[tsialex]

Hi, just seeing any updates for this. I was considering getting the 0TB Accelsior and adding Samsung SSD 970 Evo Plus 1TB blades (only 2 initially). will it still work with only 2 blades out of the 4 and are the blades easy to add?

Bad choice, works half speed with MP5,1 and KP with MP7,1.

If you have a MP5,1, High Point SSD7101A-1 v2.00 is the best card. For MP7,1, none works correctly with sleep and until Apple correct it, you have to disable sleep for all PCIe switched cards.

Anyway, works with just two blades and blades are easy to add.

Edit: for a MP5,1, the card needs to have a x16 PCIe switch, or you only get around 2900MB/s total throughput, even with RAID. It's a limitation of the 8x PCIe switch when installed on a PCIe v2.0 slot.

 

[ncc1701d]

Bad choice, works half speed with MP5,1 and KP with MP7,1.

If you have a MP7,1, High Point SSD7101A-1 v2.00 is the best card. For MP7,1, none works correctly with sleep and until Apple correct it, you have to disable sleep for all PCIe switched cards.

Anyway, works with just two blades and blades are easy to add.

Ah - this is a different controller. Great, I will look into this. Just a quick look on their web page and I've got a lot more questions now. I'll do some more research thanks.

 

[cobra521]

I started another thread here about Accelsior problems: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/accelsior-4m2-troubles-w-7-1.2240023/

Interestingly, no sleep or panic problems - yet. Just SSD failures.

No reply yet from OWC with any help - only a delay, then a request for more information which I supplied. I'll post on the above referenced thread if/when there is any progress.

I do find myself wishing I'd seen the reference to the Highpoint card before I got this one.

Tom

 

[ncc1701d]

Bad choice, works half speed with MP5,1 and KP with MP7,1.

If you have a MP5,1, High Point SSD7101A-1 v2.00 is the best card. For MP7,1, none works correctly with sleep and until Apple correct it, you have to disable sleep for all PCIe switched cards.

Anyway, works with just two blades and blades are easy to add.

Edit: for a MP5,1, the card needs to have a x16 PCIe switch, or you only get around 2900MB/s total throughput, even with RAID. It's a limitation of the 8x PCIe switch when installed on a PCIe v2.0 slot.

So I have written to High Point a week ago but no reply. It would appear that their products are only available from amazon. I appreciate that for my needs this is probably overkill, but the below is what I sent them... Have I got the right product for what I want to do?

Hi. Your product was recommended to me after asking a question on a Mac forum about OWC’s SSD accelsior internal storage for the 2019 MacPro. They said OWC’s was rubbish and yours was great.

I have been looking around your web site and must admit I’m a bit out of my depth.

After looking through everything, I think my plan is to get the SSD7101A-1 NVMe RAID controller. Use one blade for installing windows via parallels and the other 3 blades in RAID 0 as a scratch drive.

I won’t be using it to boot (other than that’s where the windows files will be stored, but it’s just using virtualisation from parallels).

Is this the best option for me for the Late 2019 MacPro?

 

[tsialex]

So I have written to High Point a week ago but no reply. It would appear that their products are only available from amazon. I appreciate that for my needs this is probably overkill, but the below is what I sent them... Have I got the right product for what I want to do?

Hi. Your product was recommended to me after asking a question on a Mac forum about OWC’s SSD accelsior internal storage for the 2019 MacPro. They said OWC’s was rubbish and yours was great.

I have been looking around your web site and must admit I’m a bit out of my depth.

After looking through everything, I think my plan is to get the SSD7101A-1 NVMe RAID controller. Use one blade for installing windows via parallels and the other 3 blades in RAID 0 as a scratch drive.

I won’t be using it to boot (other than that’s where the windows files will be stored, but it’s just using virtualisation from parallels).

Is this the best option for me for the Late 2019 MacPro?

No switched PCIe M.2 card works correctly with 2019 Mac Pro if the sleep is enabled, Apple did not yet solved this problem as of 10.15.6.

SSD7101A-1 works perfectly with MP5,1, sleep or no sleep, bootable or not - even can boot a Windows UEFI install if you use OpenCore as the boot loader. BootCamp is not supported with MP5,1 since a MP5,1 BootCamp Windows install is a CSM/BIOS/Legacy install and don't support booting from NVMe drives.

SSD7101A-1 will work fine on your 2019 Mac Pro with your intended config if you disable sleep.

 

[ncc1701d]

No switched PCIe M.2 card works correctly with 2019 Mac Pro if the sleep is enabled, Apple did not yet solved this problem as of 10.15.6.

SSD7101A-1 works perfectly with MP5,1, sleep or no sleep, bootable or not - even can boot a Windows UEFI install if you use OpenCore as the boot loader. BootCamp is not supported with MP5,1 since a MP5,1 BootCamp Windows install is a CSM/BIOS/Legacy install and don't support booting from NVMe drives.

SSD7101A-1 will work fine on your 2019 Mac Pro with your intended config if you disable sleep.

Excellent thanks. And just to be 100% - that's the check box in "system preferences -> Energy Saver -> Put hard disks to sleep when possible" is not selected

I also have "turn display off - never", and

"Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off" checked

and...

I'm guessing screensavers make no difference (?)

 

[tsialex]

Excellent thanks. And just to be 100% - that's the check box in "system preferences -> Energy Saver -> Put hard disks to sleep when possible" is not selected

I also have "turn display off - never", and

"Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off" checked

and...

I'm guessing screensavers make no difference (?)

SysPref/Energy/Computer Sleep to Never too.

 

[OkiRun]

SysPref/Energy/Computer Sleep to Never too.

 

[tsialex]

View attachment 936624

My bad, 2019 Mac Pro (and iMac Pro too, if I remember correctly) don't have the the Computer sleep slider like older nonBridgeOS Macs.

 

[OkiRun]

My bad, 2019 Mac Pro (and iMac Pro too, if I remember correctly) don't have the the Computer sleep slider like older nonBridgeOS Macs.

Your contribution to Macrumors forums is so epic and I am so happy to have opportunity to say thank you. Arigato gozaimas.

 

[k393mf]

The M.2s arrived today. The 4M2 card has four, and here's a BackMagic speed test result: View attachment 896601

I'll be using the four HP EX950 2TB modules as JBOD, so the 6K data transfer rate won't show up here. Maybe later.

I arbitrarily put the card in x8 slot #7.

The About this Mac -> PCI Cards reports "optimal configuration."

The Expansion Slot Utility reports Pool A Allocation at 50%, Pool B at 0%.

If anyone can guide me as to how to monitor the temperatures of the cards, I'd appreciate it.

Tom

I bought the 4.0TB OWC Accelsior 4M2 PCIe Card that comes with four 1 TB OWC Aura P12 sticks. I installed the PCIe card in slot 5 (x16) and configured it as an Apple Raid 0. I moved my Home directory to that Volume and install most third party apps/games to that volume as well.

1 GB stress tests on the unencrypted Raid 0 APFS deliver 4550 MB/s write speeds and 5132 read speeds. 5 GB stress tests deliver 4329 MB/s write speeds and 5110 MB/s read speeds.

For comparison, the stock Apple T2 250GB SSD delivers a paltry 2894 MB/s writes and 2723 MB/s reads for 1 GB test and 1422 MB/s writes and 2708 MB/s reads for 5 GB test.

I'm running 8-core CPU with 240GB RAM and stock 580X graphics card (waiting for end of year refresh). I like the OWC setup... Have not had any issues thus far.

 

[choreo]

No switched PCIe M.2 card works correctly with 2019 Mac Pro if the sleep is enabled, Apple did not yet solved this problem as of 10.15.6.

Alex... does not the Sonnet card I have with 4 Samsung 970 EVO Plus's fall into the same category?

Sonnet M.2 4x4 Silent PCIe Card (Four M.2 NVMe SSD slots • Add your own SSDs up to 32TB)

Four M.2 NVMe SSD slots on a PCIe 3.0 x16 card. Silent operation. Add your own SSDs up to 16TB. Devotes four lanes of PCIe 3.0 bandwidth to support full performance to every SSD.

www.sonnetstore.com

I am not experiencing any sleep or wake issues? However unlike the Highpoint I don't think mine is bootable?

 

[tsialex]

Alex... does not the Sonnet card I have with 4 Samsung 970 EVO Plus's fall into the same category?

Sonnet M.2 4x4 Silent PCIe Card (Four M.2 NVMe SSD slots • Add your own SSDs up to 32TB)

Four M.2 NVMe SSD slots on a PCIe 3.0 x16 card. Silent operation. Add your own SSDs up to 16TB. Devotes four lanes of PCIe 3.0 bandwidth to support full performance to every SSD.

www.sonnetstore.com

I am not experiencing any sleep or wake issues? However unlike the Highpoint I don't think mine is bootable?

View attachment 938738

AFAIK, all PCIe switched cards have the same problem when waking from sleep, it's not a problem from one card, but using a second PCIe switch in series.

You can remediate it, like when using the OWC instructions, but you can't fully resolve it.

 

[startergo]

Can someone on a MP7,1 or an iMac19,1 Test BS 11.4 beta 1 on the OWC Accelsior 4M2 please? Is the system bootable?