MP 7,1 Which PCI E Nvme Card for 7.1 possibly a 14.8 or M3 Mac Pro

[jcxstar13]

I’m looking to finally get a pcie nvme card and I know there’s quite a few people here with them and I’d like to know which brand or go with. Looking at OWC, Sonnet, and Highpoint. Prefer to populate with my own ssd so leaning sonnet or highpoint. I like the fanless design of the sonnet. Is one better/ more reliable than the other? I plan to use this card for some time moving to a 14.8 Mac Pro or eventually the M3 version.

Is there still an issue with the computer going to sleep and waking up?

 

[Boil]

I’m looking to finally get a pcie nvme card and I know there’s quite a few people here with them and I’d like to know which brand or go with. Looking at OWC, Sonnet, and Highpoint. Prefer to populate with my own ssd so leaning sonnet or highpoint. I like the fanless design of the sonnet. Is one better/ more reliable than the other? I plan to use this card for some time moving to a 14.8 Mac Pro or eventually the M3 version.

OWC cards are also available without any drives installed...

 

[jcxstar13]

OWC cards are also available without any drives installed...

Yeah I know that. If I could get one of theirs with 4 8tb drives I would. I’d like to start with 4 8tb drives then add 4 more down the road.

 

[andrewmarich]

I've been using OWC Accelsior 8M2 for a couple of months now, it has been flawless with 14,8 running Sonoma.

I looked at Sonnet etc but kept coming back to OWC as I like their SoftRAID interface and their awesome customer support & warranties. On the other hand I have that Sonnet Fusion Flex J3i, which I have 3 x SSD's RAID'd, it works well but seems more janky than the OWC experience.
If I was in your situation or looking for a second PCIe NVME RAID card I would purchase the empty Accelsior 8M2...
Its costs slightly more than the Sonnet version but just works out of the box and overall gives me more piece of mind with support etc.

Here is a screen grab of the performance! Insane!

 

[jcxstar13]

I've been using OWC Accelsior 8M2 for a couple of months now, it has been flawless with 14,8 running Sonoma.

I looked at Sonnet etc but kept coming back to OWC as I like their SoftRAID interface and their awesome customer support & warranties. On the other hand I have that Sonnet Fusion Flex J3i, which I have 3 x SSD's RAID'd, it works well but seems more janky than the OWC experience.
If I was in your situation or looking for a second PCIe NVME RAID card I would purchase the empty Accelsior 8M2...
Its costs slightly more than the Sonnet version but just works out of the box and overall gives me more piece of mind with support etc.

Here is a screen grab of the performance! Insane!

View attachment 2294361

Must have missed that you can order just the card. I think I’ll give that a try. Those speeds are insane. Obviously I won’t get those till I upgrade the computer at some point but regardless I’ll be way faster than the Pegasus raid I had in there and see as that wouldn’t work in a new Mac Pro it had to go.

 

[DrEGPU]

I don’t have experience with the OWC card, but I’ve used a few different highpoint cards. I like highpoint because they have drivers for different OS’s. This means the array can be read/written from whichever OS you’re using (MacOS, Bootcamp/win, Linux), assuming you format it with a common FS, like exFAT. It varies from card to card, and machine to machine, but some of them can boot an OS off the array because they have a BIOS onboard that initializes early on in the boot up process.

Lastly, the fans on these cards aren’t really necessary in a 2019/2023 Max Pro, but if there’s any chance at all they might be used in a PC, those fans will come in handy

 

[jcxstar13]

I don’t have experience with the OWC card, but I’ve used a few different highpoint cards. I like highpoint because they have drivers for different OS’s. This means the array can be read/written from whichever OS you’re using (MacOS, Bootcamp/win, Linux), assuming you format it with a common FS, like exFAT. It varies from card to card, and machine to machine, but some of them can boot an OS off the array because they have a BIOS onboard that initializes early on in the boot up process.

Lastly, the fans on these cards aren’t really necessary in a 2019/2023 Max Pro, but if there’s any chance at all they might be used in a PC, those fans will come in handy

I’m a Mac only guy no need/desire to use windows or Linux. So I got in both the OWC card and the Sonnet silent card. And honestly they don’t even compare, the OWC card in my opinion is much better. The heatsink on the OWC is about twice the size and weight of the sonnet card. The sound of the fan is almost negligible and to be honest I can’t tell if I’m hearing that or the fans of the Mac Pro. There’s a way to turn the Mac on with the case off but I don’t know how to do that so couldn’t see exactly if it was Mac or OWC fan I was hearing. Obviously heat is the enemy with these drives and I feel better with my data being in the OWC card. I planned to use softraid anyway so cost would have ended up being about the same so for anyone else looking at the options I’d def go with the OWC card.