Pci Express Ssd Pro For Mac Pros Can

Boot time for OS X also increases when the Accelsior cards are installed (just like other PCIe SSD cards).

In some cases people buy two to get the maximum thruput they are advertising.

I asked OWC via their blog but only learnt that the interface is PCIe 2.0 x 2 Just a value for money question really.

Physically, the card can fit into any PCI Express slot that can accept an x2 card.

Electrically, the card has 2 PCIe 2.0 lanes.

Pci Express Ssd Pro For Mac Pros Can

All PCIe slots in all Mac Pros can physically accept x16 cards.

Slots 1 and 2 of the Mac Pro 2006 and 2007 are PCIe 1.0 slots.

Each lane in a PCIe 1.0 slot can do 250 MBs.

If you configure the slots to be x8 or x16 using the Expansion Slot Utility, then the Accelsior will do 380 MBs in those slots (PCIe 1.0 x2).

Slots 3 and 4 of the Mac Pro 2006, 2007, and 2008 are PCIe 1.0 slots.

However, when you put an x2 card in slot 3 or 4, only 1 lane will be used because the ESB2 south bridge chip that controls those slots will not negotiate 2 lanes.

According to the PCI Express specifications, slots are not required to negotiate a link width of 2 lanes.

The Accelsior in slots 3 and 4 only does 195 MBs (PCIe 1.0 x1).

Check About This Mac.

More Info. - System Report.

PCI Cards - pci1b4b,9230.

You should see something like this: pci1b4b,9230: Type: AHCI Controller Driver Installed: Yes MSI: Yes Bus: PCI Slot: Slot-2 Vendor ID: 0x1b4b Device ID: 0x9230 Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x1b4b Subsystem ID: 0x9230 Revision ID: 0x0010 Link Width: x2 Link Speed: 5.0 GTs If you see Link Speed: 2.5 GTs then it means you put the card in a PCIe 1.0 slot.

If you see Link Width: x1 then it means the slot was not able to negotiate 2 lanes to the Accelsior card.

There are a few minor booting issues Ive found with the Accelsior in a Mac Pro 2008 (minor if you dont care about Boot Camp): If I hold option key down during startup to see the Startup Manager, then the Startup Manager will not show the partitions on the Accelsior.

I am unable to boot Windows or Linux (using Boot Camp) from a CDDVD, from a hard drive, or from the Accelsior, while the Accelsior is installed.

This means I can only use virtualization software (such as Parallels Desktop) to run Windows.

If I boot rEFIt or rEFInd from the Accelsior, then they will not show partitions from other hard drives.

If I boot rEFIt or rEFInd from a hard drive, they will not show partitions on the Accelsior.

I have Windows installed on a separate HDD which is occasionally accessed via Boot Camp.

I have been unable to use my Boot Camp partitions no matter where they are located unless I remove the Accelsior.

I havent found any other users that have noted success or failure with Boot Camp on the old Mac Pros (2006, 2007, 2008) with the Accelsior card installed.

FWIW my benchmarking was in the ballpark of the published MPG numbers but not identical.

Downside: I cold not get Lion to install on a RAID-0 config of both drives.

The install barfed.

Instead, I partitioned both cards to give me 80GB boot partition on 1 card, another 80GB partition on the other card and then I created a stripe-0 volume across the other 40GB partitions on each card giving me 3 80GB partitions.

One other thing, contrary to other posts, I am able to boot from a separate SSD into Windows just fine.

Pci Express Ssd Mac Pro For Windows 7