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Sonnet 6Gb/s SATA PCI SSD Cards Now Boot in Mac Pro |
| Sonnet high-performance 6Gb/sec SATA PCI Express 2.5-Inch SSD cards now support booting in Mac Pro computers. Users can select and mount their own 6Gb/sec solid-state drives on a PCIe Card when using the Sonnet Tempo SSD and Tempo SSD Pro cards. For example, with the update, users can boot from a Mac Pro even in a RAID 0 configuration with two solid-state drives. They are also bootable in Thunderbolt-to-PCIe expansion chassis and in Windows 7 and 8 PCs, plus Server 2008 and 2012. |
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With the Tempo SSD and Tempo SSD Pro, users can purchase one or two SSDs separately and then easily mount them on PCIe cards. Being able to use readily available 2.5-inch SATA SSDs, without cables, adapters or cases, generally allows more flexibility regarding SSD capacity and performance, adjusting for specific needs and budget as well as the option to upgrade. In short, the ability to boot from attached SSDs means Mac Pro users can now customise their systems for performance and speed. SSDs have become useful components in systems requiring very fast data transfer speeds and large numbers of I/O operations. Instead of relying on proprietary SSD modules, Sonnet supports standard 2.5-inch SATA SSDs, which are typically available at better prices than proprietary SSD modules. According to Sonnet, the Tempo 6Gb/sec SATA cards run at a greater bandwidth than the Mac Pro's native 3Gb/sec SATA bus. |
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The Tempo SSD card uses a high-performance 6Gb/sec SATA controller and a PCIe 2.0 interface with a modular design that supports one SSD with the card at half-length, or two SSDs with an included bracket that extends the card to full length. The Tempo SSD supports sustained read speeds of up to 500 MB/sec from a single SSD or up to 660 MB/sec from two SSDs configured as a RAID 0 set. The Tempo SSD Pro card can mount two SSDs in a full-length PCIe slot, such as those in the Mac Pro. It has a higher-performance 6Gb/sec SATA SSD controller that supports sustained read speeds of up to 960 MB/sec from two SSDs configured as a Mac Pro-bootable RAID 0 set. Both of these cards install into a Mac or Windows computer's PCIe slot, or into a Thunderbolt expansion chassis for PCIe cards such as Sonnet's Echo Express line, or the xMac mini Server PCIe 2.0 expansion system/1U rackmount enclosure. With SSDs attached, both cards are narrow enough to occupy the space of only a single-width card. Sonnet has posted software on its website that enables users to update their cards to gain the new capability. www.sonnettech.com |
