OWC Blog - blog.macsales.com

Tag-Archive for » PCIe «

NewerTech Announces MAXPower eSATA 6G PCIe 2.0 RAID Controller Card With Port Multiplier Support For Adding Up To 10 Drives Externally

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 | Author: OWC NewsFeed

Features two 6Gb/s eSATA ports for use with any PCIe slot equipped Mac or PC; offers up to 500MB/s data rates and convenient browser based RAID Setup and drive health monitoring

Newer Technology, Inc. announced today the NewerTech MAXPower eSATA 6G PCIe 2.0 RAID Controller Card, a high performance mass storage solution for adding two SATA 6Gb/s ports – the fastest performance data transfer interface standard – along with port multiplier support for adding up to 20TB of desktop storage with RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 support to Mac Pros and PCs with an open PCIe slot.

Add Up To 20TB Of Desktop Storage

In addition to supporting any standard single or dual eSATA interface equipped storage solution, the NewerTech MAXPower eSATA 6G PCIe 2.0 RAID Controller Card also supports port multiplier enclosures. Now Mac Pro or PC users with machines offering an open PCIe slot can connect up to 10 drives (up to 5 per eSATA channel via industry standard Port Multiplier Enclosure solution) for a total of up to 20TB of desktop storage in a RAID 0 array for maximum capacity and speed or in a redundant RAID array such as RAID 1, 5, and 10 for the highest levels of data protection. Article Continues…

Category: Press Releases

Go faster with eSATA and OWC.

Thursday, March 11th, 2010 | Author: OWC Chris S.

Many OWC and Newer Technology storage solutions can be hooked up via eSATA. For those of you who don’t know what eSATA is, it is a fast device connection currently capable of data transfer speeds up to 3.0Gbps. This results in data transfer rates from your external drives that are comparable to those connected internally. As great as having that kind of speed on a portable drive is, there are two caveats to using eSATA.

The first thing to look out for is that, unlike FireWire or USB, eSATA is unpowered. This means you will need an external power source in order to run a portable drive. This is easily achieved via either a power adapter or—in some instances—hooking up a USB or FireWire cable for power.

The other issue with using eSATA is that no Macs currently ship with eSATA built in; you will need to add a controller card. This, too, is quite simple to do as long as you have either a tower Mac or a Mac notebook with an expansion slot.

Article Continues…

Plug and Play eSATA Card Makes Your Mac Pro Faster

Friday, January 29th, 2010 | Author: OWC Grant

The benefit of eSATA is high performance data transfer typically 2-3 times faster than FireWire 800 for connecting external devices. A drawback has been the need to install and maintain drivers for modern eSATA controller cards… Until now.

The NewerTech MAXPower eSATA 6G PCIe 2.0 Controller Card is among the very first in eSATA Controller cards for the Mac Pro and PCs that is fully Plug and Play. No drivers required for Apple OS 10.5 and later (also Plug and Play driverless with Windows Vista and later), this ACHI compliant PCI Express card is as easy as it gets for adding external SATA device support. Just “install it and forget it” by plugging it into an available PCIe slot and you can then enjoy the performance offered via the eSATA port standard on many OWC, NewerTech, and other third party single drive and hardware RAID solutions. This card isn’t for multi-drive Port Multiplier enclosures/solutions that require software or special RAID controller to enable RAID operation – but it’s an excellent choice for those solutions like the NewerTech GMAX, OWC Elite-AL Pro RAID, and OWC Qx2 solutions that provide a hardware controlled RAID solution and support higher data throughput via standard eSATA ports.

And for all you speed freaks out there, we’ve created the ultimate performance bundle. And we’ll have some benchmarks up soon showing just how fast you can go!

But I digress…back to this awesome card…it offers exceptional ease of use without the worry of a driver that may not work with a future OS release – it’s also an exceptional bargain priced at just $59.99. Because it doesn’t have those pesky drivers to maintain and possibly cause incompatibility down the road, one of its greatest benefits – that Plug and Play ease – also allows it to be exceptionally affordable too.

Bottom line…if you’ve ever wanted to enjoy the higher level of performance available from eSATA – but with the Plug and Play operation that you’ve grown accustomed to with FireWire – the NewerTech MaxPower eSATA 6G PCIe 2.0 Controller Card is your ticket to the fast lane.

Discharging Static Electricity for Safe Computer Upgrading

Thursday, September 24th, 2009 | Author: OWC Michael

GlobemanfriedSo often we are asked in reference to our OWC Instructional Series of Videos, “How exactly am I supposed to ‘Use proper anti-static precautions when performing this upgrade’?” The real answer is…it depends.  There are actually several different ways, depending on your situation, that you can help to control static electricity in order to avoid damaging the electronically delicate components found inside your computer.

According to WikipediaStatic electricity refers to the buildup of electric charge on the surface of objects. The static charges remain on an object until they either bleed off to ground or are quickly neutralized by a discharge. And it’s that discharge that can ‘zap’ or ‘fry’ your computer components, rendering them inoperable.

To give you an idea of how little static electricity needs to be generated to cause harm to your computer components, it takes as little as 5 to 10 volts to cause damage inside your computer.  In order for you to even feel the presence of  static electricity, the level needs to be above 1,500 volts.   You can accumulate an average of 10,000 to 12,000 volts just walking across carpeting.  Rubbing a balloon on dry fur (or hair) generates about 20,000 volts. Did you know the average person can carry up to 25,000 volts of static energy at any given time? So discharging any built up energy before you begin is important.

So, how are we to be safe when working in our precious machines? Article Continues…

Category: Tech Tips

Integrate just about anything into your Mac Pro.

Friday, April 3rd, 2009 | Author: OWC Chris S.

The Mac Pro has the one thing that’s not available on any other Mac: the ability to drop in an expansion card that allows your Mac to utilize other hardware.

Jonesing for some good, old-fashioned FireWire 400 connectivity, so you can hook up your older peripherals without converter cables? There’s a card for that. Need more USB ports? You can do that, too. Want to add a RAID 5 array in an external enclosure? Covered. Real-time HD video capture? Why the heck not?

Installing a PCIe expansion card is simple enough to do, but to make it even easier, this week’s instructional video takes you through it step-by-step. See how easy it is to perform this upgrade by stopping by our video page or our YouTube channel.