Experience w/ OWC Accelsior?

It uses a Sandforce controller, so wear leveling and TRIM are built in. You'll probably replace it with something better long before it wears itself out.

It makes a noticeable difference using it as a Photoshop scratch disk. Highly recommended.

Do we know what the power usage is on these? ... My concern is not having the juice to run graphics cards and once of these.. i think for example my 2x5770's are just under the power limits now.

Murray M said:

Just got the replacement Accelsior 240 AND IT HAS EXACTLY THE SAME PROBLEM. Only shows up as 120. I just called their tech support--they've received my first one, are testing it and will call me back with a plan.

I'm impressed with their tech support but I'm starting to get nervous about this product. I'll keep you all informed.

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Man, I'm sorry to hear that! My 480GB is humming right along. I've been doing a lot of work in Aperture v3.3 this week and between the Accelsior and the performance bump in v3.3, I am VERY pleased. A new machine is the furthest thing from my mind at this point. Photoshop CS6 absolutely flies! I've found myself sitting there waiting for a filter to finish only to realize that it is done.

This has been an amazing upgrade for me. I hope OWC gets you straightened out. Maybe you can ask them to send you a 480GB Accelsior for your trouble...

Got myself a 480GB one of these the other day and it definitely flies! I used CCC to clone my boot partition from my bay 1 HDD to the Accelsior and it's super snappy all round...

Thinking ahead to Mountain Lion though, I'm wondering how to perform security erase? Or is that even necessary with a Sandforce SSD (I've heard opinions either way on the subject)? Other manufacturers (Intel, OWC) provide security erase tools for their Sandforce SSDs so it seems like there's some merit to it, but as far as I can tell OWC themselves don't offer a comparable tool...

mustgroove said:

Thinking ahead to Mountain Lion though, I'm wondering how to perform security erase? Or is that even necessary with a Sandforce SSD (I've heard opinions either way on the subject)? Other manufacturers (Intel, OWC) provide security erase tools for their Sandforce SSDs so it seems like there's some merit to it, but as far as I can tell OWC themselves don't offer a comparable tool...

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You'll see I answered this in the other thread, but to repeat it here... Secure Erase is only required to restore NAND write performance on old-school drives that don't support TRIM. Both effectively do the same thing of marking previously used but no longer needed NAND blocks as free to eliminate rewrites. All modern SSD's support TRIM except in RAID arrays. Given these PCIe cards are using Sandforce SSD blades in RAID, TRIM won't work. However, even without TRIM, the garbage collection on modern SSD's is usually sufficient to maintain great performance in all but the most extreme scenarios. I think you'll be fine as long as you're not using it full-to-capacity with significant heavy writes.

BTW, It would be interesting to know if OWC has somehow managed to implement some kind of TRIM on this card, or if they have any other garbage collection beyond what SandForce provides... but I doubt it. It might be worth asking them.

Side note: I ordered my Accelsior 4 days ago and it said it would ship in 2 days. Now they're telling me it's out of stock and they have no ETA on it.

This is my first experience with OWC and I am really disappointed.

Graham King said:

Side note: I ordered my Accelsior 4 days ago and it said it would ship in 2 days. Now they're telling me it's out of stock and they have no ETA on it.

This is my first experience with OWC and I am really disappointed.

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Which one? the 960Gb is showing as in stock and shipping today?

240GB. After getting upset on the phone, they "found some" in the warehouse and are sending it overnight. Me and OWC are cool again.

Graham King said:

240GB. After getting upset on the phone, they "found some" in the warehouse and are sending it overnight. Me and OWC are cool again.

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Good to hear, these things must sell like hot cakes, I wonder if we'll see a 4 slot one anytime soon, giving 1920GB

They really need to drop the price... The SSD's they use are the equivalent of the Vertex 3 which are selling for less than $1/GB nowadays. I could accept a small premium for the PCIe card but not double the price of comparable SSDs.

Murray M said:

Just got the replacement Accelsior 240 AND IT HAS EXACTLY THE SAME PROBLEM. Only shows up as 120. I just called their tech support--they've received my first one, are testing it and will call me back with a plan.

I'm impressed with their tech support but I'm starting to get nervous about this product. I'll keep you all informed.

Click to expand...

All good, problem solved.

1) OWC customer service is INCREDIBLE.

2) It turns out that they had a batch with a incorrect firmware set to a mirrored stripe, thus only seeing half of the two blades.

3) They next-day shipped the replacement which is now working correctly--and quite speedy. It's exactly like they advertise on their site video with the two computers starting and loading Photoshop.

Murray M said:

All good, problem solved.

1) OWC customer service is INCREDIBLE.

Click to expand...

I've been using OWC for years; they've always been a few bucks more than places like NewEgg, but their products have always been solid.

2) It turns out that they had a batch with a incorrect firmware set to a mirrored stripe, thus only seeing half of the two blades.

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Whew! Sounds like my 240GB card must have just missed that batch. Will be time to get to work, as soon as I'm able to move over my old email accounts.


-hh

VirtualRain said:

You'll see I answered this in the other thread, but to repeat it here... Secure Erase is only required to restore NAND write performance on old-school drives that don't support TRIM. Both effectively do the same thing of marking previously used but no longer needed NAND blocks as free to eliminate rewrites. All modern SSD's support TRIM except in RAID arrays. Given these PCIe cards are using Sandforce SSD blades in RAID, TRIM won't work. However, even without TRIM, the garbage collection on modern SSD's is usually sufficient to maintain great performance in all but the most extreme scenarios. I think you'll be fine as long as you're not using it full-to-capacity with significant heavy writes.

BTW, It would be interesting to know if OWC has somehow managed to implement some kind of TRIM on this card, or if they have any other garbage collection beyond what SandForce provides... but I doubt it. It might be worth asking them.

Click to expand...

Got in touch with OWC about it and here was their response:

There is no tool for the Sandforce drives for a ATA security erase. It is not needed on the Sandforce controlled units

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Other manufacturers seem to take a different stance (seeing as they do supply their own secure erase tools), but there it is from the horse's mouth.

OWC Accelsior 240GB Mac Pro 2010

Hi,

I am new to the Mac world and to this forum. So to you all: Greetings from The Netherlands/Europe.

I did buy a Mac Pro 2010 (5.1) Westmere 12 core.

I am loving this machine and also bought the Acceslior 240GB from OWC. The MAC pro has all the latest updates. I have tried running os version 10.6 and now 10.7.

I was doing a Google search and found this topic here.

I am having issues with the OWC. Sometimes the OWC shows up, sometimes it doesn´t when booting, and trying to find out what the problem is. I have the revision code:0x0010 (OWC)

I did contact some people i know in the computer world and they all had the same conclusion that it has something to do with firmware issues.

I contacted OWC and they want me to send it back for RMA. Maybe it has something to do with firmware? i don´t know.

Greetings

I just thought I'de chime in that I just "went nuts" and ordered the 480GB model for my early 2088 Mac Pro. $800.00 is an insane amount of money, but I'm still happy with my now almost 5 year old Mac and this will keep me even happier for the next couple of years I expect. Way cheaper than a new Mac.

How does the accelsior work compared to a Samsung 830 SSD in a velcoity Solo x2?

I'm thinking about getting one (120GB model), together with the Velocity solo I get about 80$ cheaper if I go with the Samsung.

Any speed gains or losses will most likely not be felt. 4K r/w on the Samsung are quite a bit faster on 3G and 6G system ports. Sequential's are faster on Accelsior. Can't speak for the Solo and any loss it may have. Depends on use. Accelsior is really 2 lower tier SF-2281 MBA SSD's in RAID0. Samsung is slightly higher tier NAND unless they have changed things.

Thanks.

The thing is that the Samsung would run SATA II speed if Iplugged it direclty into the motherboard.
If I go with the Velocity Solo x2 adapter, I plug the whole thing into a PCIe slot and then I can reach SATA III. That's what I was asking for...

mustgroove said:

Other manufacturers seem to take a different stance (seeing as they do supply their own secure erase tools), but there it is from the horse's mouth.

Click to expand...

That is largely because most other flash controller vendors don't encrypt data by default. All the data stored through the current sandforce controllers is encrypted as sent to disk. They also attempt to compress it too. If the data is incompressible then it is only encrypted. Otherwise it does both.

The notion is that "secure erase" isn't needed if the data isn't ever stored in the clear. if anyone tries to probe the data by bypassing the Sandforce controller they can't read it. If they go through the controller and the user has "erased" the metadata associated with the drive when it did have data .... again can't get to the data.

Secure Erase is about denying access to the data after you 'let go' of the drive (sell , dispose , etc. )


Folks seem to be muddling the issue between the drive resetting the metadata about what blocked are "erased" and ready to be written and "secure erase". Zeroing out data does both on HDDs. On SSDs there are lots of good reasons why don't really want to write zeros to the whole drive. Mostly dealing with wear and much less so dealing with de-duplication.

El Awesome said:

Thanks.

The thing is that the Samsung would run SATA II speed if Iplugged it direclty into the motherboard.
If I go with the Velocity Solo x2 adapter, I plug the whole thing into a PCIe slot and then I can reach SATA III. That's what I was asking for...

Click to expand...

Gotcha. Well, I noticed no change for my boot SSD going from 3G to 6G. Zero. Same SSD was in Mac Pro moved to 2012 Macbook Pro. You may be disappointed in relative lack of difference. But if you want it you want it. Benchmarks are indeed higher on 6G. I just don't see or feel anything Glad I passed on $700.00 6G ATTO card for Mac Pro I didn't need. But that Solo was not available at the time I was looking for 6G solutions. The Solo x2 seems good to have regardless. I might even get one for extra 1TB or 750GB 2.5" storage or similar. Or change boot or...

Sorry off the topic of main discussion.

Would there be enough room to use a Velocity Solo x2 card sitting in between an ATI HD 5770 & HD 5780 graphics card or any concern of any heat issues generated from the gcards?

Thanks.

Anyone actually test the Samsung 830 256GB in the Velocity Solo x2? Benchmarks please!!

Just wanted to say thank you for this thread. I've been eyeing these myself.

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dmax35 said:

Sorry off the topic of main discussion.

Would there be enough room to use a Velocity Solo x2 card sitting in between an ATI HD 5770 & HD 5780 graphics card or any concern of any heat issues generated from the gcards?

Thanks.

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Is there physical space? I have a USB 2.0 PCI card and the 5870 in my Pro. I know the USB card takes up one slot obviously, but I thought the 5870 was two. In that case, I'd imagine there would be airflow issues more than heat. I could be wrong.

VirtualRain said:

They really need to drop the price... The SSD's they use are the equivalent of the Vertex 3 which are selling for less than $1/GB nowadays. I could accept a small premium for the PCIe card but not double the price of comparable SSDs.

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Agreed - I expect it to cost more, but the blade-style SSDs are just too high.

matthewtoney said:

Agreed - I expect it to cost more, but the blade-style SSDs are just too high.

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That is in part because "blade SSDs" are not just SSDs. Typically what you are purchasing is an additional SATA controller , if not also a greater than 6Gb/s throughput RAID controller. That plus the multiple SSDs ends costing more than a single SSD controller coupled to a larger multiple of Flash chips.

If using the drive sleds of any of the current or previous Mac Pro models the useful bandwidth you get out of the "cheaper" SSDs is not as high.

So you are paying extra for extra performance and extra equipment. If don't need that additional value then the price probably isn't worth it, but that doesn't mean the price is too high.