Computer Expansion Devices
Allegro USB3 4 Port
Product Code: SON-USB3-4PME
Suggested Retail Price £53+VAT
Where to buy VideosStock status: In Stock; available from resellers
Add Four USB 3.0 Connections to Your Mac Pro® Tower, Windows® PC, or Thunderbolt™-to-PCI Express Card Expansion System
Your computer's USB 2.0 ports are perfectly adequate for connecting mice, keyboards, and printers, but if you need to connect external storage drives, USB 2.0 ports are underpowered in more ways than one—limiting data transfer speeds to around 25–30 MB/s, they can hardly be called “high performance”. Most drives available today include USB 3.0 interfaces and offer significantly better performance than USB 2.0-equipped drives. Though you can connect them to your computer's USB 2.0 ports, their performance would be reduced by as much as 85 percent! Don't settle for slow performance—install a Sonnet Allegro USB 3.0 4-Port card to instantly add four SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports to your system to take full advantage of today's drives' performance capabilities.
Sonnet specially engineered the Allegro USB 3.0 4-Port card to provide extra power through its ports without the need for you to connect an auxiliary power cable. Delivering up to 10W of power per port, this Sonnet solution supports USB 3.0 bus-powered hard drives, SSDs, DVDs & Blu-ray™ devices without the need to connect an additional AC power adapter. The Allegro USB 3.0 card also supports the USB 3.0 charging specification that enables you to simultaneously charge and sync your iPad®, iPhone®, or other device that supports USB 3.0 charging!
The Allegro USB 3.0 4-Port card features a PCIe 2.0 bus interface to take advantage of your computer's fast expansion card slots. This card installs easily into any PCI Express® (PCIe) slot that supports a full-height card, features hot-pluggable and hot-swappable device connection support with automatic device configuration, and works with all USB-IF compliant USB 3.0 and USB 2.0, peripherals.
Optimized for Thunderbolt
Got a Thunderbolt connection, but no PCIe slot? The Allegro USB 3.0 4-Port card is ideal for use in any Thunderbolt to PCIe card expansion chassis, including one of Sonnet's Echo Express™ or xMac™ Thunderbolt 2-to-PCI Express card expansion systems, offering full performance wherever you install it—now you can add SuperSpeed USB 3.0 charging connections any Mac with a Thunderbolt port.
When connected to the Allegro Pro USB 3.0 PCIe, Allegro USB 3.0 4-Port PCIe, Tango 3.0 PCIe, or Tempo Duo PCIe card, my bus-powered USB 2.0 or 3.0 drive or SSD will not reliably mount or transfer data. |
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High power bus-powered drives are supported only by the Allegro Pro USB 3.0 PCIe (USB3-PRO-4PM-E), Allegro USB 3.0 4-Port PCIe (USB3-4PM-E), and Tango 3.0 PCIe (FW8USB3A-E) cards, but not the discontinued USB 3.0 PCIe cards (USB3-E or USB3M-E), the initial version of the Tango 3.0 PCIe card (FWUSB3-E), nor any USB 2.0 cards. If you are still having trouble, this may be a problem due to a voltage drop in the USB cable. Use the following guide to select the correct cable for your application. In general, these cables should work with SSDs or optical drives drawing up to 2A of current: Type........Power-Carrying Wires....Cable Outside Diameter....Maximum Cable Length USB 2.0..........28 AWG...............................3.8mm...........................0.15m (0.5 ft) USB 2.0..........24 AWG...............................4.7mm...........................0.3m ( 1 ft) USB 2.0..........20 AWG...............................5.0mm..............................1m ( 3 ft) USB 3.0..........22 AWG...............................6.0mm..............................1m ( 3 ft) Generally, the gauge of the power-carrying wires can be inferred from the cable outside diameter. |
Sonnet is currently testing product compatibility for macOS 10.13 (High Sierra). The following are compatible:
