mechanical drives are slow. I deal with large libraries and large files that are difficult to move around. This drive saves me so much time and makes my life so much more productive. You have to figure out a solid methodology first and follow a protocol. I do all my work off 2 SSD solutions and then at the end I move it to a mechanical drive (2 actually - one is main storage and the other is a mirror for those OHSHI moments). I use a script to move the items so life is carefree.

I did run the speed test software and you get what they say. Just wish that I could get more than 8TB as an option.

Somethings you regret buying. This isn't one of them.

Love it, just wished it would mount faster on the desktop. I have my dropbox in it and sometime when I reboot the computer DB can't find it(because it didn't mount yet) and causes some issues. So I turn on DB manually now.

The physical drive itself is great.
I really like the SoftRAID software it comes with but it has two issues:

You have to completely disable Apple's T2 chip security feature for SoftRAID to install its driver. I believe if they worked with Apple, Apple could sign the driver and allow it to be installed with the T2 chip setting allowing T2 security turned on with SoftRAID driver. A fix may be on the way for that.

Second, the RAID drive does not show up on the About this Mac Storage status. Not a big deal.

Otherwise SoftRAID is very easy to use, clear graphical user interface. It is what Apple's RAID setup should be.

So far I have had no need to use it to rebuild/recover a RAIDed drive. Therefore I can give no feedback.

This is being used on a 2019 Mac Pro.

This is a 5 Star item but you need to read my review as I learned a few things about installing and using this.


First, this is very, very easy to install in the older Mac Pro Towers and from what I have seen, even easier in the 2019 Mac Pro Tower. It literally plugs in and is good to go.


BUT, there is software that comes with this card and the activation key is on a sticker on the card so you need to write it down or, like me, you will be disassembling your Mac to take a shot of the code.


ALSO, this card DOES NOT support the APFS format which, in my case, is the format of my startup disk meaning that I was not able to use it as a startup.


SO, it goes so much faster than my current 2010 Hackintosh Mac Pro can take advantage of BUT when I get my new 2019 Mac Pro, I will be able to simply take this out of my current Mac and insert it and use it in the new one where it will save lots of time and $$$.


The SoftRAID software works very well once you use the provided activation code.


One last thing. This card heats up which was surprising to me as I have several SSDs and they hardly get warm. So, I am taking the precaution and turning my computer off when I won't be using it for more than a few hours instead of simply putting it to sleep.


One more last thing. I did get to work with OWC support and they were very easy to chat with, handled my problem quickly and I found out that there is no need to register the device as I believe your serial number or invoice will give them a date to use and the warranty is good for up to 5 years.


I am planning on using it for longer than that.

I bought this for my 2019 Mac Pro. It was simple to install. It comes with RAID software that doesn't quite work with Big Sur so I needed to download the beta version. OWC's customer service is wonderful. I'm really glad I got this.

So far so good. Purchased a new base model Mac Pro 2019 and installed this in a 16x PCIe 3.0 slot in a striped raid for speed. I get an average of 5000MB/sec read and write. Slight issues installing which required a call to OWC tech support. They were very helpful and it was a known issue. So expect to do that. Otherwise working well!