Sonnet Allegro Pro USB 3.2 Type A PCIe Card (Four SuperSpeed 10Gbps USB Connectors)

Today I installed the Sonnet Allegro Pro card in my cMP 5,1. The card is well made and fits tightly in its slot. This card requires no additional power connection, and driver support is built into OS X 10.8.5 or greater.My current configuration is arranged as follows:Slot 1 – AMD HD 7970 3GB by MVCSlot 2 – Apple/Samsung 512GB PCIe SSD using v.1 Sintech AdaptorSlot 3 – Sonnet Allegro Pro USB 3.0Slot 4 – Apricorn Solo X2 w/Samsung 840 Pro SSDAfter trying every USB device type that I own (Many drives (up to 4TB), webcam, USB Thumb drives, Mouse/Mice, Keyboards (4), printers, scanner, drive docking station, and USB hubs). I found no compatibility or performance issues. I transferred 16TB of data in 4TB chunks in each direction and found no issues at all. I also transferred 4TB of data in small files (again in each direction) and the process was flawless. So far I’m impressed.About the Allegro Pro:This card has 4 independent controllers (one for each port) and each is totally isolated from the others. The system profiler shows 4 different x1 devices installed into a single slot, it is not reported as an x4 device.This card supports UASP and that is a specification I now demand on any USB card or storage device (except thumb drives) connected to my system. UASP is intended to speed up operations of USB connected SSDs, but I find it also brings enhanced performance to mechanical drives that are installed in UASP compatible enclosures. UASP allows you to perform tasks related to the drive (renaming or moving folders for example), while a file transfer from the same drive is in progress. It does this without slowing the transfer or being forced to wait for an operation to be completed. In other words, it feels like an SATA drive instead of a USB drive when working.Summary:I my opinion, this is an exceptional card, that is slightly slower than the RocketU 1144C with similar specs. This card has additional features for charging devices such as iPhone, iPod, iPad etc… The Sonnet website recommends that you download a driver for charging support. I haven’t personally tested this, but I've been told by another user that this driver isn’t needed. It’s sole purpose is to avoid the pop-up notification (Drive was improperly ejected) on receives when waking the computer from sleep with USB drives attached. With this card so far (unlike any other card I’ve tested), if you eject the drives manually before sleeping the computer, you won’t get the pop-up notification when the computer wakes and remounts the attached USB drives.Since I’ve only owned the card for a short period of time, this will be a rolling review until I feel it’s complete.Package includes the Sonnet Allegro Pro PCIe 4-Port card & documentation. A few other details are listed below.5 Year WarrantyPCIe 2.0 x4 slot4 Independent controllers4 USB 3.0 PortsNo additional power requiredNo external drivers requiredUASP enabled7.5w Device Charging supported on each port450 MB/s transfer rate per portUp to 31 devices connected at onceOS X 10.8.5 and above supported OOTBWindows 7 and above supportedConclusion:I really like this card but it's a bit pricy at $129 from most retailers. When price and speed are the deciding factors, the RocketU-1144C wins. That said, I feel this is a great choice for the long haul with it's 5 year warranty, and device charging capabilities. I noticed that when I plug devices into this card (especially large drives), the devices are recognized and/or mounted much quicker than with the RocketU. I plan to keep this card installed for a while for further testing.I whole heartedly recommend this card for heavy duty lifting. If your needs are less or if you are $ wise, look at the RocketU-1144C or the Sonnet Allegro (non-pro version). This is a very nice addition to my cMP (at least until I start testing USB 3.1 cards).NOTE: The card pictured below is a stock photo of the v.1 card. The card that ships now has a rather large heatsink located on the large chip in the center of the board.

It worked well in my 2010 Mac Pro 5,1 3.46GHz Intel 6-core computer PCIe slot. The overall fit and quality of this PCIe made it a well design and function with quality connections. Definitely better than the stock USB 2.0 on this Mac which now has USB 3.1 making it more reliable!!!

All the drivers work and there is no issue at all. Great to access storage, but doesn't seem to grant access to using my controller.

I got this to use on my 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 running Yosemite. I purchased a mediasonic USB 3n1 Gen2 external enclosure and wanted the best speed. I already own several mediasonic USB 3.0 enclosures. I have been using a FirmTek 4 port USB 3.0 PCIe card with these externals for several years without issues.After installing this, I connected 3 mediasonic 3.0 and one 3.1 enclosures. I immediately had issues. All the drives kept unmounting and giving me errors. Some would read as connected but wouldn't mount. Some would unmount while writing to the drive, which is not good for data! Sadly I uninstalled it and went back to my FirmTek.Fast forward a month. After heavy research, I FINALLY gave in and updated my firmware to 5,1 and OS to High Sierra. After this I decided to try the card again. I reconnected everything the same way as before and voila! Worked perfectly! No issues at all! The speeds are fast, but limited by my processor but better then b4. So far it's been a week of heavy use transferring close to 100 yes 100TB of video and photos across drives. So far no disconnects. I have since purchased a 4x Sonnet USB-C card which I now have the mediasonic 3.1 connected too. All working flawlessly now. Hopefully I am ready for another few years before needing another major upgrade!

Recently purchased a PCIe USB card from Amazon. This card prevents windows from booting. I removed the card and now my computer boots properly. I do not have the original packaging, so I cannot return to Amazon, and I would like RMA consideration. Below is the card I purchased.Sonnet Allegro Pro USB 3.2 Type A PCIe Card (Four SuperSpeed 10Gbps USB Connectors)--Regarding the issue: this may be that the USB devices are pulling more than 2A of power per device. The Allegro cards include resettable fuses built into these cards’ ports that will trip when a connected device pulls more than 2A of power. Have you tried connecting one device to port 1, and another to port 4?See our tech note here for more details, and how to reset these fuses for testing.Your PC computer, or the USB peripheral, may require additional setup for best connection usage. Have you also tried updating the BIOS of the computer, as well as the USB and motherboard chipset drivers? Does the USB peripheral have (or require) a firmware update for optimized usage? Is there additional USB software required or recommended for use of these?We have seen that some complex USB devices require firmware/software updates for use, otherwise, errors (like no connection, or, a BSOD) can occur when using more complicated devices connected to the same domain. You can also enter BIOS/EFI and look for advanced options like ‘PCI > ‘Auto’ or similar and set this to ‘Gen2’ then test again.Regrettably, Microsoft lags in supporting new, faster controller chips. You can try downloading the latest driver here. You may also find additional downloads from Microsoft directly. See here for additional, albeit older, downloads.Your OEM may also have other drivers available directly from their website. Look for the drivers for the ASM3142 chip. These are the chips used in the Allegro Pro cards. Similar drivers (ASM1142, ASM2142) may also help. See the Device Manager for more information.