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.

I installed this in my HP Z4 G4 workstation running the latest version of Windows 10 Pro. The Device Manager correctly identified it but the card was unresponsive with the standard Windows driver. Sonnet advised me to use updated ASMedia drivers. Those caused my machine to crash almost immediately after install. Never having had an issue like this with a USB adapter card, I assumed the card was bad or incompatible. Turns out it was the latter. I replaced the Sonnet with StarTech adapter card that used the same ASMedia 1142 chipset. I experienced the exact same results. StarTech support indicated that they had received multiple similar reports from customers trying to install their card in an HP Z4 G4 workstation. Bottom line: it appears the ASMedia chipset is incompatible with the Z4.There is a previous gen StarTech USB adapter that does not use an ASMedia chipset. Its max speed is 5Gbps rather than 10Gbps but it has four independent lanes so with four devices connected the speed is the same as this model. It is less expensive and can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Express-SuperSpeed-Dedicated-Channels/dp/B00HJZEA2S/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=PEXUSB3S44V&qid=1580503310&sr=8-2 I've got one on order. I'll try to remember to report back with my results.UPDATE: The card referenced above is also incompatible with HP Z workstations. Both ASMedia chipsets and Renesas (NEC) chipsets are problematic. The chipset that does work (confirmed) is made by Texas Instruments. I have only been able to find them used on older adapter cards like the SIIG JU-P40212-S1 that are based on the USB 3.0 spec rather than 3.1 or 3.2.

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!