OWC says this drive is the fastest, highest-capacity PCIe SSD in the world

[midian182]

In a nutshell: We know that storage drives have seen their speeds and capacities increase massively over the last few years, but Other World Computing, also known as OWC, says it has created the world's fastest and highest-capacity PCIe SSD.

The OWC Accelsior 8M2, which at first glance could be mistaken for a graphics card, fully utilizes the bandwidth of PCIe 4.0, giving it a total speed of up to 26,000 MB/s. For comparison, most PCIe 4.0 SSDs, such as Kingston's KC3000, Seagate's FireCuda 530, and Corsair's MP600 Pro XT reach 7,000 MB/s or just over.

OWC says the speed of its drive can remove bottlenecks and allows for some very impressive feats, especially if you're a video editor. This includes being able to playback 16 streams of 8K ProRes444 (or eight streams of 12K) in Final Cut Pro X.

The company notes that each of the eight NVMe M.2 SSD slots in the Accelsior 8M2 can run at their full x4 lanes of PCIe data throughput. To ensure it runs at peak speeds for lengths of time, there's a quiet cooling fan built into the aircraft-grade aluminum heat shield.

Not surprisingly, OWC's product is very expensive. It starts at $799 for a 0TB empty expansion card, ready for buyers to add their own drives. The 2TB model is $1,299, it's $,1,699 for 4TB, 8TB is $2,479, $4,299 for 16TB, and $7,999 for 32TB. Finally, it's a whopping $12,999 for 64TB stored across the eight slots. That's a lot of money, but then this isn't aimed at everyday consumers.

The OWC Accelsior 8M2 is compatible with Mac, Windows, and Linux devices and has advanced RAID capabilities. It includes the SoftRAID XT software RAID utility, which OWC says includes features users don't get with hardware RAID. Customers also receive one year of cloud backup and antivirus software protection through the company's partnership with Acronis.

"We are always trying to push technology to the limits, and with the OWC Accelsior 8M2, can be summed up in one definitive sentence. It's the fastest, highest-capacity PCIe SSD in the galaxy," said Larry O'Connor, OWC's CEO.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/92184-owc-drive-fastest-highest-capacity-pcie-ssd-world.html

 

[Geralt]

Useless with those prices.

 

[Yenega]

Pointless when PCIe 5.0 drives are incoming.

 

[Squid Surprise]

While it's obviously expensive, it's actually not as pricy as it seems...The 8tb Sabrent SSD is selling for $1300 on newegg right now
https://www.newegg.com/sabrent-8tb-rocket-q/p/0D9-001Y-00039?Description=8tb ssd&cm_re=8tb_ssd-_-0D9-001Y-00039-_-Product

So $10,400 gets you 8 of them for 64tb... but since most motherboards don't have 8 slots.... you'd have to spend a bit more for an expansion card (or pricier motherboard)...

Spending a couple of thousand more for a card that will vastly outperform them - and only take up 1 slot... actually not a bad deal...

Of course... that's assuming you NEED 64tb of crazy fast storage.... but hey, we can all dream

 

[Toju Mikie]

From what it sounds like, I guess it's using like a RAID 0 with the 8 M.2 internal drives to get that speed. That speed is as fast as DDR4 RAM. Very cool

 

[bviktor]

$799 for a PCI-E riser and a fan? Manufacturing cost should be below $50, and even that is extremely generous.

Oh and softraid, which most current filesystems already do for you... for free. What can I say... Good luck selling them!

"It includes the SoftRAID XT software RAID utility, which OWC says includes features users don't get with hardware RAID."

I'm _really_ curious what feature you get with softraid that you can't get with HW RAID. I mean there's snapshots, which you don't get with HW RAID, but guess what: OWC's softraid doesn't have it either. Parity check on a RAID volume is not an "advanced" feature, it's a fundamental trait of any RAID solution.

OTOH do you know what customers don't get with software RAID though? Fault tolerance in case of a power loss, for example. Unless you disable the write cache, in which case write speeds are capped at that of a single drive.

 

[Geralt]

While it's obviously expensive, it's actually not as pricy as it seems...The 8tb Sabrent SSD is selling for $1300 on newegg right now
https://www.newegg.com/sabrent-8tb-rocket-q/p/0D9-001Y-00039?Description=8tb ssd&cm_re=8tb_ssd-_-0D9-001Y-00039-_-Product

So $10,400 gets you 8 of them for 64tb... but since most motherboards don't have 8 slots.... you'd have to spend a bit more for an expansion card (or pricier motherboard)...

Spending a couple of thousand more for a card that will vastly outperform them - and only take up 1 slot... actually not a bad deal...

Of course... that's assuming you NEED 64tb of crazy fast storage.... but hey, we can all dream

Next, with Windows in the middle, you "feel" that your hyper-fast disk performs like a standard NVMe. I moved from Samsung 960 Pro to Samsung 980 Pro, and I am still waiting for the difference

 

[Uncle Al]

Even in 10 years it will still be way over priced but I'm sure some little pin heads mommy & daddy will be foolish enough to spring for it. of course if Junior has to work it off by cutting grass, they got yard service for life!!!

 

[Squid Surprise]

Next, with Windows in the middle, you "feel" that your hyper-fast disk performs like a standard NVMe. I moved from Samsung 960 Pro to Samsung 980 Pro, and I am still waiting for the difference

The difference between a 960 and 980 are miniscule... unless it was for a larger capacity, not sure why you bothered...

Assuming you are actually using the OWC for what it is intended for - rendering multiple huge video files, etc... then you wouldn't see much of a difference...

If you are expecting Windows to now load in 1 second instead of 7... you will be disappointed...

 

[VitalyT]

fully utilizes the bandwidth of PCIe 4.0, giving it a total speed of up to 26,000 MB/s

PCIe 4.0 full bandwidth, with 16 lanes is 64GB/s. So it doesn't even use up PCIe 3.0 bandwidth.

Ironically, this product's value is only justified with its 32TB and 64TB versions. The rest do not fair well in terms of the value per dollar that they offer, you'll be better off getting 2x8TB M.2 drives in RAID 1

 

[Squid Surprise]

PCIe 4.0 full bandwidth, with 16 lanes is 64GB/s. So it doesn't even use up PCIe 3.0 bandwidth.

Ironically, this product's value is only justified with its 32GB and 64GB versions. The rest do not fair well in terms of the value per dollar that they offer.

Where'd you get that?

PCIe 4.0 bandwidth is 32GB/s... 3.0 is 16GB/s.... and 5.0 will be 64GB/s...

PCIe Gen 4 vs. Gen 3 Slots, Speeds

The speed differences between PCIe 4.0 & PCIe 3.0 are apparent. We discuss those differences in this post, as well as whether to upgrade to PCIe Gen 4.

www.trentonsystems.com

You can only double the rate if you are accounting for bidirectional travel...

 

[VitalyT]

Where'd you get that?

Google for "pcie bandwidth" - top result.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Google for "pcie bandwidth" - top result.

Yes... but you need to account for bidirectional transfer... the bandwidth you are quoting combines BOTH directions... artificially doubling the bandwidth... the REAL bandwidth is 32GB/s..

And when I Google... I get this as top result:

[TABLE]
[TR]
[TH]Generation[/TH]
[TH]Year of Release[/TH]
[TH]Bandwidth x16[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]PCIe 3.0[/TD]
[TD]2010[/TD]
[TD]16 GB/s[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]PCIe 4.0[/TD]
[TD]2017[/TD]
[TD]32 GB/s[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]PCIe 5.0[/TD]
[TD]2019[/TD]
[TD]64 GB/s[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

[VitalyT]

Yes... but you need to account for bidirectional transfer... the bandwidth you are quoting combines BOTH directions... artificially doubling the bandwidth... the REAL bandwidth is 32GB/s..

And when I Google... I get this as top result:

[TABLE]
[TR]
[TH]Generation[/TH]
[TH]Year of Release[/TH]
[TH]Bandwidth x16[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]PCIe 3.0[/TD]
[TD]2010[/TD]
[TD]16 GB/s[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]PCIe 4.0[/TD]
[TD]2017[/TD]
[TD]32 GB/s[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]PCIe 5.0[/TD]
[TD]2019[/TD]
[TD]64 GB/s[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

I don't know how Google may show different results for us, here's what I see:

 

[Squid Surprise]

I don't know how Google may show different results for us, here's what I see:

Not sure about the Google thing (assuming it looks at your last searches or something like that), but the actual max bandwidth - in one direction - for a PCIe 4.0 device over 16 lanes is 32GB/s.... Whenever you see 64GB/s, it's factoring bidirectional transfer.

 

[BadThad]

Worthless to the average person IMO. Video editing is about the only useful purpose I can think of. Even with that, I don't sit there and stare my screen when I'm doing something processing/disk intensive - so I don't care that it complete 3 minutes sooner than my WDC black SSD. I walk away and do something else.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Worthless to the average person IMO. Video editing is about the only useful purpose I can think of. Even with that, I don't sit there and stare my screen when I'm doing something processing/disk intensive - so I don't care that it complete 3 minutes sooner than my WDC black SSD. I walk away and do something else.

If you're a professional video editor though... and you work with huge files all the time... time is money...

 

[ypsylon]

It's not as bad. OWC cards always include RAID software for Mac. That's I think is 160$/license. Granted for Windows you get something you'll never use, but 800$ is not a bad deal.

People get too much hung-up on sequential R/W while realistic transfers are much lower. Considering you have lane switches and -most likely- ASMedia controller build-in to manage all the lanes it's a bargain.

I wanted to buy before pandemic hit (just when US was being engulfed by first outbreaks) 4x 0 drive card 4M2, but I couldn't purchase it as all flights/shipping was out. Now this 8 drive model will be a better choice by far. If you're for connectivity and not bleeding-edge speed (Gen.3 is stupidly fast even today) it's brilliant way of adding 8 NVMe drives inside x16 slot envelope for -relative- peanuts (don't need to buy expensive platforms like EPYC or TR Pro for lanes so 800 for a card vs upgrade to TRPro for 5k). No other company sells empty card, which you can populate with what you want, plus OWC's SSD's are stupendously expensive outside USA.

 

[Geralt]

The difference between a 960 and 980 are miniscule... unless it was for a larger capacity, not sure why you bothered...

Assuming you are actually using the OWC for what it is intended for - rendering multiple huge video files, etc... then you wouldn't see much of a difference...

If you are expecting Windows to now load in 1 second instead of 7... you will be disappointed...

They advertised double speed for sequential read/write.

 

[Squid Surprise]

They advertised double speed for sequential read/write.

Yeah... and technically they are correct... I'm curious, do you actually see that in real-world use?

 

[Geralt]

Yeah... and technically they are correct... I'm curious, do you actually see that in real-world use?

Only in benchmarks.

 

[Reehahs]

For that sort of price you expect at least a copper heat sink rather than aluminium, the former conducts heat better.