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! Verified Buyer Reviewer: broham31 Location: New York, N.Y. Age: 55-65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 4/5 easy peasey and fast August 11, 2018 I put this card in and my 1 gig toshiba USB3 drive mounted right up. One of my HDs in the slots of my Macpro 2010 didn't mount but i eventually got it to show up after opening the box and re inserting it, no problem but back to the Sonnet card, it worked right out of the box, i may buy another one for my other macpro tower that i have as my back up too.once you get that speed, its hard to go back to waiting 30 minutes to copy folders of 20 gigs I would recommend this item to a friend! Customer Videos.

Verified Buyer Reviewer: ColoradoDuck Location: Loveland, Colorado Age: Over 65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: over 6 months Rating: 5/5 Fast and easy to install July 23, 2018 I put this card in to speed up data transfer between my USB 3.0 enabled accessories. Installation was very quick and easy as is always the case whenever I've ordered from OWC. I would recommend this to anyone looking to upgrade to USB 3.0 on an older Mac. I would recommend this item to a friend!

Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Reviewer: Emile Location: Norfolk, VA Age: 55-65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 3/5 Good but with limits February 4, 2018 The Sonnet Allegro USB 3.0 4 port card came as advertised and installed easily in my Power Mac 3,1 desktop. There were no surprises in the performance with my external hard drives, and I was happy to see that transfer speeds indeed exceed the USB 2 performance that I was used to. What I did not know, however, was that USB 3.0 has issues with Bluetooth interference, and I immediately began having problems with my Bluetooth trackpad - erratic performance, slow response, and ultimately loss of connection. Restarting the trackpad provided temporary relief. So far the best solution I have had for this issue is in ensuring that all of my USB3 connected hard drives are as far from the trackpad as possible to minimize interference. Customer Videos.

Response from MacSales.com, Call Center February 5, 2018 Hello! I'm very sorry to hear about any issues with the Sonnet Allegro. Unfortunately, this can be a common issue with USB3 and Bluetooth. From Sonnets website: USB 3.0 is known to cause radio frequency interference on 2.4 GHz wireless devices. See on this subject. There are several possible solutions: 1) Purchase a USB bluetooth dongle to replace internal bluetooth, connect it via a USB extension cable, and locate it away from the USB 3.0 storage unit.

Sonnet has successfully tested this solution with an IOGear Model GBU421WM USB to Bluetooth adapter. You should be able to use any Macintosh-compatible bluetooth adapter. 2) Select a different hard drive case with better shielding.

3) You may try different USB 3.0 cables. A better-shielded, or a shorter, or a longer USB 3.0 cable may solve the issue. 4) Relocate the hard drive to the opposite side of the computer. 5) For the technically inclined, the intel white paper has additional ideas.

Have aluminum foil handy. Verified Buyer Reviewer: MacUserSince1984 Location: Texas Age: Over 65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 5/5 Works well March 31, 2017 I have a 2010 Mac Pro and I bought the Sonnet Allegro to speed downloads from my DSLR using a USB 3 card reader (my only USB 3 device). I'm happy with the speed but encountered the conflict with bluetooth devices (mouse and keyboard). All I had to do to eliminate the bluetooth problem was to remove the reader from its cable, an easy workaround. The cable remains connected to the Allegro so I don’t have to get on my knees every time I want to upload photos. I would recommend this item to a friend!

Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Reviewer: FAAR Location: Austin, TX Age: 35-44 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: 1-3 months Rating: 5/5 4ports of USB 3.0 now on my 2010 Mac Pro February 17, 2017 works as expected. Now my 2010 Mac Pro tower has 4 ports of USB 3.0 in addition to the 5 ports of USB 2.0 that come stock.

Now i have plenty of USB ports for my various computer peripherals and can choose between USB 3.0 or 2.0 depending on the speed limitations of the peripheral. Literally plug and play. Installed the card, closed up / fired up the Mac Pro and was ready to go. I would recommend this item to a friend! Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Reviewer: Stef Location: Switzerland Age: 45-54 Experience Level: IT Professional Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 4/5 Good product, but problem with my Magic Mouse January 2, 2017 This card is really a good product for to have USB 3 on my MacPro 2010.

But with this new card PCI, my Apple Magic Mouse has an odd behavior and does not answer always well, and is also sometimes very slow. I'm searching for a USB dongle Bluetooth version 4, for to have a better response for my mouse. I would recommend this item to a friend! Customer Videos. Verified Buyer Reviewer: KR3Bannon Location: Pahrump, NV Age: 55-65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 5/5 Easy install-MacPro now has USB-3 speed ports November 9, 2016 Needed a USB-3 plug (and speed) for a new backup hard drive on my 2010 Mac Pro, since it only has USB-2 capability built in.

This PCI card clicked in simply. After re-connecting the machine and starting up I now have four USB-3 ports-now fast enough to run my new WD 6TB drive (that uses USB-3) at a speed that is comparable to the Firewire 800 speeds that my previous drives have had.

The new USB-3 ports are also great to connect and charge up my iPad quickly. NOTE about MacSales.com: Do these guys send their goods by ROCKET?! I ordered this (free ship-orders over $50) in early afternoon and got it the next day. There is basically nothing not to like about these people.

I would recommend this item to a friend! Customer Videos.

Verified Buyer Reviewer: Wilbur Location: Cambridge, MA Age: 55-65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: 1-3 months Rating: 4/5 Does the job minus bluetooth August 20, 2016 I bought this to make my aging Mac Pro up to speed with USB 3 to connect an external drive. Works great, but as others have reported it messes up the bluetooth connection. I haven't spent the time to figure out if there is a workaround; maybe there is; but not important for my work. I would recommend this item to a friend! Customer Videos.

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Verified Buyer Top 50 Contributor Reviewer: Anonymous Location: New York City Age: 45-54 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: 1-3 months Rating: 5/5 Brings USB3.0 to MacPro towers July 25, 2016 About as easy as it gets if you have ever installed a PCI card before. Just put it in and you've got powered USB 3.0 on your old tower. Unfortunately it is relegated to the back of the tower so I got a sturdy USB to mini USB cable for external drives and a USB extender cable for thumb drives that are 3.0. I had stopped looking for USB 3.0 for my tower years ago because tech journals said it couldn't be done with the computer's hardware but here it is, perfectly functional! Wework printer setup. I would recommend this item to a friend!

Verified Buyer Reviewer: TenX Location: Little Rock, AR Age: Over 65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 5/5 Does NOT support booting; otherwise fine February 11, 2016 Works fine. Spec's under product description did not specify whether or not the card supported booting.

As the Newer Tech cards specifically stated they did not support booting, I did a chat with Sales who indicated that the card WOULD support booting. Contacted Tech support: it cannot support booting as the EFI's cannot be loaded prior to boot. No known fix for this (or any USB3.0 PCI-E) card. I would recommend this item to a friend! Verified Buyer Reviewer: Anonymous Experience Level: Home User Rating: 2/5 Disappointed January 24, 2016 System: MacPro 2012, OSX 10.11. Installed Sonnet Tech Allegro USB 3.0 4-Port SuperSpeed PCI Express 2.0. Attached 2 USB 3.0 external hard drives.

Booted computer and MacPro could not find my Bluetooth Magic Mouse. Had one of the hard drives sitting on op of the MacPro. Moved hard drive to floor and mouse connected but was jerky. Unplugged both USB 3.0 hard drives and mouse response improved but was still jerky.

Removed Sonnet USB 3.0 card and restarted MacPro. Mouse operation was back to normal. Searched USB 3.0 and Bluetooth interference issues and there appears to be a possibility that USB 3.0 and Bluetooth devices may not play together nicely. I think i discovered I am having this type of problem. I may send back the Sonnet 3.0 card as a smooth Bluetooth mouse operation is more important to me than 3.0 speeds and connectivity.

Verified Buyer Reviewer: Anonymous Location: Tennessee Age: 55-65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: 1-3 months Rating: 5/5 Good choice for USB 3.0 January 22, 2016 Card was easy to install and worked fine without having to install special drivers. Speed is at least double USB 2.0 and perhaps more importantly provides more power to operate an external drive or charge your phone or tablet while connected. I've tried other brands but none worked as well as Sonnet.

I would recommend this item to a friend! Verified Buyer Top 50 Contributor Reviewer: Anonymous Location: Florida Age: 55-65 Experience Level: Home User Owned Product: 1-3 months Rating: 5/5 Simple USB retrofit January 12, 2016 Needed a simple and cost effective way to gain USB 3.0 capability on my 2012 MacPro; have had good success with Sonnet Tech cards over the years on prior retrofits, and this one was no exception. So far use limited to interface with a recently purchased OWC flash drive with USB-3 only connection. I would recommend this item to a friend!

Verified Buyer Reviewer: Anonymous Location: Sydney, Australia Experience Level: Home User Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 4/5 SPEED is of the essence October 30, 2015 I installed this USB3 PCI card in my MacPro 5,1 (OSX 10.8.5) without any trouble. I did some speed tests using the following: Copying a folder of size 18.56 Gigabytes (18,552 Megabytes) containing 2358 items from an internal SATA disk (Western Digital Black 2Tb (WDC WD2002FAEX-007BA0 Media) to a Seagate Barracuda 160 Gb (7200.10) naked SATA disk mounted in an external NewerTech VoyagerQ Quad Interface external disk dock using the following connections with the following results for time taken in seconds and speed in MegaBytes per second: (yes, I did use a USB3 cable and you can calculate the speed yourself using the times). USB3: 332 sec; 55.9 MB/sec USB2: 600 sec; 30.9 MB/sec eSATA (via an eSATA PCI card): 295 sec; 62.9 MB/sec Firewire (1394b): 316 sec; 58.7 MB/sec All this compared to copying the same folder from one internal SATA disk to another internal SATA disk took 236 sec (78.6 MB/sec) Unless I have miscalculated somewhere with all the megas and bits and bytes, the real transfer speed of the USB3 connections is maybe twice that of the USB2 and almost as good as the eSATA speed and really not all that different to internal SATA transfer speeds. I hope this is of use to people who are contemplating buying this. I do not understand why speeds of 5 Gigabits/sec (equivalent to 625 Megabytes/sec) are claimed for this device as in reality the speeds are about one tenth of this 'theoretical maximum'. Still, it's pretty fast and enough for me.

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I would recommend this item to a friend! Verified Buyer Reviewer: Anonymous Location: Chapel Hill, NC Age: 55-65 Experience Level: Power User Owned Product: less than a month Rating: 5/5 More pricy than generic cards but it pays October 5, 2015 Some time ago I wanted to update my 2009 MacPro with USB 3.0 ports. After some research I found a card for some $20 which worked fine under 10.10 but 'threw' error messages under 10.11. More research (and thus wasted time) and I finally decided to go for the Sonnet card. As I write I am backing up to an external USB 3.0 disk - no problems!

Besides unlike many other cards the Sonnet does not require external power. Finally worth mentioning that a read/write test (BlackMagic Speed Test) gives 110 MByte/s sustained read/write - really not bad for a USB drive.

I would recommend this item to a friend!