HighPoint debuts USB 3 PCI-E card for Mac Pros, Lion
updated 06:00 pm EST, Mon December 5, 2011
Two-port card supports single disk and RAID
HighPoint Technologies is now shipping a USB 3.0 card designed specifically for Mac Pros and OS X 10.7 Lion, the RocketU Dual USB 3 for Mac. The two-port PCI-E 2.0 card supports both single disk and RAID configurations (0, 1 and JBOD) and is optimized for USB 3 hard drives and SSDs. The card features dual type-A ports, is fully backward-compatible with USB 1.1 and USB 2 devices and can be installed into any free PCI-E slot.
The card is configured via a web-based management interface, and users can opt to configure multiple drives into a RAID 0 array for maximum performance or a redundant RAID 1 array for data protection, offering up to 5Gb/sec performance. The RocketU card also automatically recognizes whether drives already contain user data on them.
The card is available now from online retailers such as Amazon and B&H, where it sells for approximately $66 (prices vary by retailer). The company also makes a four-port version of the card that sells for around $125.
