Allegro Pro USB 3.2 PCIe Card (4x10Gb charging ports) - PCIe Sound Card

I have a maxxed-out 2010 MacPro 5.1, 12-core 3.46Gghz with 80Gb RAM (currently has High Sierra OSX) computer for video and VFX work. I use a combination of Sata SSDs, and latest generation NVMe drives internally, and have been recently trialling the 'Anyoyo' aluminium external Enclosure Box cases for my spare M.2 NVMe sticks (Has USB-C out to USB-A SuperSpeed connection). I use these for Disk and Preview caching within Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects CC 2019. As a comparison my internally PCIe-mounted, AHCI NVMe gets (real world) 1.5GB/s READ/WRITE for my main Work Drive. A normal HD Drive would do about 80Mb/s. Up until today I was using a standard (cheap £25) 4-port Inatek KT4004 USB PCIe card internally, like many MacPro 5.1 owners. I was getting real-world 370Mb/s WRITE speed with its USB 3.0 interface on my Anyoyo NVMe external drives. Replacing the Inatek with this flagship Sonnet Allegro PRO 3.1 Gen2, has instantly **DOUBLED** my write speed on the NVMe's from 370Mb/s to 741Mb/s. My jaw is on the floor. It's not 10Gb/Sec or any theoretical maximum, but that blows ANYTHING I've ever seen on existing USB 3.0 Superspeed before and for Premiere and After Effects is tremendous. Seriously, for £150 quid, this is an amazing and simple upgrade for a 9yo computer. I spent hours researching all the various competitors out there, and folks, this is the one to go for. Yes, it's expensive compared to the £100 quid next-in-line but when you compare the specs, and the compatibility, it's a no-brainer. PRO TIP: For maximum iOS/iPhone compatibility on MacOS, defo load in Sonnet's extra "dskcd-usbpwr-103" driver software to the Mac (installs and runs perfectly on High Sierra). This works beautifully on the MacPro 5.1 and i thoroughly recommend it as an upgrade. The proof is in my photo attached to my review. A++ Sonnet!

This one does the job. For custom Mac Pro recently upgraded and made to think its a more modern machine. Previously tried a cheaper one and it was underpowered to run peripherals. Especially the USB3 ports and SD Card reader on the monitor connected to the USB3 pcie card through upstream. My only complaint is the price.

A bit tricksy to install but have not really looked back since. Worth the money

Easy to install and worked straight out the box. Super fast speeds on Mac and works with all devices.

Works under Windows or macOS on my Hackintosh. Very fast transfer speeds. Needs a PCIe x4 slot.

After quite a bit of research I settled on this card. Installed easily enough. Switched on - nothing. Checked OS compatibility and not compatible with OS 10.11 which is the last OS I can use on my 2008 Mac pro. I can't see that anywhere obvious in details before buying. So be warned - if your running OS 10.11 it's useless. 10.10.5, 10.12.6+ are ok apparently.

Funktioniert ohne abzustuerzen, Braucht aber einen Reboot nach dem USB Geraete angeschlossen wurden.

The Sonnet Allegro Pro is a seriously impressive USB expansion card. What makes this card special is its architecture: the four USB 3.2 ports are split across two independent channels, which means you can run multiple high-speed devices at the same time without them fighting for bandwidth. Copying data from one port group to the other is incredibly fast and consistent — it feels like having two separate USB controllers in one card. In real-world use, this makes a huge difference. I regularly connect multiple SSDs, card readers, and capture devices at once, and performance stays stable instead of collapsing the moment you plug in a second device. Transfers between devices on different channels are especially quick, which is exactly what you want in a professional workflow. Build quality is excellent, as you’d expect from Sonnet. It installs cleanly, is instantly recognized by the system, and just works without drivers or fiddling. No glitches, no disconnects, no weird behavior. If you need serious USB performance in a desktop or workstation, this card is on a completely different level from cheap multi-port USB cards. It’s built for real work, and it shows. Five stars.

Product as described and delivered quickly

Ottimo prodotto, Sonnet rimane un costruttore di device pro.

The card was easy to install. Performance measurements are well beyond my expectations. Brought new life into the Mac Tower for increasing data rates to/from my USB devices. I also installed a 3.0 hub that allows me to install multiple USB drives on the first port of the card. On the second port I connected a 3.1 RAID (4 drive system) from OWC which runs independently form the first port. This allows maximum speed from two independent ports on the card. Highly recommend the addition of this card for increasing the usefulness of portable USB drives and backup systems!