Best 3 in 1 PCIe card for Mac and PC? Sonnet McFiver.

The Sonnet PCIe McFIver is a 3 in 1 multi purpose high end PCIe card that has slots for two NVMe drives, Two USB-C 3.2 ports and a 10GbE ethernet port. For those who need speed and versatility in an all in one solution. Link below Sonnet McFiver on Amazon I earn from qualifying purchases when you use my Amazon affiliate links.)
Sonnet McFiver
Sonnet Echo Express SEL Thunderbolt 3-to-PCIe Expansion Chassis (1 Low Profile Slot)
(Amazon links are Amazon affiliate links.

[breezlee]

I was really excited at first and then...reality set in. Great info. Thanks

[dmug]

Very cool, I saw this in the store and tried to see if sonnet would hand out review units (I didn’t care if I got to keep it) but never heard back. Glad someone got it and finally reviewed it.

[MacSoundSolutions]

The 10GbE has a fix, I installed it into opencore today and it works! Sonnet McFiver 10GbE FIXED!

[starsk]

Thanks for the cool review. I thought this card was working in a 5.1 but without the ethernet, its useless. Thanks

[barkmonster]

I currently dual boot Catalina and Ventura using OpenCore because the USB 3.0 hub I use for my keyboard, mouse and iLok gets around the USB bug with 5, 1 systems in Ventura. I could keep my current Predator PCIe card as the Catalina boot drive and put Ventura on a lower end NVMe with 3500Mb/s speeds like a Western Digital one I've seen that's only £89 for a 2TB. When I move to Apple silicon I can get an inexpensive single slot 8x PCIe 3.0 expansion like the OWC Helios, get around 2, 700Mb/s read/write out of the NVMe in either case and still have a spare slot on the card for a second NVMe at a later date. However, the card is £368 and I could get a Lycom DT-130 for my AHCI card for £124, use the other NVMe/AHCI slot on that for the £89 WD NVMe, buy a Sonnet Allegro 4xUSB-C PCIe for £179 and still end up using the same number of PCIe slots in my Mac Pro for little more than just the card alone. If I ditch the whole USB-C idea, it's even cheaper.

[velocity]

i love this card. i can't believe i have 10Gb ethernet in a 15 year old machine. Wish apple supported RAID for a boot drive, but that's a tiny nitpick that isn't sonnet's fault. Every 5, 1 owner needs this!

[GradythaStudips]

2:35
I do this with my boot card as my 580 cant rest properly on the first 16x slot. I have a sonnet usb c card, so i might look into this. Good vid as always!

[pierrelebreton]

That is a nice card ! Hope the 10Gbps can be fixed. Currently, I don’t think I would really need it. The x2 perf improvement on the ssd is nice, but 1.5gbps was already fine for me. Same for the usb speeds. But that do solve the problem of not having enough PCI slots .
I was wondering what is the impact on the GPU to be on a 4x slot? On work-related applications does it matters ?

[andiriki]

I just keeping coming for how you talk: like you are my friend and sharing some exclusive content or ... like wifey is sleeping and you dare not to wake her up 😁 great content again thanks a lot

[raver-umiu]

I think I will update at some time in the future. @Lance: At the moment, do you have any idea why my Mac Pro only finds one NVME on my PCIE card? It is an ASUS Hyper M, 2 X16. I remember that this issue was reported in a video I watched about these Mac Pro upgrades but can't remember which video it was and can't find it anymore.

[clivesaunders]

hi lance like your vids did you find using the macfiver gave you a big improvement in speed in protools with sessions and plugins with a NVME!

[mkmichael]

Thanks, great video!! The McFiver is sold out because of Mac Gyver. Actually I am using a Lycom DT-130 Dual PCIe card in the 2nd slot, 2500 MB/s write and 2800 MB/s read. May be I should switch it to the 1st slot...?

[tizianosantambrogio]

hello, sorry I have a 4.1 updated to 5.1, the network card works thanks Tiziano

[jimicob]

hey lance! i´ve a little solution to free up one pcie slot. when I did the airport/bt update on my 5, 1 I just widen a hole of the cheesgrater in the lower bottom corner, while the cage of the cpu tray was out anyway. so I could put my bt antenna there and do some macgyver ducktape action to permanentky fix the bt cable to the bottom. Opens one Pcie slot and also no more mangling around with the cable over the gpu.

If your looking for a solution to boot win 11 from an nvme: I mentioned to you in your installing Win 11 video, that I´ve a Highpoint SSD7101A 4x M2. RAID, which (to my surprise back then) can dual boot win 11. nvme speed with the highpoint is similar to the Sonnet, but its a pretty long card, why I put it into slot 3 to avoid heat problems right over the gpu.

cheers!

[shiningprince]

I know you have since changed your configuration, but have your ever considered moving the GPU to slot 2 so that it opens up the other x16 slot? If you are going to eat into the space of another PCI slot shouldn't it be a x4?

[AnthonyChopra]

Maybe opencore can get the 10gig ethernet card to work oneday.

even for older macs new is good if u know u are going to upgrade the "mothership" being MacPro5, 1 to a 7, 1 or if u decide to use a windows or maybe the External Pcie case ].
i did notice some speed difference with a mid ethernet to usb 3.1 adapter by anker 2.5gig.

But still amazing that u can get a 4Slot Nvme adapter for the 5, 1 ill defo look into it even if i get an 7, 1 one day or another computer like Windows.

[macgamer]

Mac Sound you should buy this product, I use it on both of my Mac Pro 5, 1. I wondering do you use both Ethernet ports on Mac Pro 5, 1

[richie]

Try the Radeon RX480 8gb in the reference model. Works and everything is so much cooler.

[fleonard]

The one thing you mentioned here, that I haven't played with yet, is using the NVME in slot 1. I've got my RX580 in slot 1. If I did this swap, to get my NVME faster than 1500, would it slow down my GPU? Have you done any testing? right now, I can run everything at full ultra, and no lag.

[alexw]

Do you achieve approximately same speeds with either one of the NVMes?
I use 970 EvoPlus in both slots (not RAIDed). One achieves similar results as you showed. The other one just approximately 650MB/s.
Measured with Black Magic Speed Test.