4 Port 3Gb/s eSATA PCI Express Host Adapter
Up to 20 SATA devices | Port Multiplier Supported
This card adds:
- Four External eSATA 3Gb/s Ports (up to 5 eSATA devices each)
Requires:
- Available PCIe 2.0 x4 Lane Slot
See Specifiactions below for system and/or OS compatibility information |
The SeriTek/2ME4-E is compatible with all Apple Mac Pro computers and the late 2005 PowerMac G5 (11,2) model with an available PCI-Express slot. Mac OS X 10.6.x (Snow Leopard) 32-bit and 64-bit modes are supported with direct connect enclosures like the SeriTek/2eEN4 and port multiplier enclosures like the SeriTek/5PM. In addition, the FirmTek driver is backward compatible with Mac OS X 10.4.6 and higher. The new FirmTek 64-bit SeriTek/2ME4-E driver is built from the ground up to support the latest Snow Leopard features while also providing backward compatibility for earlier versions of Mac OS X. |
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SMART Application Support
The FirmTek SeriTek/2ME4-E driver features S.M.A.R.T application support which enables it to deliver SMART data to third party utilities like Hardware Monitor. Users can conveniently monitor hard disk temperatures and the health of hard disks attached to the SeriTek/2ME4-E while using their favorite Macintosh SMART reporting application.
In addition, Disk Utility can also be used to verify the SMART status of hard disks connected to the SeriTek/2ME4-E. SMART application support can be very useful for keeping an eye on the condition of your hard disks and determining if they are obtaining sufficient cooling. |
Port Multiplier
The FirmTek SeriTek/2ME4-E includes FIS-based port multiplier aware hardware which allows up to twenty hard disks to be connected to the controller when four 5-bay SeriTek/5PM enclosures are available. A port multiplier configuration can provide massive storage volumes and excellent performance. The SeriTek/2ME4-E optimizes performance for up to 5 hard disks per data port by utilizing the advanced bandwidth characteristics of the PCI-Express architecture. When 20 high performance hard disks are configured in a RAID 0 array, throughput can reach beyond 700MB/sec, enabling up to four simultaneous HD video feeds to be streamed directly to disk. In addition, port multiplication also delivers significantly less cable clutter. |
Ultra High Performance
The SeriTek/2ME4-E features a high performance, energy efficient, four channel, hot swap, native eSATA interface with PCIe 4x bandwidth designed to maximize hard disk performance. The controller is compliant with both SATA Revision 1.0 and SATA Revision 2.0 hard disks, Native Command Queuing (NCQ) and Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC). Both direct connect and port multiplier configurations are supported. |
Direct Connect
Using a direct connect hard disk enclosure allows up to four external SATA hard disks to be attached to the SeriTek/2ME4-E. This configuration offers optimal bandwidth for ultra high performance RAID installations with a limited number of hard disks. The SeriTek/2ME4-E allows the user to decide which hard disk configuration option best suits their needs. |
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| Specifications |
| Ports |
- Four External SATA 3Gb/s Ports.
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| Connections |
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| Bus Specifications |
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| Form Factor |
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| RAID Functionality |
- Supports Disk Utility RAID 0, 1,and JBOD configurations
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| Operating System Support |
- Mac OS X 10.6.x "Snow Leopard" 32-bit and 64-bit modes.
(Backward compatible with 10.4.6 or later.)
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| External Connectivity |
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| Internal Connectivity |
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| Advanced Data Features |
- SATA II 3Gb/s speed. Backward compatible with SATA 1.5 Gb/s hard disks
- Fully compliant with Serial ATA 1.0a and SATA II specifications
- S.M.A.R.T application support for third party Macintosh utilities
- Supports Apple Disk Utility RAID and JBOD hard disk configurations
- Port multiplier support: Connect up to 20 drives using SeriTek/5PM enclosures
- Direct connect support: Connect up to 4 drives with a SeriTek/2eEN4 enclosure
- Self-contained PowerMac G5 boot functionality
- Not bootable with the Apple Mac Pro (provides additional storage)
- Bus Mastering off-loads data I/O handling from CPU
- Complete CRC error checking, for all bits transmitted (command, data, and status),
- offers enhanced data protection for high-speed Serial ATA drives
- Four independent data channels allow for separate device timing
- Automatically identifies and configures drive types
- SATA II Native Command Queuing and Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC)
- SATA II power management compliant
- Low power consumption
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| Compliances |
- RoHS
- EN55022/1998, EN55024/1998 (European Community)
- FCC Part 15 Class B (US)
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| Power Requirements |
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| Warranty |
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| Physical |
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| Temperature |
- Operating: +5°C to +55°C
- Non-Operating: -25°C to +70°C
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| Relative humidity |
- Operating: 20% to 80%
- Non-Operating: 15% to 90%
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| Dimensions |
- 3.5" x 0.3" x 4.1" (88.9 x 7.6 x 104.1mm)
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| Weight |
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| Benchmarks |
SeriTek/2eEN4 - RAID 0
The AJA Kona System Test results displayed on the right provide an example of SeriTek/2ME4-E performance when configured with a 4-bay SeriTek/2eEN4 using RAID 0. A 2009 Apple Mac Pro 2.26 GHz running Mac OS X 10.6.1 with 12GB of memory was used along with four Samsung F3 1TB hard disks model (HD103SJ).
OWC Blog...
Make your Mercury Extreme SSD Even Faster!
We all know that, when installed individually, the OWC Mercury Extreme SSDs are amazingly fast. Want to make them faster? Try putting them in a RAID 0 via a SeriTek/2ME4-E... Read the blog post for all the details. |
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| Reviews |
"I have rigorously tested the new FirmTek SeriTek/2ME4-E in my mule Mac Pro in 64-bit mode, and it not only worked flawlessly, but delivered awesome performance."
Lloyd Chambers - diglloyd.com |
"As you can see from the graphs, we attained 502MB/s with the four 2TB Hitachi drives we used for testing. Firmtek tested with four Samsung F3s and attained 570MB/s. We're looking forward to testing four of the new 6Gb/s Seagate Barracuda to see if they can each 700MB/s in a RAID 0 set. (Four SSDs could easily reach 700MB/s.) I mention those scenarios because the built-in SATA controller inside the Mac Pro maxed out at 615MB/s with four OCZ Vertex SSDs in our testing even though they are capable of a collective 1000+MB/s."
Rob-ART Morgan - Bare Feats |
"This graph compares the internal SATA ports to eSATA using the FirmTek SeriTek 2ME4-E 4-port eSATA card." "The FirmTek SeriTek 2ME4-E PCIe card is clearly the way to go for 5 or more drives."
Lloyd Chambers - Mac Performance Guide |
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| Click here to get your Model Identifier number |
| This is compatible with the following models: |
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Machines Have Model Identifier MacPro5,1
Mac Pro (Mid 2010 8-Core, 2.4GHz)
(July, 2010)
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Machines Have Model Identifier MacPro5,1
Mac Pro (Mid 2010 Quad-Core, 2.8GHz, 3.2GHz)
(July, 2010)
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Machines Have Model Identifier MacPro4,1
Mac Pro (Early 2009 8-Core, 2.26GHz, 2.66GHz, 2.93GHz)
(March, 2009)
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Machines Have Model Identifier MacPro4,1
Mac Pro (Early 2009 Quad-Core, 2.66GHz, 2.93GHz, 3.33GHz)
(March, 2009)
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Machines Have Model Identifier MacPro3,1
Mac Pro (Early 2008, 2.8GHz, 3.0GHz, 3.2GHz)
(January, 2008)
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Machines Have Model Identifier MacPro2,1
Mac Pro (8-core, 3.0GHz)
(April, 2007)
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Machines Have Model Identifier MacPro1,1
Mac Pro (Original, 2.0GHz, 2.66GHz, 3.0GHz)
(August, 2006)
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Machines Have Model Identifier PowerMac11,2
Power Mac G5 (Late 2005, 2.0GHz, 2.3GHz, dual 2.5GHz)
(October, 2005)
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