OWC SSD compatibility with Mac Pro

While trying to determine the type of SSDs installed in this card I discovered a lot of people who seemed to have this product fail even quite early on. Most of the later models of these cards did use standard M.2 SSDs, but I was unable to confirm for the E2 card. I would suggest testing each of those individual SSDs with a USB M.2 adapter or enclosure to confirm each SSD works. Since installing them directly into a Mac without testing can introduce multiple compatibility issues where you will not know for sure if the problem is a bad SSD, the adapter, or just a compatibility issue between all three.

Normally I recommend using a Sintech SSD adapter, but I've heard their adapter only works with NVMe SSDs. I don't know if they or anyone else makes an M.2 SATA based SSD Adapter for a Mac. You may need to just installed these SSDs into a USB enclosure. You may be able to find a USB M.2 RAID enclosure.

As @lllaass mentions you need to make sure you get an adapter/enclosure that matches the key style plus make sure the length of the SSD will fit the enclosure (or laptop including the adapter). There are B, M, and BM keys so do some research. Here is a Dell article which explains it:

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000144170/how-to-distinguish-the-differences-between-m-2-cards

As @lllaass mentioned, and your picture confirms it the Accelsior SSD has 6+12 pins which does not match any common M.2 SSD interface.

This site shows the various macOS proprietary SSDs including pictures. In the one picture there is an Apple proprietary SSD with 6+12 pins so the Accelsior SSD may fit directly into a certain model Apple laptop. See the section titled "Apple's Proprietary Connectors" to see the pictures of various Apple SSDs. From this article it appears the 6+12 pin SSD is a Gen.1 for the MacBook Air (Late 2010 - Mid 2011).

https://beetstech.com/blog/apple-proprietary-ssd-ultimate-guide-to-specs-and-upgrades

I don't know if it is possible to install these 6+12 pin SSDs into any external enclosure. All I know for certain is that OWC specifically mentions that their NVMe based SSDs cannot be installed into any OWC enclosure or both the SSD and enclosure will be damaged. I don't know about the older SATA based OWC SSDs as I never had the need to install one into an enclosure.

@Grant is correct that OWC tech support should be able to assist you. They have always been helpful.

OWC prides them selves on their support, which they provide free.

ASK THEM!

The label sats SATA III. Most blades today are NVMe.

What is problem with the assembly?

I had same E2 PCIe card and it worked great until it would die. I could insert it in a PC and reformat it and then reformat in the Mac 4.1 flashed to 5.1 and use it for awhile until it failed again.

I gave up when there was firmware upgrade that allowed boot from NVMe drive. I bought a cheap PCie card that accepts a NVMe blade and it worked fine until the power supply died in the Mac.

That is storage (SSD), not memory.

You have to make sure that any SATA III blade you get has the compatible keys, that is slots cut into the contact end.

M.2 2880 is the overall size and the keys depend upon things I do not know. The keys for NVMe blades are different than SATA III. See:

https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-blue-sata-m-2-ssd#WDS250G2B0B

https://www.princetonusa.com/princeton-m-2-sata-2280-512gb.html

NVMe

https://www.amazon.com/Silicon-Power-512GB-Gen3x4-SP512GBP34A60M28/dp/B07ZGJYLNL/ref=sr_1_13?keywords=ssd+m.2+sata&qid=1644957849&sr=8-13

Again, what were symptoms of problems?

To ee it looks like a proprietary SSD since it does not exactly match am M-keyes SSD. This shows that an M-keyed SSD has 5 pins on top and 6 on bottom of the right side (notched side). The OWC SSD SSD has 6 pins top and bottom.

Also there are a lot less pins on the left side than shown for M-keyed.

https://pinoutguide.com/HD/M.2_NGFF_connector_pinout.shtml

Also the whole OWC PCie card operates much faster than a SATA III ssd. Thus, I doubt the SSD is really SATA III

<< (OWC doesn't support this anymore.) >>

OWC supports and continues ONLY products that tend to be rock solid and trouble-free.

If they discontinued it, I see that as a strong vote of "No Confidence"

I thought it looked a bit off, but could not tell from the earlier pictures. Thanks.

Even Apple has some SATA based PCIe SSDs that are slightly faster than a traditional SATA III SSD, but OWC did tend to put SSDs into a RAID0 Stripe to link two SSDs together to maximize performance. Not sure if they did that with the E2 card or if these two SSDs appeared independently to macOS.