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OWC Accelsior 8M2 PCIe SSD Available for the New Mac Pro with Apple silicon

Featured during Apple's keynote, OWC's Accelsior 8M2 PCIe SSD is the only way to unlock the performance potential of the new Mac Pro.

Wayne Grayson • Jun 16, 2023

Fastest. Storage. Period.

Apple keynotes are a big deal here at OWC. And once the WWDC 2023 live stream started, our offices and Teams channels lit up with hot takes, predictions, and reactions.

So, we were blown away, amazed, and delighted to see our very own Accelsior 8M2 included as the perfect complement for the new Mac Pro with Apple silicon during this historic keynote. The OWC Accelsior 8M2― the galaxy’s fastest, highest-capacity PCIe SSD―was featured at the 15:25 mark during the keynote.

Colorists, audio engineers, AI architects, and other creative professionals that depend on a Mac with expandability were rewarded for their patience with the announcement of the new Mac Pro with M2 Ultra.

And right there alongside that new ultra-powerful Mac Pro during the keynote? OWC’s Accelsior 8M2, a PCIe SSD created to be the fastest drive you can use in any workflow―period.

With eight on-board NVMe SSDs in each card, bottlenecks and storage limits are a thing of the past with Mac Pro and Accelsior 8M2.

Accelsior 8M2

Accelsior 8M2

World’s Fastest and Highest Capacity PCIe SSD

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Six slots, big storage

You can read our full breakdown of the Mac Pro with M2 Ultra here, but the important thing to know about the enhanced capability of this new Mac Pro is that it is the first and only Mac that combines the power of Apple silicon — in the M2 Ultra chip — with Gen 4 PCI Express expansion.

The Mac Pro boasts six Gen 4 PCIe slots: two x16 slots and four x8 slots. That means you can outfit a new Mac Pro with M2 Ultra with up to 384TB of light-speed-fast internal NVMe SSD storage with Accelsior 8M2.

Gen 4 from Day One

The OWC Accelsior 8M2 has supported PCIe Gen 3 since its release. But it was designed with this very day in mind by supporting Gen 4 from day one. All we were missing was the right dance partner.

Enter, the new Mac Pro. The M2 Ultra is Apple’s most powerful chip yet, featuring a 24-core CPU, up to 76-core GPU, and up to 192GB of unified memory. With its powerful Media Engine, it’s capable of playing an unprecedented 22 streams of 8K ProRes video. It’s up to 3x faster1 than the previous-generation Intel-based model.

In fact, in the new Mac Pro, Apple says PCIe Gen 4 SSD cards “are capable of a colossal 26GB/s.2” This is made possible by the OWC Accelsior 8M2.

Mac Pro was tested with Accelsior 8M2 to get these maximum speeds through the command line in Terminal. OWC plan on sharing our own data soon based on real-world application testing.

Mac Pro with M2 Ultra delivers unprecedented performance of Apple’s most powerful chip with the versatility of PCIe expansion. And together with Accelsior 8M2, pros can fully realize the incredible performance of Mac Pro and Apple silicon. Bar none, this is the most powerful Mac ever produced, and the only way to fully realize the performance unlocked by a Mac Pro with Apple Silicon and Gen 4 PCIe is the Accelsior 8M2.

Accelsior 8M2
Accelsior 8M2 features eight SSDs, allowing for maximum flexibility.

Speed and smarts

Accelsior 8M2 features a full PCIe x16 lane architecture. And to make sure things stay nice and cool with all that blazing speed, the card features a quiet cooling fan in an aircraft grade aluminum heat sink.

Accelsior 8M2 also comes with OWC’s SoftRAID for easy creation, maintenance, and monitoring of RAID volumes within and among each Accelsior 8M2 card in your Mac Pro.

SoftRAID takes the work out of managing RAID volumes while making sure everything continues running smoothly, allowing you to select RAID settings for optimum speed, drive failure protection, or both attributes.

Because Accelsior 8M2 features eight SSDs, you can choose multiple RAID levels and RAID sets for maximum flexibility. Plus, SoftRAID will keep you on top of any issue that could compromise your data with custom notifications.

And if you need to share data between OS platforms, fear not. SoftRAID was built with OWC MacDrive technology, allowing you to create and use RAID sets in both macOS and Windows computers.

Accelsior 8M2 low side

Professional grade

Like the Mac Pro, Accelsior 8M2 is built for the most demanding professional applications.

Designed to deliver consistent low latency data throughput, the Acceslsior 8M2 is perfect not only for creative professionals like filmmakers and game developers, but also for edge computing applications such as industrial automation, smart city ecosystems, and smart retail solutions.

This card is built to feed the new Mac Pro huge amounts of data at lightning speed. As such, it’s more than a competitive advantage―it’s a best practice.

You can learn more about the Accelsior 8M2 right here. And you are able to pair the card with the new Mac Pro, which is available now. Mac Pro starts at $6,999.

Be sure to read our full write-up on the Mac Pro right here.


1 Results are compared to previous-generation 2.5GHz 28-core Intel Xeon W-based Mac Pro systems with Radeon Pro W6900X graphics with 32GB of GDDR6, configured with Afterburner, 384GB of RAM, and 4TB SSD.

2 Testing conducted by Apple in April and May 2023 using preproduction Mac Pro systems with Apple M2 Ultra, 24-core CPU, 76-core GPU, 192GB of RAM, and 8TB SSD. PCIe Gen 4 SSD tested in an x16 slot with 16TB OWC Accelsior 8M2, aux power cable, with FIO 3.34, 2048KB request size, 10GB test file, and IO depth=8. Mac Pro systems tested with an attached 5K display. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of Mac Pro.

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