HighPoint 122TB Enterprise Grade PCle Expansion AIC Drive for Apple Ultra M2 Mac Pros

HighPoint Technologies, Inc. unveils a 122TB Enterprise-Grade PCle Expansion AIC (addin-card) Ultra-Dense Drive Series for Apple Ultra M2 Mac Pro workstations.

Available with up to 122TB of storage capacity, and capable of delivering up to 54GB/s of mind-blowing transfer bandwidth, RocketAIC Ultra-Dense for Mac Drive Series (RocketAIC 7749EM and RocketAIC 7749EN) were designed for high-productivity Mac Pro workstations and grueling workflows that demand maximum uptime and transfer throughput to ensure projects stay on schedule without compromising quality.

The company’s RocketAIC Ultra-Dense Drives are industry’s first enterprise PCle storage drive solutions for Apple’s Ultra M2 Mac Pro. The compact AIC drives provide high density NVMe storage with enterprise grade reliability and endurance, and are capable of delivering consistent sustained transfer performance suitable for media-rich workflows and Al applications.

RocketAIC Series PCle Expansion Drives employ proven storage technology, precision engineered hardware architecture, and class-leading media from today’s premier NVMe Brands to deliver the speed, endurance and reliability one expects from a professional-grade storage solution. Each drive leverage state of the art PCle Gen4 switch technology and proven AIC hardware architecture and purpose-built NVMe cooling solutions to ensure each SSD delivers maximum throughput at all times.

RocketAIC 7749EM/EN solutions 1st enterprise grade PCle expansion drives designed for 2023 Apple Mac Pro workstations
2023 Mac Pro workstation platforms are powered by Apple’s M2 Ultra architecture, a 24-core CPU, and powerful, integrated graphics processor (GPU). The platform is many times faster than previous generations of Mac Pros and provides a large number of PCle expansion ports; 7 full-length slots, 4 of which can accommodate dual-width PCle devices. This level computational and graphical power enables the new platform to support a range of professional applications.

Of particular note is built-in GPU, which has up to 76 cores and 192GB of memory at its disposal. This effectively frees up a dedicated PCle x16 slot for use with other devices, such as a PCle Expansion AIC Drive. Professional workflows will see immediate benefit from a high-density NVMe based solution, due to the superior reliability, transfer performance, easy to integrate compact form-factor of NVMe storage media.

The firm’s line of single and dual AIC drive solutions were designed to fulfill this role. The compact, PCle form-factor NVMe storages drives are designed to enhance productivity and streamline mission critical workflows for Mac Pro platforms. A wide selection of preconfigured drives is available for both 2023 and 2019 workstations; customers can opt for a single or dual-drive solution, tailored to maximize the density, reliability or performance.

Built for demanding scientific, Al, DL, and ML applications
Al, DL and ML applications require a high volume of computational resources to perform optimally. Processing particularly voluminous sets of data or analyzing complex problems or objects can potentially overwhelm available VRAM (video RAM), which would then slow the entire process to a crawl. To combat this risk, the majority of Al servers utilize high-speed storage devices to supplement VRAM and mitigate the loss of performance.

RocketAIC expansion drives are designed to address the data-intensive, high-throughput, low-latency workflows associated with ML systems and Al applications. In particular, the RocketAIC 7749EM and EN series NVMe expansion drives leverage the NVMe architecture Solidigm‘s data center class D7- P5520 Series El.S SSDs to deliver enterprise grade levels of storage reliability, endurance and transfer performance in a compact package that can be integrated into 2023 M2 Ultra Mac Pro platforms.

Precision engineered PCle-Gen4 NVMe cooling solutions

RocketAIC 7749EM and EN series drives are equipped with the double-width NVMe cooling system, which was engineered to ensure high-density Gen4 NVMe media consistently deliver maximum throughput for extended 1/0 sessions. Each drive is enclosed by an anodized aluminum casing designed to optimize airflow. The dual-width architecture’s unique socket design enables the Solidigm SSDs to be arranged vertically, similar to how memory is installed into a conventional motherboard. This ensures both sides of each SSD are exposed to the cool air ingested by a pair of powerful, low-decibel cooling fans. The cool air is then condensed and circulated throughout the casing, which then rapidly ejects waste heat via the ventilated PCle bracket.

Quick and intuitive management suite:
The novel cooling system was designed to work in conjunction with the company‘s SHI (storage health inspector) monitoring service, which can track fan speed and SSD temperature in real time, and SMTP Email Alert Notification feature, which enables customers to configure one or more email addresses to receive information about any activity related to the RocketAIC drive, such as maintenance procedures, warnings or errors.

Though RocketAIC drives are designed to work right out of the box, customers are free to install the firm‘s WebGUI management software, which includes our SHI solution. Quick, and mastered, the WebGUI works with all modern web browsers such as Safari, and can be used to manage, configure and monitor every aspect of your RocketAIC NVMe drive with a few clicks.

Ultra-Dense PCle expansion drives for Mac
A pair of RocketAIC Ultra-Dense Drives can deliver 122TB of storage using 2 PCle slots. The RocketAIC HN series drives integrate up to 16 NVMe SSDs into a single, unified volume. macOS will recognize a single physical drive, up to 122TB in size.