OWC Mercury Helios PCIe Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis Assembly and Users Manual
Table of Contents INTRODUCTION 1 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 1 PACKAGE CONTENTS 2 PORT VIEW 2 ANTI-STATIC HANDLING 3 ASSEMBLY 3 QUICK SET-UP 10 GENERAL USAGE GUIDELINES AND FAQ 15 CONTACTING TECHNICAL SUPPORT 18 WARRANTY INFORMATION 18 Introduction System Requirements • Intel Macintosh with Thunderbolt port • The following are the earliest Thunderbolt capable models: o MacBook Air (Mid 2011) o MacBook Pro (Early 2011) o MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012) o Mac
Package Contents 1. 2.
Anti-Static handling Helios and PCIe cards are staticsensitive devices. They are susceptible to invisible damage if not protected during the assembly process. We recommend proper grounding by using a grounding strap. Make sure to work in a clean and staticfree area, and avoid wearing clothing that retains static charges. For more information, please visit http://www.macsales.com/static Assembly 1. Place Helios upside-down on a soft surface with the rear facing you. 2.
3. Remove the two Phillips PH2 screws from the bottom of Helios. 4. Turn Helios back over and place it on it’s feet. Using your fingers, push the inner chassis out of the outer enclosure. Do not squeeze the sides of the enclosure while doing this.
5. Flip Helios over and orient it as shown in the picture. Remove the Phillips PH2 screw from the PCIe expansion slot. You are ready to install your PCIe card. 6. Note: Only handle the PCIe card by its edges. Never touch the gold contacts or any components on the circuit board. • Orient your PCIe card so the bracket is to the left and the connector with gold contacts is facing away from you. • Line up the bracket with the inside edge of Helios and gently insert the PCIe card into the slot.
. Make sure the PCIe card is fully seated. 8. Replace the PCIe bracket screw. Do not fully tighten the screw.
Carefully lift up the edge of the card until the bracket is stopped by the PCIe bracket screw, then fully tighten the PCIe bracket screw. 9. Slide the outer casing back on. Align the screw holes and replace the bottom screws.
10. Replace the two rear screws. 11. Flip Helios over and plug in the DC power cable and Thunderbolt cable. Note: Helios will only power on when it has DC power and is receiving an active Thunderbolt signal.
12. Plug the other end of the Thunderbolt cable into your Mac. Note: Your Mac can be on or off when connecting the Thunderbolt cable. If the PCIe card you are connecting needs to poll external devices before being powered on, make sure to connect those devices to the PCIe card before connecting the Thunderbolt cable. 13. The power LED on the front of Helios will emit a steady light when the DC power and Thunderbolt cables are connected and there is an active Thunderbolt signal.
Quick Set-Up 1. Helios does not require drivers. 2. To verify that your PCIe card is being recognized by your Mac and is working correctly, you can look in “System Profiler: (Mac OS X 10.6” or “System Information” (Mac OS X 10.7.x / 10.8.x or later): • Click on the Apple icon in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. • Click “About This Mac”.
• A window will appear on the screen. Click on “More Info…” • If your computer is running Mac OS X 10.7.x or Mac OS X 10.8.x, an “About This Mac” window will appear. Click on “System Report…”. If your computer is running Mac OS X 10.6.8, this window will not appear.
3. Click on “Thunderbolt” to see Helios.
4. Click on “PCI Cards” to see the PCIe expansion card installed in Helios. Note: If the status of “Tunnel Compatible” (as seen to the right pane above) is “Yes”, your PCIe card will function correctly over Thunderbolt. If your card has a “Tunnel Compatible” status of “No”, check with the card’s manufacturer for a Thunderbolt-aware driver.
Note: Other information about the PCIe card installed in Helios may be seen in another section. For example, the PCIe card we used in this set-up is the OWC Mercury Accelsior PCI Express SSD. The status of the SSD can be seen under the Serial-ATA section.
General Usage Guidelines and FAQ The OWC Mercury Helios PCIe Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis: • Will only power on when DC power and an active Thunderbolt signal are present. • Has intelligent power management, allowing it to power up and down with your computer. • Is bootable with AHCI compliant PCIe cards. • Can daisy-chain up to six Thunderbolt devices and one Mini DisplayPort display at the end of the chain. • Can bus-power one Thunderbolt device that supports bus powering.
Q. My PCIe card has lower performance than expected when installed in Helios. • Thunderbolt offers up to 10Gb/s bandwidth for PCIe. This is more than enough bandwidth for most cards. Some cards, however, may require more than 10Gb/s of bandwidth and may not operate at full speed. • Connecting multiple devices in a Thunderbolt chain can affect the overall performance. Each device added to the Thunderbolt chain will add latency and reduce the bandwidth available in the chain.
A Mini DisplayPort port has a symbol with two vertical bars surrounding a square. A Thunderbolt port is marked with a lightning bolt symbol. 3. Check the Thunderbolt cable ends to see if the plugs are dirty, corroded, or damaged. Try a different Thunderbolt cable. 4. If Helios is in a Thunderbolt chain: • Check the other devices to ensure they are working correctly. • All devices in the chain, except for bus-powered devices, need to have active DC power.
Contacting Technical Support Should you need support, there are three ways to contact our Technical Support team: • Email o You can submit your email request at: o http://eshop.macsales.com/Service/ts_email.cfm • Phone o 815-338-8685 Option 3 o 8AM – 8PM CST Monday through Friday o 9AM – 4PM CST Saturday • Live Chat o OWC offers live technical assistance at http://eshop.macsales.
Copyrights: Copyright © 2002-2012 Other World Computing, Inc. OWC is a trademark of New Concepts Development Corporation, registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and Canada. Mercury Accelsior, Mercury Helios, Other World Computing and the Other World Computing logo are trademarks of New Concepts Development Corporation. Mac, the Mac logo, Mac OS, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, MacBook Pro Retina, Mac mini, Mac mini Server, iMac are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
