SYBA SD-SA2PEX-1E1I PCI Express SATA II Controller Card - Retail

Comment:
Been operating due to the fact day one for nearly a year. Wanted PCI express and this was inexpensive and had the same chipset as other cards and my onboard raid, so I believed it must not be too bad. Has worked excellent, I continually write files to and e-sata drive and run Vista off the internal port. None at this value level. You'd have to spend triple the money to get one thing that you would noticeably tell the distinction from and even then it may well only show up when you have multiple drives undertaking writes at the identical time. Transfer speed from the e-sata drive to the internal drive seems on par. Inner drive transfer speed is I'm certain what its rated at as its incredibly rapidly.

Comment:
Installed card on a Windows XP SP3 technique. Program found and installed driver speedily. Ran Windows Update and installed current driver. Windows XP locks when accessing either SATA DVD drive or WD harddrive from this card. Updated firmware but this didn't support. Wasted a lot of time attempting to get this board to function. Sooner or later gave up and installed an older Plextor ATA DVD drive in place of my new Samsung SATA DVD drive.Pulled card from system.

Comment:
InexpensiveHas the ports I requiredPerformance seemed great for the brief time I employed it Could not get into setup mode regardless of following suggested advice on Syba's internet web pageNeeds loading a RAID driver to work even in non-RAID modes. Other critiques mention this supports RAID, however, it is not hardware-based RAID; this is software RAID Further investigation suggests that (nearly?) all inexpensive RAID cards are essentially so-known as "fake RAID" which is implemented in software through drivers. Absolutely nothing wrong with this but if you're on Linux you could just use the built-in kernel support for software program RAID and keep away from the hassle of driver installation. Manufacturer Response:Dear Consumer,Thank you for buying our products. This SATA controller does not have a RAID BIOS, you can only use it as a typical storage controller. We attempt to offer the most trustworthy products to our consumer and all our goods come with at least three years warranty. Please don't hesitate to get in touch with us at support-us@syba.com for replacement or if you have any question.Regards,Syba Consumer Service 1211

Comment:
Works great with hotplug in Linux (tested with Fedora 8 x86_64). Uses the sata_sil24 driver, which supports each SIL3124 and SIL3132. Makes a good extra card for one of Newegg's trayless SATA racks. No cons so far.

Comment:
Drivers for Windows 7 x64 obtainable on Windows Update. PnP of the drive works. Just plug it in and shows up in My pc just like a USB drive. Ideal for use with eSATA external drives or SATA hotswap drive racks. None

Comment:
Although its described as a SATA controller with 1x eSATA 1x SATA, it will not support two drives simultaneously. Other than that it works as advertised - much faster than USB 2.0 for my external drive. eSATA is certainly the way to go for external drives.