SIIG USB 3.0 card

[MilesAhead]

Went to the next level and got a RMA for full refund. Those TDK DVD+R are garbage.

Otn there's no choice but to get the SIIG. Thermaltake for w/e reason still hasn't brought out their USB 3.0 Docking Station for purchase even though it's been reviewed for months. Really weird.

It is strange. There a lots of models coming on the scene now though. If you look on Egg I think there are at least 10 different USB 3.0 docks now.

[dr_ml422]

Most are worthless though. The best one out is the SIIG. They say the BYYTEC is ok but not better built. I'm almost 100% positive that Thermaltake is good and strong like their e-sata and USB 2.0 Docks. I have to check my DD see what's in then if need wait for that Refund and just go pull the trigger on the SIIG. I mean they give a 2 year warranty. I was just seeing if Thermaltake would come out as it's priced at just $49.99. Something's up cause they personally e-mailed me saying they didn't have them out yet.

I wanna hookup the 3.0 Dock in my new build and then either keep the E-sata also w/it or shoot that one to my 1st build. I still have a USB 2.0 Dock also. Might just get another E-sata and 3.0 anyway. The dual port 3.0 card takes 2 USB 3.0 Docks.

I'm also in the market for one of those Caviar Black WD drives. Once I revamp my DVD video collection I'll be more settled as now I still need the regular DVD files on the HDDs I have.

[dr_ml422]

Got the SIIG!

Miles I just installed the SIIG Docking Station. Little tricky w/that power adapter. I thought I had a dead unit then turned the plug around and the blue Power LEDs lit up. Should be fun to see how encoding/transfers go now. Went straight to the new Microcenter here. I'll be getting another asaic.

[MilesAhead]

Miles I just installed the SIIG Docking Station. Little tricky w/that power adapter. I thought I had a dead unit then turned the plug around and the blue Power LEDs lit up. Should be fun to see how encoding/transfers go now. Went straight to the new Microcenter here. I'll be getting another asaic.

Hope you enjoy it. Now that I have my little plastic stack for drives I wish I could afford some more WD. Have to save up for those 1 TB drives. I'm saving a lot on DVD+R dl. Hardly ever burn one anymore.

[dr_ml422]

Hope you enjoy it. Now that I have my little plastic stack for drives I wish I could afford some more WD. Have to save up for those 1 TB drives. I'm saving a lot on DVD+R dl. Hardly ever burn one anymore.

Yes I need some WDs as well and also have to wait for some extra cash. For storage the Hitachi's are good as well, and right now they're $59.99 for 1TB 7200 RPM 3.5 in. That's the cheapest I've seen any 1TB apart maybe from a Seagate that I stay clear of. I still make 1 hard copy of my video files, though now that I'm converting to .mkv, several will fit onto a single layer Verbie 4.7 GB DVD+R.

I have to stick those rubber stick-on coasters the SIIG came with. They could at least have implemented that into the unit like Thermal did. Don't know what Thermal's thinking not releasing their model yet, though if before my next SIIG I'll get one. If not another SIIG is just fine. Darn things really haven't come down in price. Outta the store it was almost $60.00 including tax.

The new Microcenter is a lil ways from me. I got a ride today. What a tremendous computer store though! I saw a nice tee-shirt that said "I love to build my own" or something to that effect. I'll be snatching one next time if still available.

[MilesAhead]

I can't figure out what gives myself. My biggest disappointment is tower jewel case storage. Of course now the DJ case gives more storage for the room, but when I first started collecting Jazz CDs Fellowes made these wooden turrets all assembled that held 240 full size jewel cases. They sold for about $75. Now to get anything similar you have to spend almost $200 and assemble it yourself. Fellowes just stopped making them for no apparent reason. Wicked bummer. Fortunately I got 4 before they were discontinued.

[MilesAhead]

This card has popped up on special again. $29.99 ea limit 5 per customer:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815150161&cm_re=siig_usb_3.0-_-15-150-161-_-Product

[dr_ml422]

GPU card in way!

I would hop on this in a NY minute like they say, though my GPU card covers the PCI Express slot that's left on my new build I think, and only 1 PCI Express slot on my 1st build. That's what suck$ about these GPU cards. They always cover something!

SIIG is working great and the safe remove hardware is no biggie at all. Sold my 1st 2.0 Docking Station w/2 80 GB HDDs. Kept my E-sata/USB and 3.0 SIIG. Made some $$$ and still good to go.

[MilesAhead]

I'm happy to say the 2 SIIG cards I put in have given me zero problems. Best thing I did since putting in the Gb network card. Even though my dual core isn't that fast, at least it doesn't bog doing everything on a drive that can only muster about 70 MB/sec sequential read. The WD drive in the dock runs full speed. I'm glad I didn't mess around with that stupid drive cage in the quad. This is the better way to go, at least for me.

edit: btw you should hurry over to ExcaliberPC and get some of those WD Caviar Black 1 TB 6Gb/s 64 MB cache models for $84 +shipping. Last time I checked they only had about 11,000 left in stock!!

[dr_ml422]

Got it!

Miles I got that Caviar Black 1TB and I also bought a 500GB Caviar Black to Backup my 1st build. It was only $10.00 bucks more for a 500 GB compared to a 320GB. 1st time w/Excalibur. Fedex so that's a plus. I think the prices were reasonable, especially for the Caviar Black 1TB.

[MilesAhead]

I've been happy with them so far. The thing I like is they post like if they have 2000 units on hand. Doesn't seem like they try to fake panic you into buying(only 3 left buy now!! when there's 20,000 in the warehouse.)

[dr_ml422]

Hey Miles, have you run into that message about "your mass storage device is in use right now by another program. Turn off other program so you can eject the USB Mass Storage Device". It keeps popping up and I look in Task Manager and find nothing running. What I been doing is just turning the computer off, and then shutting down the SIIG. Not for nothing, but Thermaltake should of came out w/their initial customer review on their USB 3.0 Dock. They had no Safely Remove suggestions/directions on their other Docks.

What have you been doing if/when this has popped up? Thnx.

[MilesAhead]

If the drive has a network shared folder I disconnect the network share(on the client side.. I just have 2 machines.) Also I close Everything Search as that monitors the NTFS partitions. I run SysInternals free Sync.exe which flushes disk buffers. And I run my UpdateEnv utility as it sometimes helps. If you hit it 5 or 6 times UpdateEnv can sometimes avoid having to log off.

If I mess around and UsbSafelyRemove won't quit complaining no matter what, then I log off. While logged off the system I switch off the dock. Then I just log back in. If I have a tough time, next time I start up that drive I run chkdsk on the command line just to check it out. Usually though, if I don't have a network shared folder on the drive, it stops right away.

You shouldn't have to shut down. A log off should flush all buffers to disk just as well as shutting down, unless you have some service or other thing that writes to the drive even when not logged in.

The other thing is if you have some app that keeps reading off the drive periodically. Like if it's monitoring a folder for changes like Everything Search does. Basically you just want to make sure data is flushed to disk before killing it. I tend to be cautious but sometimes Explorer just won't let go, so I log off and hit the dock power button. But right before logging off I run sync.exe a couple of times to make sure the OS and drive caches are flushed.

[dr_ml422]

Miles thnx for this tip. Looks like MS still has a ways to go w/certain things. It doesn't happen all the time, though when it does it's annoying. I'll follow these tips/steps from now on.

I downloaded that Sync.exe, and actually it was recommended by you at Gizmo's. Great to see you're really making rounds all over.

[MilesAhead]

Miles thnx for this tip. Looks like MS still has a ways to go w/certain things. It doesn't happen all the time, though when it does it's annoying. I'll follow these tips/steps from now on.

I downloaded that Sync.exe, and actually it was recommended by you at Gizmo's. Great to see you're really making rounds all over.

Yeah, it always seems like it hangs when you're in a hurry. If you click casually on UsbSafelyRemove, it just stops it like nothing. It's all in the index finger I guess.

That sync.exe is nice to have. Esp. on NT based systems all it does is make an API call to lock the drive. The OS automatically flushes buffers to disk then the drive is locked. So it's not something that takes any chances. It only cheats on Win9x.