SIIG USB 3.0 card

[dr_ml422]

btw this card is on Promo at NewEgg. For $24.99 shipped I had to get another one for my dual core:

The promo ends 6/28

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-161-_-Product

Thnx for the heads up as always. Right now I might have to pass. I would have to also get the docking 3.0 Station and I'm watching the digits.

Keep us posted if you can. At some point the move is inevitable.

[MilesAhead]

I would snap up the card if you can because it's backward compatible. While I was waiting for my USB 3.0 docking stations to arrive I hooked up USB 2.0 stuff to try out the Superspeed card. I got at least a 15% increase in throughput. My Seagate 500 GB USB 2.0 external drive which usually writes at a max of 24 MB/sec was writing at 28 to 30.. with sequential read a bit faster. You can use it with USB 2.0 until you get USB 3.0 stuff. The connection will accept a USB 2.0 cable.

[dr_ml422]

Okie

I would snap up the card if you can because it's backward compatible. While I was waiting for my USB 3.0 docking stations to arrive I hooked up USB 2.0 stuff to try out the Superspeed card. I got at least a 15% increase in throughput. My Seagate 500 GB USB 2.0 external drive which usually writes at a max of 24 MB/sec was writing at 28 to 30.. with sequential read a bit faster. You can use it with USB 2.0 until you get USB 3.0 stuff. The connection will accept a USB 2.0 cable.

Done! You drive a hard but reasonable bargain! Forgot you had mentioned it was backwards compatible.

2 ports too.

[MilesAhead]

Yeah, my only regret is I didn't get all SIIG stuff. But I'll be able to use the Sharkoon on the dual core since it will spin down after 10 minutes idle. I won't be using it steady like I do the ones on the quad. Good luck with it. I hope you get as good a use from it as I have.

[dr_ml422]

I'll put it into one of my builds which I think has 2 PCI x1 Express slots. If not it'll be futureproof. Can't beat that price. The SIIG Dock is the way to go correct? Lots of new Manufacturers jumping on the USB 3.0 stuff I see.

[MilesAhead]

I'll put it into one of my builds which I think has 2 PCI x1 Express slots. If not it'll be futureproof. Can't beat that price. The SIIG Dock is the way to go correct? Lots of new Manufacturers jumping on the USB 3.0 stuff I see.

I've only tried 2 types, the Sharkoon and SIIG. But the SIIG is the only one I've seen that has the built in fan. I think it's a good way to go. Of course I haven't tried a bunch to compare but it stands to reason if your drive can operate at full capacity it's better to have some cooling. At USB 2.0 speeds it didn't really matter.

I guess the short answer is, unless I can see a different model first hand to try it, if I had to buy another dock I'd get the SIIG with the fan. Once I got used to it I liked the idea that it doesn't have an eject button. Simpler design. UsbSafelyRemove seems to work well with it. It takes a couple of times inserting drives until you get the feel that it's all the way seated in the connector. But after a few times it feels natural.

[dr_ml422]

I'm going to get the SIIG asaic. Though I have no idea why on a clone w/True Image it takes forever w/both USB 2.0 and 3.0. I'm cloning my newer build as I write w/the new SIIG USB card and the USB 2.0 dock. It's not the 3.0 because this happened w/the 2.0 as well. When I clone w/the e-sata port and dock it zips for some reason. I also noticed it keeps the red light on the Docking Station steady and not blinking it's head off.

I wonder if they will come out w/a faster e-sata as well.

I installed the 3.0 card in my newer build. The darn GPU card takes away a pci-express 1 port because of its fan. If not I would install another one. I think this also happens in my 1st build where I have a e-sata card installed on top of my GPU card.

There's no way around this w/a adapter/connector dongle is there? Too bad if not because I'm wasting 2 good slots.

Did you add a GPU card to any of your PCS and run into the same issue? Thnx.

Otn, another sale and I think I just might snatch one more, though the 3.0 Dock is a must.

[MilesAhead]

No, the rest of my PC is HP stock Pavilion. My dual core I added a Gbit wired network card because it only had Fast network RJ45. I had to pull the TV tuner card, but I never used that anyway. The only slot left open is the one for the SIIG card. I'm glad it came on sale because I'm starting to get fed up with using the Seagate USB 2.0 external drive for backups and stuff. It's too slow to even share workload. With the 3.0 dock I should be able to smooth out doing some video conversions. It's a lot slower than the quad but there's no fan noise, so sometimes I stick a job on it and just let it run for 6 hours and forget about it. I can let stuff run overnight because I'm can't hear any fans.

I should put better fans in the quad but I'm a coward. If something works I hate to take a chance on breaking it. Esp. when it's the main machine.

[dr_ml422]

That's pretty good that your stock card for the Quad and Dual Core can handle all that rendering. I thought w/all the posts on the net about a separate GPU card being better that stock cards would just be ok for regular tasks etc..., even as a back up. Maybe I'll use my ATI Integrated Radeon HD3300 for a job and see how it fairs.

Here's a simple review on the SIIG 3.0 card:

http://www.jeffsreviews.com/Articles/comp%20hard%20apr2010-/siig%20usb%203.html

I'll keep it as it's USB but I'm getting the Docking Station. It's true what this guys says as I have E-Sata and have seen the speeds first hand.

I hear you on that Seagate and the slower speed. The drive I was cloning to is a Seagate 250GB. I decided to clone my new build again last night to the same 320GB WD it has the OS on. I used the E-sata Docking Station and it zipped. Whether it was the fact that there was no disc space to compress is a mood point, as I've used the Seagate 250GB on the E-sata w/faster results also.

Things just got better! Look what Thermaltake was working on all this time!

http://thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?S=1308&ID=1969 You can't beat that price either imo. Man sometimes it pays to wait just a lil longer but 20-20 has always been hindsight.

[MilesAhead]

That case is wild!! My video cards, the dual core most players won't use hw acceleration, but on the quad most will. It sounds like a lot of dedicated ram. 728 MB or something like that, but it's not really a performer. I don't do games.. but at the time this PC came out it was a good deal price/performance wise. The thing that really made it other than Phenom 9850 quad is the BDRom drive. They don't put it in that many off the shelf systems under $1100. Or at least they didn't then. Stuff changes so fast. Now just about all the machines $800 and over with 8 GB ram it's DDR3 instead of DDR2 like I have. But as the author of the 386 book said, another faster system is coming out in a short time but if you wait forever you'll never have a PC that isn't obsolete. You have to pull the trigger and buy something sometime.

Maybe some time in the future when I have a separate computer room I'll do the build thing. Looks like a fun hobby.

[dr_ml422]

Oh ok. Thnx for the info on the dedicated cards. Now I have something to work with.

Yes that case is wild, and it's a bargain! Most USB 3.0 docks alone are still about $60.00 on or abouts even more. This is the whole thing in one shot. I'm seriously considering it. Lets see.

Otn I took a look around and found this: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...868&CatId=2785

They made my e-sata crd which is doing just fine. The rule of thumb is usually what a company makes that's good is good in similar areas. The SIIG is still a bit pricey, though I haven't checked a lot of sites. I'll be looking at this StarTech as well.

[MilesAhead]

I got mine from buy.com

searched just now and it seems the current deal is about $50 with free shipping

http://www.buy.com/prod/siig-2-5-3-5-usb-3-0-to-sata-hard-drive-dock-with-fan-drive-dock-1-x-3/q/loc/101/213452489.html

[dr_ml422]

I got mine from buy.com

searched just now and it seems the current deal is about $50 with free shipping

http://www.buy.com/prod/siig-2-5-3-5...213452489.html

So it says in the specs that it's hot pluggable. There's no eject button so how do you take out the drive? Is that what you meant about ejecting it w/Windows? What's that space in the front? Is that where the fan is located? Thnx.

You also mentioned something about performance in device Manager. I couldn't find anything related to my internal HDD regarding a Performance tab, but I did find one for my Desktop. My new build is flying now for some reason. It changed everything to basic viewing, but I'll take it for speed.

[MilesAhead]

I'm not sure why the SIIG dock has 2 holes. I'm thinking maybe they will release a 2 drive model and will use the same base? I don't know. There are air holes on each end. The fan is inside the base someplace. You can hear it but not see it. There is no eject button, what they say is stop the drive with Windows USB control(I use USB Safely Remove because I got a giveaway copy free.) Once the device shows as stopped you just power it off and pull the drive out. Give a little wiggle and just pull it straight up. It takes a couple of times inserting it to get the feel of when it's all the way seated. But it's no big deal. The driver hot loads when you power it on, so it does no good to have it running when you boot up. Boot to Windows desktop first, then turn the docks on. (One pita is I have to share the folders every time I boot up so now I just leave the machines running and turn the monitor and docks off overnight. But that's just to avoid setting the folder as shared and clicking all those permission check boxes. Again, if you're not sharing folders on the network, no hassle there.)

In Device Manager in Hard Drives it has settings for the drives in the docks. I leave it at "optimize for quick removal". It doesn't seem to have any effect on speed. I can read from the 640 64 MB cache drive at 138 MB/sec. It may make it easier for USB Safely Remove to stop it. I use my program UpdateEnv 4 or 5 times to avoid having to log out to get the network to let go(I share a couple of folders on one drive.) But if you don't have any folders shared on the network it should stop right away.

[MilesAhead]

Heh. What a difference doing something for the 2nd time!! Put the card in just now. The hardest thing was getting the plastic pack open. I'm doing backups to an old WD in the dock now. I'm getting about 57 MB/sec sequential rates which is right for this drive. It's an old WD 200 GB I pulled out of a Pavilion.

To do restores from the drive I'd either have to make WinPE discs so that I have the USB 3.0 driver, or just use a USB 2.0 docking station. I shouldn't be doing restores very often so I'll probably be lazy and use the USB 2.0 dock or an external USB 2.0 drive. Now and then I guess I'll plug in a slow USB 2.0 external just so I have an additional backup against failures.

It was way more fun putting this one in than the first!!! Plus I got the trick of getting the side cover on the HP dual core. Leave the thing on its side and put the cover on so that gravity works for you instead of fighting it. It's got these 3 little grabbers with slides to drop through the holes on the case. If you try to put the thing on with the case right side up you have a hell of a time lining them up and getting them to drop in the holes. With the case on its side all the grabbers drop in, you slide it a bit to get the end into the little crease on the front of the case, the turn the thumb screws. Way easier.