SIIG USB 3.0 card

[dr_ml422]

Thnx for the heads up on Device manager and the extra space in the SIIG. SIIG makes a Dual dock 2.0 so I'm figuring they just left 1 open and implemented the 3.0 in that same dock. Save $$$.

Check out what the beast is coming out with: http://www.thermaltake.com/product_i...BlacX+5G&ov=n&


I haven't seen anywhere to buy it though. So new I guess. It's going to be a tough call on which one though I do rather have something I can eject myself and hot swapable.

Here's one review of a couple already. The price is looking good so far.

http://www.slashgear.com/thermaltake-blacx-5gb-is-a-usb-3-0-docking-station-for-cheap-2891861/

I'm pulling the trigger soon on 1. Do you shoot your destination file from a video job to a dock on another PC through your network? I think that's possible no? Would like to see the speed on that.

[MilesAhead]

They finally came out with the BlacX 3.0. I thought they licensed it to Sharkoon and forgot about it or something. My reservation, after using the Sharkoon, would be about the cooling. If you are going to use them constantly say with a WD Caviar Black, then the drives are going to get pretty hot. If you do go with BlacX maybe wherever you have them set up you could position a quiet fan or something. Because when I was working them in the Sharkoon, then went to take the drive out, it was almost hot enough to burn your hand. I mean, you feel the difference with the cooling fan.

The Sharkoon tries to get around it by spinning the drive down when idle. I don't know if BlacX does that. afa hot swap, if you share any folders on the docked drive over the network, you're going to want to flush the cache(I use SysInternals sync.exe to flush disk buffers) and try to unshare the folders on the other end(disconnect driver letter) to make sure you don't get any corrupted files.

I don't see it as a big benefit to hot swap. I pulled a drive out of the Sharkoon once while it was running and I'm holding a gyroscope. Probably not great for the drive innards. I don't see it as a big deal to stop the drive using a USB utility and hit the power button. I think the Sharkoon says hot swap too but if you read the directions that come with it, stopping with a USB utility and powering down is suggested. So I dunno'.

What I get the greatest benefit is video mux/demux. I have one 640 GB WD 6 Gb/sec with 64 MB cache as the fastest drive. The other end is WD 3 Gb/sec. I can read from the fastest at over 120 MB/sec and write to the other one at about 100 MB/sec. so muxes are really smooth. Even when some software wants to read and write the same drive(like it has a temp file in the same folder) at least it's not doing it on my C: system drive.

Over the network the drive runs at full speed. Seems like the sending machine determines how fast you can push stuff through. The dock in the dual core I haven't shared any folders just because every folder, when you boot the machine up, you have to do about 12 mouse clicks Advanced Sharing to put the permissions and caching params. It's a pita. I just copy onto the dual core system disk since most of the time that machine isn't doing anything unless I'm doing a video conversion. Then I leave it alone.

[dr_ml422]

Thnx. I'll be making a decision soon. That Thermaltake isn't even available yet. I e-mailed them and they e-mailed back telling me. So When the time comes I"ll be pulling the trigger.

I had access to all my folders the 1st time I created a Home Network. Now I have a different ISP provider and cable modem/Netgear router. I have a password so I know what you're talking about w/all the permissions. I can just uncheck the use password setting if I wanted. Right now I just read and write to the Public Folders which I have set to just who's using my computers. It's just me all the time. Unless someone thinks I'm wealthy or something and wants to crack my network all they'll get is some flics and music. I don't keep anything deemed important on my PCs.

One thing I did notice straight off the back was that disabling all that Aero stuff and making the Desktop Basic w/Performance as the only setting has made my whole PC faster including loading the OS, IE, and IE Sandboxed. Matter of fact 7 itself told me it was consuming too much w/all the boxes ticked in Desktop settings.

This area I also have to research and do more tweaks. There should already be a Tweak 7 x64 Guide somewhere. It's just that 7 is so much advanced and improved over all the older OS by MS that there's no real need for much tweaking. I must admit I do like the extra speed. I can only do so much at one time. I just finished rigging both my PCs to my new 1080P 27" HDTV along w/the PS3 and TVersity. Man it's awesome streaming videos straight to your HDTV from your PC using that Slim! Any discs are just plain backups.

[MilesAhead]

For awhile when I first got my dual core with Vista preinstalled(no SP it was before SP1) I killed all the menu animation and aero and all that to make it look like XP and get the performance. But after a couple of days it seemed boring, so I turned Aero and most of the other stuff back on.

The only thing I left off was animated controls. I hate progress bars that surge. I mean the thing is already moving. What does it have to keep starting at the beginning and surging for? It makes you just sit there like a zombie and watch it.

Just for grins I copied a 5 GB file over the network from the dual core using the drive in the USB 3.0 dock as source and the system drive on the quad as dest. It was exactly the same speed as using the dual core system disk. So I guess it's a limitation on the sending capacity. The dual core has an add-on card for the gigabit wired. It can receive at full speed so that's fine. I mean I don't really need to send files faster than 45 MB/sec over the Lan anyway. It does the job.

[dr_ml422]

That's cool you tried that over the Lan. That's pretty fast just like you said, especially for a video file that size.

I changed back to Aero. It was more convenient set to it. I was getting annoyed when sending pics through gmail and just seeing the cloudy icons, not knowing what the heck they contained. I'm definitely hitting one of the Tweak guides. Not just for performance but more for knowing what this 7 can and can't do. Too much too soon too early, but don't want it to get late.

Lots of territory iykwim. You're great sw wise so you know most of the tricks/settings. Keeps me busy I tell you that much. lol...

[MilesAhead]

This is a good board with lots of settings tutorials:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/

It has a lot of that hard to find stuff like how to enable/disable
Windows built-in CD burning etc..
Also has a separate subforum for performance:

http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/

and even some stuff on overclock and cooling..

Also HowtoGeek is good:

http://www.howtogeek.com/

btw when they talk about the docks being "hot swappable" I think they mean the driver will load when you power them up instead of having to reboot. Like a USB printer. If you plug another one in and turn in on it will load the driver off the firmware without having to reboot the system.

[dr_ml422]

Excuse the delay on this reply. I'm bookmarking these links.

Now for the "hot swappable" it means and it is by my very own experience that you can just pop out the drive that's in the docking station and put another one in and it will PnP it automatically. No need to turn off the bay at all. That's what I love about them along w/the ease and speed of data transfer. I had to switch bays because I have several filled w/ImGburn .iso movie files and was burning a large project. ImgBurn will tell you drive not found and I would just take that one out and pop the other one in and instantly it will snatch the file.

I have to get a USB 3.0 Docking Station. I have one question. You really feel that fan in the SIIG is a must for lack of a better word? I mean the HDD is already outside of a case. I've had no problems w/both my Black X Thermaltake Docking stations. Right now they have one in their refurbished section for $9.99 plus shipping. 2.0 USB though. I'm thinking getting it anyway, but I still need that 3.0. While Thermaltake has reviews on their new 3.0 Docking Station they are no where to be had.

http://www.thermaltakestore.com/blacx-n0020028.html

Just in case. Don't let the refurb throw you. My 1st or 2nd is a refurb and working flawlessly.

There's one by BYTECC also on sale at EGG w/good reviews. One guy just quickly mentioned that the SIIG he returned in his opinion was slightly better quality, but did say the BYTECC was no slouch. I'm just throwing this around for more input/options. Thnx.

[MilesAhead]

The only experience I have in USB 3.0 is SIIG and Sharkoon. But now that you mention it, when I get the WD drive out of BlacX USB 2.0 dock, it seems just as hot. Maybe it's one of those things where it's "out of sight, out of mind" and since I don't know how hot it is in the case(my internal system HD) I don't think about it. Just seems hot to the touch.

These drives are probably designed to take quite a bit of heat. I haven't noticed any errors in any of the docks.

[dr_ml422]

The only experience I have in USB 3.0 is SIIG and Sharkoon. But now that you mention it, when I get the WD drive out of BlacX USB 2.0 dock, it seems just as hot. Maybe it's one of those things where it's "out of sight, out of mind" and since I don't know how hot it is in the case(my internal system HD) I don't think about it. Just seems hot to the touch.

These drives are probably designed to take quite a bit of heat. I haven't noticed any errors in any of the docks.

Amazon has the SIIG for this:http://www.amazon.com/Superspeed-USB.../dp/B0032ASLDI

Can't be beat! I might be pulling the trigger.

[MilesAhead]

Amazon has the SIIG for this:http://www.amazon.com/Superspeed-USB.../dp/B0032ASLDI

Can't be beat! I might be pulling the trigger.

I think you'll be happy with it. Some reviewers make a big deal that it doesn't have an eject button. But when you think about it, if you pulled the connector out of a drive that was bolted down, you'd wiggle it a bit and it would slide right out. With this dock you just have to wiggle the drive a bit to pull the drive out of the connector. Now that I'm used to it there's no issue for me at all. One less thing to break.

[dr_ml422]

Miles What's up w/Buy.com? It says free shipping and when I go checkout it puts S&H plus tax? It did that w/some TDK DVD Blanks I just bought and since I missed the Amazon order when originally posted went to check who had it the cheapest. Buy.com did but at checkout I noticed that. Is S&H apart from shipping charges? I emptied the cart! Let me know. I never bought from them before until those discs. Thnx.

With the S&H plus tax the SIIG would of come out to $60.00 plus.

[MilesAhead]

I can't answer for them. I never assume on any online site that shipping is free unless I've dealt with them a lot and know it usually is free shipping(like SuperMediaStore) or I get into the checkout far enough to where I can "estimate shipping charges" and put in my zip code.

[dr_ml422]

They replied to my inquiry. Gave me a refund on the shipping and directions on how to go about the free budget shipping on any future orders. It shouldn't have to be a task, and I agree w/SuperMediaStore. They always just process and send your stuff as indicated. Just takes a bit as they are in the West Coast.

Thnx for the reply as always. I'm going online to see another SIIG. I'll post back w/the results.

[MilesAhead]

Glad you got it straightened out.

[dr_ml422]

Glad you got it straightened out.

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.