SIIG USB 3.0 card

[dr_ml422]

I should have waited!

Here it is in all it's Glory finally! http://www.thermaltake.com/product_i...vid=&parent_cp=

This is the bomb!

[MilesAhead]

Is there any spin down control or is it exactly like the USB 2.0 only 3.0?

[dr_ml422]

Is there any spin down control or is it exactly like the USB 2.0 only 3.0?

I don't know about spin down control, though it is hot swappable, so no issues w/the eject USB Mass Storage nonsense. Does the SIIG have spin down? I think it won't continue at full speed if not in use doing some reading/writing. I'm not sure. I do firmly believe it's a better Dock than the SIIG. That fan in the SIIG is imo not really needed. The build on this is stronger as well. I'm PO. I should have waited. It's ok they prolly ironed out any tweaks and saw what the others were doing before final release. I'll prolly be getting it at some point. Might as well as there's 2 ports on that USB 3.0 card.

If I could chuck mine for a reasonable price I would and just go get the BlacX 5G. Hint. Hint.

I sold my regular USB 2.0 to my cousin, and kept the dual 2.0/E-sata Thermal Dock. It's just as fast when using e-sata and a 3GB HDD.

I'll get another one also as they have good deals in their B-Stock page on Thermaltake.

Best Regards,

Mario

[MilesAhead]

I like the fans in the SIIG. When I pull the drive out of the BlacX 2.0 dock connected to the WD player, it almost burns my fingers. I have to leave it sit for a few minutes. The SIIG I can just pull the thing out right away. It's only warm, not hot. When you say "needed" you're probably right it's not needed, but less heat is usually better(I know I'm a hypocrite because I'm too lazy to change the stock fans in my PCs. I just hate opening up boxes if I don't have to. Plus it's only an issue when I'm doing a video encode on the quad. The dual is totally silent.) The designers could have put some quieter LEDs on the SIIGs though. They must be trying to market them to high school geeks. Make it look like neon or something. It takes awhile to ignore the bright purple LED stuff.

[dr_ml422]

Lol...

Those lights are bright as heck I must admit, and they look blue to me, though I have no nocturnal color vision and of course pushing 46 soon, my eyes aren't the same iykwim. I should be wearing my reading glasses more often.

I'm chilling with this SIIG for now, though just out of curiousity will prolly get that BlacX Dock see how it is all around.

[MilesAhead]

Those lights are bright as heck I must admit, and they look blue to me, though I have no nocturnal color vision and of course pushing 46 soon, my eyes aren't the same iykwim. I should be wearing my reading glasses more often.

I'm chilling with this SIIG for now, though just out of curiousity will prolly get that BlacX Dock see how it is all around.

When you hot swap drives in BlacX dock, have you ever run chkdsk later to see if it notices anything? If the disk buffer is flushed you may be just pulling the drive assuming BlacX is doing something. But I bet when you push the eject button it just flips a lever to lift the drive off the connector. I doubt it does anything differently afa USB driver is concerned. But I could be wrong. You've used them longer than I have so I'm curious.

[dr_ml422]

When Thermal says it's hot swapable they mean you can just take the drive out of the BlacX dock and insert another w/out any issues pertaining to files/folders etc... getting screwed up. So you still have to eject the dock out as that's how it's featured w/the BlacX. I haven't run a Chkdsk at all on any of the drives I've used w/the BlacX and I've been burning and swapping a lot lately, and since I got it. Anyone including myself has nothing but praise for the video work done. In this aspect and from a build point of view, I have to give the BlacX the edge. Other than that I guess we'll be getting what we get w/what we have afa HDDs and the specific files that are being transfered at a given speed.

The SIIG notes warn against not using USB Safely Remove and no hot swapping.

I have a feeling we'll both be taking a whack at this Blacx 5G from Thermal. It would complement my 2nd open USB 3.0 port and I can use the BlacX E-sata/USB Dock on either of my both builds. I have the 3.0 card on my new build which I call the Big Monster.

Matter of fact I just finished burning around 150 DVD+R Verbs hot swapping and w/no issues. Have to re-up on Blanks now.

[MilesAhead]

Guess the only way to know for sure is take one apart. USB Keys they tell you to stop them first also. But I bet 98% of the people using them, once the copy is done, they just pull them out. I don't see how it could make any difference as long as you flush the buffers even if write caching is enabled. I think the bit about stopping the drive in the instructions is just cya copy provided by the legal dept.

[MilesAhead]

Hmmmmm, I see some economy docks are coming out for USB 3.0. Wonder how sturdy?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817620014&cm_re=usb_3.0_dock-_-17-620-014-_-Product

[dr_ml422]

That's business for you!

Hmmmmm, I see some economy docks are coming out for USB 3.0. Wonder how sturdy?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-014-_-Product

looks pretty good, and the specs are pretty straight forward. I'm getting more angry as new ones come out that are cheaper, and feature hot swapability straight off the back. The Startech one is interesting as it's $57.00, almost like the SIIG. Thermal's is prolly the most sturdy and it's http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153133 Free Shipping! Also the INEO just supports Sata I, II. Thermal supports Sata I,II,III and SSD upto 2TBs. I say for the money Thermal's the better buy if planning SSD in future which we all are prolly. For now that INEO might do. Funny both are only 1 year parts and labor warranty. If black would be better. Silver ain't cutting it!

Ok, so Newegg's price is the lowest, but their Warranty is also lowest. Here you get 3 yrs. Parts and labor>http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...=WARRANTY#tabs

So it's more though an extra 2 years on protection. Gotta admit just to play around that INEO might just not be a bad buy after all.

Here's reviews from Amazon at same price and free shipping! http://www.amazon.com/I-NA317U-Plus-...owViewpoints=1 Might just be more than Ok to buy after these reviews. Never had a issue w/Amazon either.

[MilesAhead]

I pretty much have all I can use for a bit. Unless WD HDTV for USB starts supporting USB 3.0. I'm using a BlacX USB 2.0 dock with it now. I'd like to see them get USB 3.0 support and better subtitle support esp. PGS subs. As it is now I have to convert DTS to AC3, and either use an .srt sub file or burn the subs in. It's not too bad since BDRB is so fast, but it would be nicer to just copy stuff on the HD and play without messing around.

[dr_ml422]

I pretty much have all I can use for a bit. Unless WD HDTV for USB starts supporting USB 3.0. I'm using a BlacX USB 2.0 dock with it now. I'd like to see them get USB 3.0 support and better subtitle support esp. PGS subs. As it is now I have to convert DTS to AC3, and either use an .srt sub file or burn the subs in. It's not too bad since BDRB is so fast, but it would be nicer to just copy stuff on the HD and play without messing around.

I hear you. I only have my E-Sata /USB 2.0 Thermal Dock and SIIG 3.0, and even though it's not much a big deal unplugging the E-Sata and connecting it to my other build when needed, it's nicer to have one there already.

If for the heck of it I pull the trigger on a BlacX 5G I'll post back.

I could never understand why some manufacturers leave out certain common features w/their products. The USB 3.0 support is understandable as it's kinda new, though the audio and subtitle support isn't.

[MilesAhead]

What frosts everyone who owns the first generation WD player is they stopped doing firmware updates. Their idea of an "update" is buy generation 2 player. Pretty crappy attitude. On the plus side I've heard from some users who have both Gen1 and Gen2 players that Gen1, which I have, does better HD upscaling. At least I feel like I didn't buy it for nothing. I have to admit the video does look good. Just wish the subtitle and audio support was better. The Gen2 can do automatic down mixing of DTS to stereo. I just use the Sony TV speakers. Has pretty good fake surround sound. For the area I watch in there's really no need for column speakers. Even with the TV speakers the volume is usually only on 4 green ticks or lower.

[dr_ml422]

Miles WD did the same thing w/their support for the WD check disc proggie they had on their site. Seems they just have something for a while then decide to leave it alone. It was replaced by a simple version of True Image and I don't know if they still have that available either for free.

Anyway I have 1 question. Did you ever turn off the enable write caching on any of the HDDs in the USB 2.0 or 3.0 docking stations? If so was there a decrease or increase in performance? The Windows Seven Forum Tip section for Performance suggest turning it off on external USB drives etc... to eliminate the Safely Remove Feature from being used. It's funny that both the Enable Write Caching and Quick Off settings warn against possible data loss due to a power failure. That I don't get.

Right now I'm copying about 232 GBs of Video work from my E-sata to my USB 3.0 Dock and the estimated time for completion is 3 hours. I started about 40 mins. ago and have write caching turned off on both drives. Speed is at 21.8 MB per second. I have no idea if that's good or not. These are full length flics about 4480 MBs each. The data written and copied is what gives different rates on the speed.

Let me know what you keep your HDDs set to in the docks and why. Thnx.

[MilesAhead]

I tried the device manager policy settings both ways and I didn't really see a difference.
21.x MB/sec seems to be about the speed I was getting for USB 2.0. Although the speed shown in Windows Explorer copy tends to be a bit inflated. Copying multi GB files between my USB 3.0 drives it normally shows over 100 MB/sec. I'm using WD caviar black all with sustained read speeds of 120 MB/sec or higher if you bench 'em with Crystal Disk Mark.

21.x MB/sec seems way too slow for large files. A jumble of tiny files I can see the speed dropping way down. But with single big file copy you should be over 100 MB/sec with USB 3.0 unless you have a really slow drive on either side.