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USB 3.0 PCIe Card Recommendations?

M

Melbourne Park

macrumors 6502a
Mar 5, 2012
657
138
Brighton_Melbourne_Victoria_Australia
Not sure how it will work, but ...

Not sure how it will work, but ... the "Astrotek PCI Express SATA III 2 Port Low Profile Card " costs in expensive Australia:

$26.00

Description is as follows:


PCI Express x1 interface, 2x SATA 6 Gb/s port, ASMedia ASM1061 chipset, supports SATA 1.5Gb/s, 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s HDDs up to 2TB each. Supports IDE programming interface register for the SATA controller, AHCI programming interface registers, error reporting, recovery & correction, port multiplier FIS based switching or command based switching. Native Command Queue(NCQ), plug & hot swap, low profile bracket included. Supports XP/Vistra/Win7/Win2000/Win2008 32&64Bit and MAC OS X 10.6 or above, Linux Kernel 2.6.19 or above.

Note that it says its Mac 10.6 compatible. Not bad for a $26 card.
 
X

xav8tor

macrumors 6502a
Mar 30, 2011
533
36
+1 for Caldigit. Just installed their dual port card with the beta driver. Works perfectly for me OOB. I had the similar High Point dual port, but they still don't have a driver for it. Their quad works though. The dual is going back RMA. Their support was not all that great answering questions. Caldigit was Apple-like. Straight up answers and FAST response. By the way, despite the warning, their driver did also enable the High Point, but I am returning it anyway due to the support concerns, and the fact that some reports say it messes up sleep on the Pro. 250+ mbps read/write on a docked Vertex 4, about half that on the Vertex 2 with a little faster read. Great upgrade for the Pro IMHO.
 
xgman

xgman

macrumors 603
Aug 6, 2007
5,672
1,378
Highpoint claims their old driver runs 10.8, but it didn't for me.
 
X

xav8tor

macrumors 6502a
Mar 30, 2011
533
36
xgman said:
Highpoint claims their old driver runs 10.8, but it didn't for me.
Click to expand...

High Point doesn't have USA based or live phone support at all. You have to call the US sales office, get past the switchboard, and hope you get to the right person who has a clue about what is up with new drivers. I tried registering for support and couldn't even successfully do that. I finally carpet bombed them with calls and emails. Their only answer was that some of their products are 10.8 compatible and some are not.

The Lion driver they released in May does NOT support the dual USB 3 RocketU at all. Period. (Yet, if ever) Neither does the one for the quad trying to make the two port card work. The one person I spoke with said he expected a 1022AM driver soon after official ML release but made no promises.

The Caldigit driver does enable the High Point dual port card, but I was so disappointed in High Point's lack of support and "whatever" attitude, that I don't mind one bit paying twenty bucks more for the Caldigit card and a restocking fee to RMA the High Point. Good riddance to them at High Point. The Caldigit fired right up after a two minute install and has worked with everything I have plugged into it so far.
 
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O

Outrider

macrumors newbie
Oct 26, 2007
8
0
Newmarket ON
laCie no longer supported

After a week since posting a support query, LaCie got back to me to advise that their card(s) PCIe and ExpressCard don't work with Mountain Lion (the reason for my request), won't work with Mountain Lion and that they have no intention of fixing this.

Idiots. Never spend money on LaCie. They will let you down.
 
xgman

xgman

macrumors 603
Aug 6, 2007
5,672
1,378
xav8tor said:
High Point doesn't have USA based or live phone support at all. You have to call the US sales office, get past the switchboard, and hope you get to the right person who has a clue about what is up with new drivers. I tried registering for support and couldn't even successfully do that. I finally carpet bombed them with calls and emails. Their only answer was that some of their products are 10.8 compatible and some are not.

The Lion driver they released in May does NOT support the dual USB 3 RocketU at all. Period. (Yet, if ever) Neither does the one for the quad trying to make the two port card work. The one person I spoke with said he expected a 1022AM driver soon after official ML release but made no promises.

The Caldigit driver does enable the High Point dual port card, but I was so disappointed in High Point's lack of support and "whatever" attitude, that I don't mind one bit paying twenty bucks more for the Caldigit card and a restocking fee to RMA the High Point. Good riddance to them at High Point. The Caldigit fired right up after a two minute install and has worked with everything I have plugged into it so far.
Click to expand...

I have caldigit drivers installed on both my mac pros now so I don't want to remove them to test the highpoint card again, but here is the response from Highpoint (I did tell them that the drivers didn't work for me)

Status: Active -> Awaiting Customer Action

we verified yesterday in our lab that our RocketU controller can support 10.8 with the current drivers from our http://www.hptmac.com site.

1) Is the controller detected and is the driver installed? Get us a screen capture from About this Mac > More Info > System Report > PCI Cards

2) Are you able to log into the web GUI for the RocketU controller?

3) What device(s) have you connected to the RocketU controller?

Regards

HighPoint Support Team

can you confirm that you had the RocketU controller was working with no issues in OS X 10.7?

We confirmed that the current software package from the http://www.hptmac.com site for the RocketU Dual controller supports OS X 10.8

http://www.hptmac.com/productfiles/bios_driver/RocketU_Dual_USB3.0_for...

Regards

HighPoint Support Team

EDIT: THEY FOUND A PROBLEM:

we've discovered some issues with our RocketU Dual controller in 10.8, we are in the process of fixing the bugs found.

We will keep you posted on the fix.

Regards

HighPoint Support Team

----------
Outrider said:
After a week since posting a support query, LaCie got back to me to advise that their card(s) PCIe and ExpressCard don't work with Mountain Lion (the reason for my request), won't work with Mountain Lion and that they have no intention of fixing this.

Idiots. Never spend money on LaCie. They will let you down.
Click to expand...

Try the caldigit drivers posted above.
 
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X

xav8tor

macrumors 6502a
Mar 30, 2011
533
36
arobasefr said:
Updates for Rocket-Highpoint MAC software :

http://www.hptmac.com/productfiles/bios_driver/

:)
Click to expand...

This is a directory, not a support page. There is still no driver for the 1022 dual USB 3.0 card. I would avoid this vendor (HighPoint). Their support is lousy. Yes, there was at least one quirk with the analogous Caldigit card, but they are working on driver updates and you can actually get them on the phone. Mine works fine and I hear their driver will make the HighPoint card work too, but I still don't trust them. Three months and HighPoint still can't write a driver for the dual USB 3 card?
 
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C

CIA

macrumors 6502a
Jun 17, 2003
657
460
Yea, if you have no plans to update your machine to 10.8 the highpoint card works fine. But if you are a normal human, and do plan on updating to 10.8, avoid Highpoint cards like the plague.
 
R

Raytrace

macrumors member
Apr 2, 2010
44
0
I got the sonnet card for my 3,1 as well as the sonnet CF/SD reader and it works flawlessly. I can't connect my D800 but as it's been said, I can live with that.
 
henryseiden

henryseiden

macrumors member
Aug 24, 2009
46
2
designs216 said:
Any update to this info? I'm thinking about getting one but the account here seems to indicate that noone has had any luck with ANY brand they've tried.
Click to expand...

Three problems, but only two seems to have directly to do with the PCIe Cards, themselves.
  1. Card wake up with USB 3.0
  2. Drivers. Seem most, if not all cards, need their own drivers
  3. Interference with BT antenna (mouse/trackpad, typically, disappearing from screen or getting 'wonky' operation) when USB 3.0 devices used.

Does anybody have experience with which card(s) work best when there is no more BT issue? I am in the process of fixing the BT by replacing the internal antenna with an EXTERNAL BT ANTENNA to the internal MB card that it is hoped will solve the poor performance of the internal one.

Tried a Sonnet Allegro USB card and had major issues with the device attaching to it (Card Reader) media not on line after the drivers were installed, and the interference issue was no help. Clearly the Apple antenna design is a big hurdle to overcome.
 
S

sgginc

macrumors member
Oct 5, 2006
33
0
Do any USB 3 cards support a USB 3 hub?

As far as I can ascertain none do.
Is this true?

Thanks ... Ken
 
pastrychef

pastrychef

macrumors 601
Sep 15, 2006
4,753
1,450
New York City, NY
henryseiden said:
Three problems, but only two seems to have directly to do with the PCIe Cards, themselves.
  1. Card wake up with USB 3.0
  2. Drivers. Seem most, if not all cards, need their own drivers
  3. Interference with BT antenna (mouse/trackpad, typically, disappearing from screen or getting 'wonky' operation) when USB 3.0 devices used.

Does anybody have experience with which card(s) work best when there is no more BT issue? I am in the process of fixing the BT by replacing the internal antenna with an EXTERNAL BT ANTENNA to the internal MB card that it is hoped will solve the poor performance of the internal one.

Tried a Sonnet Allegro USB card and had major issues with the device attaching to it (Card Reader) media not on line after the drivers were installed, and the interference issue was no help. Clearly the Apple antenna design is a big hurdle to overcome.
Click to expand...

Fresco Logic FL1009 based cards do not need drivers.

An easy way to fix bluetooth reception is to use a UBS bluetooth adaptor.

----------
sgginc said:
As far as I can ascertain none do.
Is this true?

Thanks ... Ken
Click to expand...

FL1009 based cards work with hubs.
 
S

sgginc

macrumors member
Oct 5, 2006
33
0
FL1009 based cards work with hubs.

Thanks.
I was about to give up finding one.

Ken
 
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