USB 3.0 PCIe Card Recommendations?

[heyjordan]

It looks like the Caldigit ML drivers might be live on their site here: http://www.caldigit.com/KB/index.asp?KBID=108

[Melbourne Park]

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.

[xav8tor]

+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]

Highpoint claims their old driver runs 10.8, but it didn't for me.

[xav8tor]

Originally Posted by xgman

Highpoint claims their old driver runs 10.8, but it didn't for me.

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.

[Outrider]

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]

Originally Posted by xav8tor

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.

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 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 www.hptmac.com site for the RocketU Dual controller supports OS X 10.8

http://www.hptmac.com/productfiles/b...ual_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

----------

Originally Posted by Outrider

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.

Try the caldigit drivers posted above.

[arobasefr]

Updates for Rocket-Highpoint MAC software :

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

[xav8tor]

Originally Posted by arobasefr

Updates for Rocket-Highpoint MAC software :

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

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?

[CIA]

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.

[handheldgames]

The latest version of multibeast at http://www.tonymacx86.com installs a ML friendly version USB 3.0 driver. The only exception I've found is that the drives are disconnected during sleep.

[Raytrace]

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.

[xav8tor]

Originally Posted by handheldgames

The only exception I've found is that the drives are disconnected during sleep.

Same thing happens on the Caldigit driver, but I bet they're working on it. I can work around that for now in exchange for the speed.

[TomTomTuning]

Originally Posted by handheldgames

The latest version of multibeast at http://www.tonymacx86.com installs a ML friendly version USB 3.0 driver. The only exception I've found is that the drives are disconnected during sleep.

I'll have to try this because I'm having one heck of a time getting my generic NEC card to work. I started a thread with my issues: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1481900

[designs216]

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.

[ActionableMango]

Originally Posted by designs216

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.

There are several people happy with the solutions nailed down toward the end of this thread. However, it does require ML 10.8.2.