SYBA Low Profile PCI-Express 1394B/A Firewire Card Model SD-PEX30009

Pros: Works flawlessly with the Win 7-64 supplied driver. Windows lists it as a, "Texas Instruments 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller."

Gracefully fits into the PCI-Express x1 slot on the Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5, without contacting the north bridge heat sink. There is approximately 1-2 mm clearance between the SYBA and the heat sink.

Cons: The half height case bracket is installed and has to be swapped out with the supplied standard height bracket.

Not using it, but keep in mind that the internal Firewire header is shared with the output on the back plane. Not sure which connector, but other people who need the internal connection have observed undesired behavior. If the plan is to use the internal and external connection simultaneously, please closely look at this.

Other Thoughts: I tried the Unibrain universal driver, but the My Book drive lost the ability to show HFS+ partitions using the TransMac software. Sometimes I have to move files from my MacBook Pro to Windows. Being unable to read HFS+ through Windows is a negative on the Unibrain implementation. After testing Unibrain, I removed it and Windows brought back its internal Texas Instruments driver. Works flawlessly again.

Pros: Using with Mac OS X 10.8.2 - no problem at all. No drivers needed. Didn't test with Windows, but who cares :-)

Cons: No

Pros: I have been using one of these with my Flex Radio 5000.
The TI chipset seems to be completly compatible with PowerSDR ver 2.5.3 running at 192k sampling rate. I have tried other card that would not perform nearly as well or at all.

Cons: Internal firewire 400 header is shared with an external port.
This did not matter to me since I only needed the external port.

Other Thoughts: This card is a real performer. I have heard not to use the supplied drivers and let windows install the driver.
Computer is self-built:
ASUS P5Q3 LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 Yorkfield 3.0GHz
G.SKILL 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-4GBNQ
XFX HD-465X-ZDF2 Radeon HD 4650 1GB 128-bit DDR2
SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC256B/WW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Rosewill Green Series RG430-S12 430W
Syba Low Profile PCI-Express 1394b/1394a SD-PEX30009
Rosewill PCIe Serial Card 4 Ports Model RC-305E SYBA PCI-Express 1-Port Parallel/Printer Card with Low Profile Bracket - RoHS Model SD-PEX10005
Acer X213HBbd Black 21.5" 5ms Widescreen LCD

Pros: Works great in my X79 MSI motherboard... using Windows 7 64-bit.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I needed a card with a header because my motherboard did not come with a 1394 header. So this worked out great... I can now plug my cable in the front of my computer when needed.

Pros: Has an internal header but...

Cons: I bought this card to hook the internal header to my case port. It turns out the having the internal header plugged in prevents the external ports from working. You can't use both. Besides that I have had a few freezes since installing it.

Other Thoughts: Not recommended.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

This card features an internal 1394A SHARED port. As you have come to find out, you can only use the external port or internal header at a time. We suggest you contact us next time you are considering purchasing one of our cards. Our friendly Support team can guide you and advise you on which product is right for you.


Thank you for purchasing one of our products, and for leaving us your feedback. We value all positive and negative feedback.

Feel free to contact us anytime @ support@sybausa.com

Regards, SYBA CST 09062012

Pros: Cheap, 3 external ports, both low-profile and standard backplates included. Works in FreeBSD, Linux, and Windows. When I installed these cards in servers running FreeBSD 9.0, SuSE Linux 10.3, or Windows Storage Server 2008, I could successfully make a connection to a variety of Dell and Apple laptops running Ubuntu 11.04, PC-BSD 9.0, or OSX.

Cons: While one of these cards could talk to a laptop over firewire, it could not talk to another card of the same model. I tried running FreeBSD, Linux, and Windows on the servers but I was never able to see the other card on the firewire bus at all. I tried multiple brands of cable, different pairings of three cards, and each port on each card to no avail. I ended up returning these cards and buying some based on the LSI 643e chipset instead. Those cards worked on the first try.

Other Thoughts: The newegg listing says this is a Syba product, but the packaging was labeled "Best Connectivity." There was no reference to Syba anywhere on the packaging or in the documentation.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

It sounds like the second card might have been defective since it was not being detected. If this was the case, we would have gladly replaced the card for you free of charge.

Best Connectivity is a Syba manufactured brand aimed at producing cards with specific industry needs. This means that this card is backed by Syba's 3 year manufacture warranty.


Thank you for purchasing one of our products, and for leaving us your feedback. We value all positive and negative feedback.

Feel free to contact us anytime @ support@sybausa.com

Regards, SYBA CST 09062012

Pros: Used with Mac Pro Hackintosh, worked OOB w/ no extra kexts. Haven't tried with Windows partition yet. Very good fit with firewire 800 cables

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Was invaluable in helping to salvage data from old macbook pro. Booted to target disk mode on MBP and just copied my old files

Pros: Mac compatible. Windows 7 compatible. It works great. Has worked through a number of OSX upgrades with no problems at all, and no need to reload driver. Excellent throughput. Never any crashes or other driver problems as far as I can tell, so it has been a solid performer.

Cons: Have to load the provided drivers - I don't really have a problem with that, though.

Other Thoughts: Get this one - it just works.

Pros: The onboard FireWire ports blew out on my Mac Pro and it would have required a motherboard replacement to fix through Apple, but this card saved the day for a lot less money!

Works right out of the box with it's onboard EFI and therefore will do anything a built-in port would do.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Brilliant and cheap.

Pros: It is a relatively cheap and stable card on a TI chipset. Works with Behringer FCA202 audio without a glitch.

Cons: After upgrading my external firewire audio to Focusrite Saffire Pro 14 I discovered that Syba does not recognize the new audio even with a legacy 1394 driver. Saffire works great on my Toshiba laptop which also has a TI 1394 chipset.

This is just a heads up for those who are looking for a FW port for Saffire. This card won`t work in Win 7/64. I ordered a SIIG NN-E20012-S2 instead, we`ll see.