StarTech PCI Express SATA IDE Combo Controller Adapter Card Model PEXSAT2IDE2 - OEM

Pros: Works as expected. Great for supporting perfectly-fine IDE drives.

Cons: PATA connector placement is less than ideal, but workable if you are willing to mod the cables a bit.

Other Thoughts: If you have the right cables in your stash, you can use both connectors without blocking the adjacent slot. Basically, you have to remove the strain relief clamp from the top of the connector and straighten the cable. This requires cables where the ribbon cable is routed opposite from what you would ideally want (before the strain relief is removed). Some cables work and some don't. If you have been doing this for a while, you probably have what you need discarded in a box somewhere.

Pros: Easy to use, description is accurate the card is a lot cheaper than buying new drives, simple setup once you find how to install drivers

Cons: runs at the IDE speed not SATA speed but that was expected, needs to come with directions, other than that no cons

Other Thoughts: you need to copy and paste the driver disk onto a flash drive if you plan on installing windows on a hard drive using the adapter card. i spend time with Startech's tech support trying to load windows 7 on an IDE HDD.
i usually don't like to buy star tech items, but this is definitely worth it

Pros: None

Cons: It took me almost 3 months to determine that this card was disfunctional. And cost me a buch of bucks as a result.

Pros: I had upgraded my MATX motherboard to a new model and I had discovered that the IDE interface connector is longer included. I have a need for two (2) IDE connectors for accessing data from old hard drives and also testing old hard drives as part of my business. I found this StarTech SATA-IDE card worked exactly as I had wanted. I had no problems installing two (2) separate IDE cables to the StarTech card because I had installed the cables BEFORE plugging the card into the motherboard. After installation, I am now able to connect two (2) old IDE hard-drives at the same time without worry of the Master/Slave jumper setting on each drive - Great! I found the data transfer rate to be very good - just as fast as my old motherboard IDE controller.

Cons: NO Cons - this card was easy to install, and the included driver CD works great for Windows XP. I have not tested for Windows-7.

Other Thoughts: If you are going to connect IDE cables to this Controller card, I would recommend that the cables be installed while the Controller card is OUT of the computer. It would be somewhat difficult to try and install IDE cable(s) to this Controller card while it is inside the computer tower. I had no problems with the IDE cable routing even in a Micro-ATX computer case and MATX motherboard.

Pros: I was building a system with an Intel DP55WB motherboard, with no legacy EIDE slots, and had second thoughts, wanted to salvage a couple of hard drives and a DVD-RW.

Doesn't slow the boot much. A good combination of additional capabilities.

Cons: As the other review notes, the placement of the EIDE ports is less than ideal. In my system, they effectively block use of the other PCI-E x1 slot.

The driver provided by the manufacturer is also outdated, and doesn't work well with Win7. I had to get the chipset maker's driver from JMicron, but figured that out, only after a lot of aggravation.

Other Thoughts: I bought the card, in order to ease the transition, after building a new PC on a motherboard without legacy EIDE ports. I wanted to just add the drives from the old computer, and not copy over voluminous data on them.

I didn't boot to a drive connected to the card or use the card's RAID capability. I haven't used its external E-SATA port either.

I had a lot of trouble getting the card to recognize both of my harddrives, set up as master and slave. I struggled with setting the pins on the drives, but eventually gave up, and discarded on harddrive, leaving one harddrive and one DVD-burner drive, each on its own EIDE controller. This may be more a criticism of my drives, or my understanding of master and slave pins -- tg SATA doesn't do that nonsense!

Pros: The IDE ports work as advertised. Very fast recognizing the attached IDE drives on boot.

Cons: The IDE connectors on this card are on the card face, one connector behind the other. Therefore, one IDE cable must run over the top of the other IDE cable/connector. If the card is installed in a slot above another card, the IDE cables cause the cards to bow under the pressure of the IDE cables/connectors. Unless you can install this card in the very bottom I/O slot on your MB this card may not work for you.

Other Thoughts: StarTech support had no suggestions nor was willing to even document the issue for a possible fix on the next revision.