SYBA SD-SATA2-2E2I PCI SATA II (3.0Gb/s) Controller Card

Pros: Worked for over four years. It only recently died. Used only one internal port and used the external a few times. Windows XP system.

Cons: It didn't last forever...but got quite a bit of use from it. Can't complain.

Pros: Smooth install. Works fine so far.

Cons: I just want to comment that I read another user used this on his Thermaltake BlackX Duet because it had the Multiplier and could see both drives in the unit. If you are looking for that capability, don't look at this board. It does what it says it does and it does NOT say it has multiplier feature. The one I received will not show both drives in my Duet.

Pros: Have used these cards to upgrade older SCSI workstations to SATA. They are reliable and easy to use. To make the process easier partition and format the new drives before installation and have SATA drivers available.

Cons: None, once I understood that the SCSI boot had to be disabled in the BIOS.

Pros: Running Ubuntu 10.10 (amd64) on an Intel Atom 525 board. The Intel board only has a PCI slot and this card fits the bill. It's rock solid and works well with my Rosewill 5 bay SATA enclosure. After flashing the card to SATALink in order to use JBOD, this card works perfectly! I'm getting ~90 Mb/sec on Western Digital Green drives.

Cons: Flashing the card to SATALink was a pain:

1) Create a bootable DOS flash drive.
2) Download updated BIOS flash program and bin file from here:
http://www.siliconimage.com/products/product.aspx?pid=27
3) Boot system into DOS and flash via UPDFLASH.EXE B6600.BIN command.

Other Thoughts: I found many discussions re: the SiL3124 chipset on the Ubuntu forums -- people having many issue and having to compile their own kernels, etc. I found most related to older Ubuntu builds (9.04, etc). Ubuntu 10.10 has the drivers for the SiL3124 and this card just 'worked' for me.

Pros: Works A-OK with FreeBSD
Drives appeared as bootable in my BIOS (though I didn't actually try to boot them)

Cons: Nothing I ran into

Pros: Speeds, Port Multiplier

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Only used external ports. Bought to use with a Thermaltake Black X Duet. Got it to see both drives in the dock at the same time.

Pros: It works in standard PCI slot of older motherboard.

Cons: Transfer speed limited to SATA 1 (1.5Gb/s). Not sure what requirements allow for SATA II operations and transfer speeds. Only basic instructions are provided, in small print, on a ~3"x 5" piece of paper and deal primarily with configuring the card's BIOS for RAID. Non-RAID use for external drives not mentioned. Windowx XP did not detect this card on reboot to prompt for driver install. SATALink did not work (yellow ! in Device Manager) but SATARaid driver installed and works correctly.

Other Thoughts: What is shown on the site is what I order but not what I received. Instead of a SYBA branded product, the SATA II NCQ Host controller card I received is branded "Best Connections. The CD had drivers but not the SATA application. Sadly, the other SYBA PCI to eSATA cards that I ordered to run on a Windows 98SE PC are also not SYBA branded. At this point, I'm not sure I received what I ordered or a "alternate" equivalent for what I ordered. So, long as it works, I'm not going to bother with return process but I'm a bit let down by this seeming failure to receive exactly what I paid for. Based on the device performance at only SATA 1 speed, I'd say this is over-priced.

Pros: NONE the parts are not all there

Cons: Did not come with all the parts.

Other Thoughts: Expect to buy your own cables because it shows a picture of 2 cables and mentions them but does not come with both eSATA cables

Pros: When it works, it works.

Cons: Like other reviewers have said, the bracket doesn't fit. I had to remove the bracket from the card to get it in the slot. That leaves the card poorly secured in the slot.

I also get ROM Checksum Errors with the card. I don't know if it's just this card or that's how it is in general.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for purchasing our products. The bracket on this card is a standard full height PCI bracket which fits all standard case. We try to provide the most reliable products to our customer and all our products come with at least 3 years warranty. Please don't hesitate to contact us at support-us@syba.com for replacement or if you have any question.

Regards,
Syba Customer Service 0305

Pros: .

Cons: .

Other Thoughts: Just to be clear, this is a 32-bit PCI card NOT PCI-X.

Despite the previous comment, their is no such thing as a 32-bit PCI-x card.

Yes, 32-bit PCI cards are certainly compatible with a PCI-X slot. However that does not effect it's bus width or bandwith.

The PCI-X standard is 64-bits which you obviously can't achieve using a 32-bit card.


On a side note- throwing a 32-bit card into a PCI-X slot will slow down the bus speed of your PCI-X slot
It will also slow down all other slots sharing that bus.

So in most cases you'll slow down the bus speed of all your PCI-X slots to that of a standard PCI slot.