SYBA SD-SATA2-4IR PCI SATA II (3.0Gb/s) RAID Controller Card

Pros: Worked fine for over 3 years in multiple builds (on a VIA C7-D machine and a G41 LGA775 C2D server) on machines that have a 95% uptime as file servers. Worked or is currently working over most Debian-based distros of Linux: personally tested on Ubuntu 9.04 server i386, Debian Lenny i386 and Squeeze i386 and AMD_64, and Linux Mint 13 AMD_64. No problems. I never stress tested the card per se, but it seems to keep up with the chipset on file transfers drive to drive. No weirdness there.

Cons: I can't speak for the RAID features. I've never tried them. Ironically, not a RAID fan despite card ownership. I just needed more ports.

Other Thoughts: I bought this card as an addon to a cheap VIA motherboard I was using as a "power efficient" file server that only had 2 SATA I ports. As time passed by, I used this card again in a g41 e7300 C2D file server that was 2 SATA II ports shy of what I needed for my 6 HDDs. It worked on multiple linux builds and different mobo chipsets. Sadly, I'll be retiring this card to my parts bin with my next file server upgrade. But it has served me well.

Pros: Good for NAS box with FreeNAS

Cons: Did not allow selection 5.8TB when attempting RAID 0. Had to settle for concatenation mode. until the WD Red drives are in stock and in price range again

Other Thoughts: Using with FreeNAS 8.3

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

Please contact our technical support team for a chat. We love to learn more about our card working with a varity of OS. In your case, we would love to find out how our card can support the FreeNAS 8.1.

Our technical support team is available to help 9am-5pm M-F. Feel free to contact us during those business hours at support@sybausa.com

SYBA offers an on-line RMA form, the user can easily fill out the form and submit it for a quick RMA return and exchange. It is SYBA's policy to answer all customer inquiries within 24 hours (M-F)

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

Regards, SYBA CST 12062012

Pros: In a XP, or Vista system it works GREAT! Take same card to a Win7 system and you can't get a driver to run to save your life. Others on the internet seem to have the same troubles.

Cons: In my personal experience it is totally incompatible with Win7 64 bit. Have spent close to 5 hours trying every conceivable way of installing a driver and now very upset that I lost the day to this big hiccup!!

Other Thoughts: Good for an older rig that you want to make into a mass storage box. But Win7 doesn't like this thing!!

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

We are sorry that you were unable install this card properly. This card is indeed compatible with Windows 7. We highly suggest you visit our website, or contact us for updated drivers for this particular card. We are certain you will be satisfied once you get the appropriate driver installed.

Thank you for purchasing one of our RAID cards.

We value all positive and negative feedback. Our business depends on your satisfaction.

please feel free to contact us @ sybausa.com if you require further assistance.

Regards, SYBA CST 08272012

Pros: It works as intended as simple sata port

Cons: It suddenly without warning ceased ... and wouldnt let the machine even boot back up.... thank Bob it didnt take the data on the drives it controlled.

Other Thoughts: I have four more in use..... are they soon to follow?

Manufacturer Response:

Dear customer,

Rest assure, the 4 more in use will last a life time. It is our ultima goal to make lasting controller cards. This PCI SATA controller card has a very good tracking record. It should provide years of reliable service.

Our cards come with standard 3 year warranty from the date of purchase. Please contact us for instructions on how to get your card replaced through us.

We are more than willing to provide all of our customers with prompt exchanges whenever a product becomes defective.

SYBA offers an on-line RMA form, the user can easily fill out the form and submit it for a quick RMA return and exchange. It is SYBA's policy to answer all customer inquiries within 24 hours (M-F)

Regards, SYBA CST 07272012

Pros: Considering the cons there are no pros

Cons: I have 4 of these cards (one still in the box) and the 3 I have been using all have silent data corruption. The corruption was not evident until I started using SnapRaid and then FlexRAID. These programs are SOFTRAID and use Block Murmur3 and file parity protection to make an exact copy of the data. EVERY single time I did a parity update followed by a parity verification it failed with errors. After much trial and error (including an updated MB BIOS & OS switch) I switched to the onboard sata ports and repeated the process without error.

Other Thoughts: The only rational conclusion is the cards are the culprit.

All that being said, I never noticed a problem (For 3 years) until I used the two programs above that are able to detect such errors.

Pros: Adds an additional 4 SATA ports to your system. If you just need more SATA ports this card is an awesome choice.

Cons: As a RAID5 controller however, configuration is a nightmare and the limited documantation that comes with the card is poor at best, but is mostly worthless.

The drivers on the included CD are so far out of date that the only way we could get it functioning was to download new drivers from the mfg. website.

Ended up using it as a JBOD controller and went with a motherboard that had a RAID controller integrated. (Also not a great option but at least it works.)

Other Thoughts: If you're going to build a system with a RAID5 as part of the build, then do some additional homework on your motherboard. Find one that is compatible with a Promise RAID controller.

Yes, you'll spend more money, but if you're building a RAID system then data is valuable and you want to protect it right?

Do yourself a favor and don't cut the corners we did. Use a Promise controller and a Promise RAID Array. They are simple to configure and bulletproof to own. Our choice has been nothing but problems.

Pros: it just plain works. No problems at all. I did not have flash the firmware or anything to get it to work on my atom 330 board.

Cons: I don't use raid, so software raid is not a problem with me.

Other Thoughts: I purchased from the online rain forest store for 38 bux w/ free shipping. 12 less than newegg.

Pros: Pros
.. Nice Device Info panels in driver driver showing device information, transfer modes, link speeds and Flash BIOS data.

Cons: .. smartctl; misreports data on channel, even though Windows and JavaRAID report the two attached drives correctly.
.. smartctl: unable to access SMART error/self test logs
.. JavaRAID utility reports out no useful configuration data and no copy/paste
.. no SATA cable, no low-profile bracket in package

Other Thoughts: As with the SD-SATA150R, this Syba board had some anomalous behavior, either due to defective Windows drivers or non-standard SATA channel signaling. Most crippling was its inability to report out on more than one attached HDD. When two HDDs were attached, it reported the same drive data for both HDDS (in this case, the HDD on Channel 2 when Channel 1 was being queried). even though it has four ports, it appears that it can only report out correct SMART data for one of them using smartmontools smartctl.

My standard for Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) that connect SATA drives to IDE/PATA motherboards is that they conform to ATA/SATA SMART signaling. Motherbards with SATA ports work with smartmontools to report out all the drive's SMART data, including its error and self-test logs. With smartmontools continuously monitoring the HDDs, reporting abnormal conditions, incipient drive failures can be identified before perhaps critical data has been lost. With terabyte drives now costing le

Pros: Works as advertised

Cons: Yes its fakeRaid, but so is everything under $300

Other Thoughts: I have been using this card for about two months with FreeNas Despite its not officially supported by FreeNAS or FreeBSD (FreeNAS’s underling OS) I have 4 WD 2TB HDDs set up in a ZRAID-5 (see ZFS for details)

Pros: Convenient to have 4 SATA II ports on a PCI only machine. Works with FreeNAS out of box. No issues running this in older pre-SATA II Dell Dimensions and Optiplex boxes. Very Inexpensive. Easy to set up.

Cons: Due to PCI bus limitations, you will not see full SATA II speeds, especially if you are using all 4 ports and definitely not in a RAID config. As a hosted adapter, SI3124 uses CPU to perform high level functions. Depending on the OS and CPU, you can see high loads. If you are upgrading an older non-SATA box, you should expect it.

Other Thoughts: No surprises and does what it says it will do. Just use foresight when thinking about overall performance on older boxes.