SYBA SD-PEX40044 PCI-Express 2.0 SATA III (6.0Gb/s) RAID Caddy Controller Card

Pros: Works as advertised. I'm currently using this to hold a boot drive for a Debian NAS. No special drivers were needed for the Debian installer to recognize the controller card, the card was completely transparent and the install went off without a hitch. Since I built this NAS a couple months ago it's been running 24/7, and I've had no problems with this controller card.

Cons: No cons

Other Thoughts: My motherboard has only four SATA ports and they're all filled with hard drives. If I can find a female-to-male SATA cable, I'm going to try and use this card to host another 3.5" drive mounted in my case.

There are also cables included that allow you to connect the controller to the activity LED of your case, which I thought was kind of neat.

Pros: Keep in mind, TRIM does not work on a RAID configuration, wo you may see slow writes. You should check a few things before you use this
1. Does my firmware perform some of the TRIM Functions
2. Does the drive manufacture have a tool to keep the drive clean of garbage build up
3. Are you running Win 7 vs XP

SSDs are different than Spinning Hard Drives in that when you delete a file, and the data is left on the drive it is just told it is gone, when you re-write to that space it has to be erased before you can write to that area of the flash memory. On a Hard Drive it just overwrites so there is no issue. The TRIM function is designed to have the drive erase the area when a file is deleted so that when you write to that area again it is ready to go. Since TRIM does not currently work on a RAID, you need to find a tool for the drive man, if available, or when you have come close to writing to most of the drive, use a utility to wipe the drive and start again. It all depends on the drives and their abilities when it cones to Raid.

Cons: TRIM does not support RAID

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

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

Feel free to contact us M-F 9AM-5PM at support@sybausa.com

Regards, SYBA CST 10162012

Pros: Fast and easy setup...
Installed on a Windows 2003 for a database, improved speed and access time tremendously.... Raid 1 - Two 128gb Samsung SSD's.

Cons: None

Pros: Convenient to have all 3 connectors and quiet with no fan.
Fast and good memory.

Cons: Overheats

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

We will pass this concern to our engineer. Maybe in the next version we will add a cooling fan to the card as you suggested.

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

Feel free to contact us M-F 9AM-5PM at support@sybausa.com

Regards, SYBA CST 10162012

Pros: Not DOA

Cons: Would not work in my system. Tried all available slots and all available combinations(ie on drive attached 2 drives attached no drive in each pci-e slot) had the same result reguardless. I locked up all USB devices ie keyboard and mouse and even tried a ps2 keyboard same result could not interact with the computer after posting with this card in the system.

Other Thoughts: I gave it the old college try but was unable to use my computer with this card installed. The card did post was not DOA but since it locked out all input devices this will be my first RMA. Maybe the manufacturer didn't check this on NVIDIA chipset mobos(just a possiblity don't know that to be a fact)

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

We are sorry that this product did not work for you. This unit does require driver installation. Did you install the driver and the card in a PCI-e x1 slot? If you did not, this might be the reason behind its behavior. We strongly suggest you contact us for further assistance.

Thank you for purchasing one of our products.

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 08292012

Pros: It functions, gets it 1 star for that
No issue with MB or windows 2 star for that

Cons: It does not deliver the full 5 GB on the pcie 2.0.

I am getting 400mbs read from a 525 mbs mushkin chronos. That is acceptable for this type of controller.

The write speed is a joke, only get 175-190 mbs rather than anything close to the 400mbs on read.
If the write speed was even close to the read, I would be satisfied. I have tried numerous drivers for MB and Marvell, and MB tweaks, to no avail. I tried the ssd in a sata 3 MB, the write speed was well over 400mbs. So it is definitely this controller.

I get better write speed in Sata 2 on my MB.

Other Thoughts: Still on the fence if I will take the time to return this, after return shipping not sure if it is worth the hassle.

I would not recommend this product to anyone.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear customer,

This is one of our best sellers. The performance should not be this low. Please feel free to contact us for additional suggestions on how to fine tune the system setup and motherboard BIOS for the best performance.

We are also working on fine tuneing the driver for various motherboards on the market. Performance will be greatly improved upon the release of the next driver. Please check our website from time to time for driver updates.

The write speed will detreriorate through the RAID process, as the write must be to two seperate drives at once.

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)

As you may know we are more than happy to provide our customers with a hassle free exchange when a product is defective.

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 12212012

Pros: Caddy is a nice idea, it's too bad Gigabyte's BIOS and the BIOS on this card don't play well together. Still looking for a Sata III controller with PCiEx4, 2 ports, doesn't have a BIOS that takes a near a minute to post and has decent performance. I'm sure I'm not alone :)

Cons: Not bootable with my Gigabyte x58-UD5 F13 with other RAID drives on ICH10R. Would boot if the only drive in the system. Performance with a Mushkin Chronos Dlx 240Gb SSD 3.3.2 FW was 300MB/s Write/430MB/s Read. Tried Marvel 91xx driver 1.2.0.1019 during install with other drives and still got Windows can not be installed to this drive, dreaded 0x8030024 error. Needs to be a drive earlier in the system.

Other Thoughts: While you can get around teh 0x80300024 error by disconnecting all other dirves which did allow the installation of Win7x64UltSP1, the drive would still not boot when the other drivers were added back to the system. Strange thing is the SSD was recognized in boot priority and selected as first. It just hangs after BIOS post however.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear customer,

In order to achive best performace for various motherboards and Windows versions, we are working on a driver update. The next driver released will be much better with compatibility and performance. Please check our website for dirver update

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)

As you may know we are more than happy to provide our customers with a hassle free exchange when a product is defective.

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 12212012

Pros: Caddy but takes up 2 slots

Cons: this is the same card as the Koutech IO-PESA236

It didn’t do well with 1 SDD and adding a second drive resulted in heavy bottlenecking when both drives were used simultaneously and was slower then 1 drive, this is not a 5gb to SATA 3 6gb issue, it doesn’t meet the SATA 3 bandwidth with a PCIe 2.0 x2 also no TRIM or driver support.

My SATA 2 Mother Board controller was 40% faster.

Other Thoughts: My mother board SATA 2 controller was 40% faster

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,
We are sorry to hear of the trouble with your recently purchased Syba product. In order to achieve maximum product performance, you must make sure you install this device using the provided instructions and drivers. We have tested this particular product at our headquarters and it has achieved proficient results. If you need help fine tuning the device, you can give us a call. Also, you did not state if you used the same HDs on the caddy and on your motherboard? what RAID type are you using?
We are truly sorry for any inconvenience caused to you. We pride ourselves in our customers' satisfaction, but we cannot fulfill this without proper communication.

Thank you again for purchasing our product. Our business depends on your satisfaction. Please do not hesitate to contact us at support@sybaUSA.com for our warranty service or further questions.

Regards, Syba Customer Service GR 033012

Pros: good speed, nice price, better than a raid card

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: you must use a fdd power connection when using this card for best performance, other than that the only other downfall is that it uses pcix 1x and not 4x+ so your topped out at around 400mbps each

Pros: Simple.
Reduces cables management.
Card powers drives.
I have 2 SSD 120gb SATAII drives stripped in it.
Works fine w/ Win7x64.
Without mechanical disk there is a very small footprint overhead in my case, and heat is a non-issue.
One SATA cable for the CDROM drive and my setup was done.

On my list to buy again, by then I hope they have a x4 version.

Cons: Because this is a 1x card and not a 4x card your not going to get the full bandwidth you would potentially have. Although, at max speed of the card, it's splitting hairs if Win7x64 boots up 1.3ms slower.
The instruction that came with it are a little vague.
The HDD activity LED extension cable is kinda worthless and my cases HDD activity LED cable to to short to reach the jumper position on the card.
There is a jumper pins on the reverse of the card near the back, but there is no description of what it does. They should have had the jumpers for the HDD activity LED close to those undefined jumpers are.

Other Thoughts: I had an issue setting up the card the first time and had to move it to a different slot on my motherboard. It POST'ed but was unable to get in to it's BIOS. It could have been my keyboard tho, but I moved it to a different slot at the same time I replaced that keyboard ::SIGH::