Rosewill RC-218 PCI Express SATA II Controller Card w/ 4 internal SATA with 2 external eSATA Design

Pros: I've been using this on a Win7-64 workstation with all four internal ports used for over a year now with very few issues.

Cons: Occasionally fails to recognize a drive and needs to re-seated to clear the problem.

When installing two new Seagate STDB3000100 drives, was unable to see all 3TB so had to initialize the drives using the on-board controller. Once initialized and properly formatted with a different controller, this card had no problem using all 3TB.

Since I never had this issue with the 3TB WD drives previously installed, I can't be sure if it's a controller card issue or a hard-drive issue but I wasted 4 hours trying to figure it out.

Pros: Works solidly in Linux (3.2.x), performs well without any flashing firmware or other inconveniences.

Cons: Default jumper settings as stated in manual were actually set backwards to prefer the external connectors. PCI card didn't fit in slot without a good bit of bending of the metal to fit in my Supermicro server(the other cards are fine - so its not the case itself!). Always kinda cheap when you have to do that - but the card itself looks well made.

Like others noted, only the first 2 drives will show up in the BIOS POST screen - disconcerting until you realize they work just fine. Cannot boot off the "last" 2 drives either because of this.

Pros: easy, quick, reliable, fast

Cons: my system won't boot from Acronis TrueImage 2009 or Disk Director 2010 with this installed; that's at least two eggs off right there, first because it is unnecessary (the system boots from equivalent free utilities just fine), and second because the issue obviates my system build back-ups

Other Thoughts: I now use the DriveImage utility on Hiren's Boot CD v.11.1; so much for Acronis for-profit software

* 2 x AMD Opteron 4284 Valencia 3.0GHz Socket
C32 95W 8-Core Server Processor OS4284WLU8KGUWOF
* SUPERMICRO MBD-H8DCL-6F-O ATX Server Motherboard Dual Socket C32 AMD SR5690 DDR3 1600
* 4 x Kingston 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 ECC Registered Server Memory DR x4 Hynix C Model KVR16R11D4/8HC
* 2 x Noctua NH-U12DO A3 for AMD Opteron CPU Cooler
* SUPERMICRO CSE-733TQ-665B Black Pedestal Server Case
(modified slightly and PSU replaced with the following)
* SuperMicro PWS-865-PQ 865W Single Server Power Supply
* 4 x Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000GLFS 300GB 10000 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive
* Rosewill RC-218 PCI Express SATA II Controller Card
* 4 x Hitachi HDS722525VLSA80 Deskstar 7K250 250GB 3.5" SATA 1.5Gb/s Hard Drive

All bought from Newegg!!!!

Pros: It's worked great up until I tried to use it with a 3TB drive. Now that I put a 3TB drive on it, the system only recognizes it as a 2TB drive. Not good at all.

This is on a Windows 7 Pro x64 system with a 1 year old Gigabyte mobo.

Cons: Doesn't recognize 3TB drives on Windows 7 Pro x64.

Are there any drivers out there? Hello??

Pros: Seems a little expensive, but I guess that's the price for these things had it a while now with no issues. So that's a good thing.

Cons: price

Pros: Has 4 ports

Cons: Dated drives from both Marvel and Rosewill.

This card does not support drives over 2TB. At least for Window.

I have delt with other 3tb drives with other controllers, so it isn't a GPT issue. The drive BIOS clear states 2TB storage when booting.

There is not recent driver or BIOS revision that over comes this.

This was a waste of $70 since who wants to use 2TB drives not that 3TB drives are cheaper per GB.

If anyone has any suggestions or has it working with 3TB drives and Windows, please advise.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

The RC-218 HDD Controllers is capable to support larger HDD, but different OS may limit the HDD sizes that can be supported. For example, XP 32-bit supports only up to 2TB.For further support please call us at 800-575-9885 or email us at rma@rosewill.com

Thank you
Rosewill Customer Care

Pros: Relatively low cost 4 port SATA II card.
I am happy with it.
I am getting good transfer speeds, 60-100 Mbs/sec on a single drive to/from motherboard drives.

This isn't a scientific test, but it seems very slightly slower transferring data between drives that are both on this card.

Cons: Did not recognize a DVD SATA (optical) drive, but this was not a deal killer. I could swap out a SATA port on the motherboard [which does see the DVD] and run 4 hard drives from this card.
A minor issue for me.
--> the included driver CD was several versions out of date.
Go to the Rosewill site and download the latest.
The old driver seemed to work but you may as well use the most recent.

Other Thoughts: Seem good for hard drives only (no optical drives as far as I can tell). I would buy this again if I or someone I know needed 4 ports.

I don't think it does RAID (?) but I don't need that so I don't care.

AND the 2 external eSATA ports only work if you disable 2 of the internal ports. I'm not using that so it is an "extra feature" I'll never use.

Maybe a (much) more expensive SATA III card would be faster, but all my drives are extra backups so speed here is more than good enough.

Pros: This card advertizes with 4 internal and 2 external ports. All ports work, and I have had no problems after installing this card in a FreeNAS box where I needed to add a few drives.

Cons: This is pretty minor, but the pinout on the jumpers were a little difficult for me to mess with. To change over from using all four internal ports to using 2 internal and 2 external requires the moving of 8 jumper shunts. A larger block type mega-shunt would be better.

Other Thoughts: This card is 4 channel. I did not look at the picture of the front of the box when I bought it, and was dismayed when I got it to find out that it has 6 ports, but only 4 can be used at a time. I will likely be trying a different card soon because I have two drives that I can't use now...

Pros: none

Cons: causes crashes on intel and amd systems with both linux and windows7. uptime can be from anywhere between 1min and about 14 hours.

Other Thoughts: spend a tiny bit more and get a MUCH better raid card.

Pros: Awesome card for Linux RAID. Very fast transfer rates, card works right out of the box.

Cons: Cant use locking SATA cables due to the way the ports are laid out. You can always grab a pair of needle nose pliers and remove the locking tab from one end of your SATA cable.

Other Thoughts: Would be nice if Rosewill made a 8-port PCI-E x8 card.