Rosewill RC-226 PCI-Express 2.0 Low Profile SATA III (6.0Gb/s) Controller Card

Pros: It's a decent card, if you don't want port multiplier support. Or if you only need one e-sata with port multiplier.

Cons: Basically, port multiplier only seems to work on one of the ports at a time.

Other Thoughts: The card itself does seem to work well, it's unfortunate that port multiplier support isn't entirely there.

Pros: Worked exactly for what I purchased for: connecting my two 8-drive eSATA III/USB 3.0 enclosures to my NAS.

However...

Cons: Both BIOS and the operating system only see the first six drives out of eight on both enclosures (devices ad0-ad5... ad6 and ad7 were missing from both).

If I connected both enclosures to the same card (since there's two ports), I only got six devices out of sixteen total. Seems pretty obvious that this is a hard limitation with the card and there's little I can do about it.

Other Thoughts: Wish I had known about the limitation prior to ordering. I took a chance, and if I had only 6 or fewer drives, I would have never known. This will, however, not work for my system and I'll be ordering a competing product instead.

Pros: This is a good card, if you know how to use it...

Manual: http://www.rosewill.com/Mgnt/Uploads2/AttachmentForProduct/RC211.pdf

For SERVER 08 X64 DRIVER USE WIN 7 X64 bit driver from here LIKE I DID:
http://www.rosewill.com/products/462/ProductDetail_Download.htm

TO MONITOR REBUILD PROGRESS DOWNLOAD THE RAID 5 MANAGER AND VIEW THE HERE: http://www.siliconimage.com/support/searchresults.aspx?pid=32&cat=11

NEXT TIME DO THE LEG WORK!!!!!!

Cons: none so far

Pros: SATA III...

Cons: ...It will only detect the drives from one port on my Rosewill RSV-S8 regardless of what cable is connected to what port. The BIOS only shows one HBA though ports technically work. It's back to the RC-219.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,
Will the same thing happen with any other drives or will it only happen with this drive? Are you hot swapping the drives or are you shutting off the system, plugging in the drive, and then starting up the system? Please contact the Rosewill support team either via phone at 800-575-9885 or via email at techsupport@rosewill.com so that we can assist you with your issue.
Thanks,
Rosewill Customer Care

Pros: Inexpensive. Driver installation painless on Windows 7.

Cons: Attached drive must be off during boot, or the OS doesn't load. Does not function as a port multiplier, at least not with my Blackx Duet.

Other Thoughts: I purchased this because it is low profile and the description says it supports port multiplier. According to Marvell's 88SE912x product brief, the 9120 and 9125 support port multiplier. For the 9128, instead of saying "Yes" as supporting this feature, the brief says, "RAID support through Marvell RAID utility (MRU) and drive".

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,
Go into the BIOS of your motherboard and make sure that the hard drive with the OS on it is the first boot device. It sounds like you have a drive off this unit taking priority during the boot up process. Once the drive with the OS on it is the primary boot device, then the motherboard will boot from that drive first and not anything else. If you are still having issues after that, please contact the Rosewill support team either via phone at 800-575-9885 or via email at techsupport@rosewill.com.
Thanks,
Rosewill Customer Care

Pros: Very Good and Stable SATA III Controller. Marvell 88SE9128 chipset based. AHCI capable. Can be used with Silicon Image 3726 Port Multiplier Enclosures such as Rosewill and Sans Digital and others that make use of the 3726 Port Multiplier in Non-RAID, Standard SATA or AHCI mode.

Cons: The only con is that you Must allow whatever Drives are connected to this Controller to FULLY SPIN UP before BOOTING. This means BEFORE POST. This Controller likes to poll and test the drives attached as soon as you power up the PC. The Marvell 88SE9128 chipset can be picky about what drives are connected to it. It does not play well with some Green drives.

Other Thoughts: The Problems people are experiencing with this Controller is with what's called 'Upper Memory' or 'Reserved Memory'. This is the memory space that is reserved on your motherboard for the Devices, Bridges, System Devices, and other add-in cards you put in the motherboard. You may see the message during POST that 'No resources available for BIOS' for the system. Or a similar message. This means your Upper Memory is FULL with Device Resource allocations. This is one reason you do not see the Controller's BIOS during BOOT. As far as this Controller 'Taking Over the System', that's Hog-Wash. Just know 'How to change your BIOS settings' and everything is fine.

Pros: Looks nice.

Cons: My purpose for this card is simple additional external storage ... not as an ancillary RAID system boot drive.
It blocks my PC from booting by inserting itself before the system BIOS without a hdd connected and with a hdd connected.
The Ctl-M access to this card offers no options or solutions.

Other Thoughts: Hopefully Rosewill has a solution after reading this review ...
On a previous card I was provided a utility that erased the offending software on the card so it did not block normal booting.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,
I spoke with several people about this and we all ended up with the same conclusion. The boot priority is determined by your motherboard and nothing else. If this card is being placed before the hard drive with the OS on it, then it sounds like you need to change the boot priority of your motherboard. Go into the BIOS of your motherboard and make sure that the drive with the OS on it is the first boot drive and that should take care of that. As for the Ctrl-M feature, it sounds like you have a wireless keyboard or your motherboard isn't activating the keyboard in time for it to recognize that Ctrl-M was pressed. Usually, wireless keyboards will do this since the motherboard needs to initialize the necessary devices for it to recognize the signal from a wireless device. By the time it does, it is already too late to get into the BIOS or any other menu. If you do indeed have a wireless keyboard, try using a USB keyboard and see if the same thing happens. If you are still having issues after that, please contact the Rosewill support team either via phone at 800-575-9885 or via email at techsupport@rosewill.com.
Thanks,
Rosewill Customer Care

Pros: May work with just one drive connected.

Cons: The Marvell 9128 chip on this card is known to have a number of issues that are widely reported on forums. Many people report windows blue screens and data corruptions.

I tried to use this card with two 4-port eSata enclosures. The card would only detect the drives in one of the enclosures at a time. If I disconnect the enclosure it detects, it will detect the other one. Other people on forums report similar problems.

IMO Rosewill normally makes solid products, but the Marvell controller chip they chose for this card is a piece of trash and has a reputation as such.

Pros: Great if it worked. Another one did. I use separate controllers so I can have separate activity LEDs for each drive, each with a different color. It tells me, for instance if a program is using the limited-life SSD boot drive for temp files.

Cons: Stopped working after a couple of days. I came back to newegg now to buy a name-brand one.

Other Thoughts: All you need is love ?

Pros: Cheap. Haven't actually received the card yet.

Cons: eSATA 6.0Gb/sec doesn't seem to be an official standard yet.

Other Thoughts: From Wikipedia

Prior to the final eSATA 6 Gbit/s specification many add-on cards and some motherboards advertise eSATA 6 Gbit/s support because they have 6 Gbit/s SATA 3.0 controllers for internal-only solutions. Those implementations are non standard and eSATA 6 Gbit/s requirements will be ratified in the upcoming SATA 3.1 specification.[23] These products might not be eSATA 6 Gbit/s compliant.