VANTEC UGT-ST350CB SATA PCMCIA Card 2 x External SATA (eSATA) port - Retail

Reviewed By: Mike on 1/25/2010

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

Pros: cheaper than most cards

Cons: does not work. Windows XP does not even recognize it's existence. When the eSATA cable is plugged into one of the ports, that port lights up just once, when inserted. after that, nothing happens. No "New Hardware found message."

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Beware of CardBus performance issues

Reviewed By: on 1/2/2010

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: - The Silicon Image Sil3512 chipset this card uses has better support under Linux and OS X than chipsets from other vendors.
- Newegg's UPS shipping was prompt, as usual.

Cons: - Transfer rates under Windows 7 were hardly faster than USB 2.0, peaking at around 290 Mbps (38 MB/s).
- The attached hard disk was not properly detected under Linux (kernel 2.6.28 on Ubuntu 9.04). Seems kernel support for CardBus implementations of this chipset is flakier than it is with desktop PCI cards.

Other Thoughts: Different CardBus controllers in different laptops appear to have wildly varying throughput performance. The O2 Micro controller in my Latitude D630 seems to be one of the worst. While others have experienced transfer rates as high as 540 Mbps (68 MB/s) with this controller and card under Windows XP, my Windows 7 system with the latest drivers from Silicon Image never exceeded 290 Mbps (38 MB/s). For comparison, the theoretical maximum bandwidth for CardBus and the typical sustained throughput performance of desktop hard drives are both around 1 Gbps (133 MB/s).

Predicting performance is a crapshoot unless you can find benchmarks for this card on a machine with the same OS and CardBus chipset as yours. If you want speed, just upgrade your internal drive.

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Works Like Charm

Reviewed By: Mesbah on 9/21/2009

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Great PCMCIA card, works like a charm, plug and play device. Two esata connections, both with its individual read/write led light.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I like vantec, they are great for accessories especially the external hard drives. Great product and great prices on Vantec, (check out the esata 2.5 hard drive enclosure. What a steal!!!

Atlanta Computer Repair Center

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