StarTech ECUSB3S254F 2 Port Flush Mount ExpressCard 54mm SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Card Adapter

Pros: Gives me USB 3.0 speeds for accessing a 2 TB 2.5" external. The PCI-E lane on my Dell XPS 1645 powers the HDD too. Observed sustained 60MBps data transfer to and from the HDD, which should be around the max for this little drive. Fits flush with the slot and fills the whole slot, so it looks good, too.

Cons: None to speak of, may need external power for some 2.5" drives in some systems, or 2 2.5" drives

Other Thoughts: Managed to fix a major oversight by Dell (USB 3.0 was new in 2009, but hey, it was a top of the line laptop).

Pros: None

Cons: This thing is a piece of garbage, the tech support is useless and just wants you to install driver after driver until hopefully something magic happens and they work. I still can't use it as it doesn't want recognize the controller. It worked once... but after that I couldn't read or write to the drive it just saved the index... great

Pros: Definitely delivers on the USB 3.0 speeds and compatibility. I was able to get this working with both a LaCie Rugged 500GB and a HGST Touro Pro 1TB in both Windows 7 and Windows 8. However, the reviews are correct about the drivers being a pain in the a**.

Cons: The drivers are there, and that's nice but getting them to work was more trial and error than plug and play.

BIG Con is the power draw. I'm not sure what 2 USB 3.0 devices you could run at the same time, but I know that I tried both the LaCie and HGST mentioned above plugged at the same time and -- like other reviews have stated -- both drives drop out. And no, adding the power adapter (at least the USB to DC adapter supplied in the box) does NOTHING to avoid this issue.

The moral of the story -- don't try to run 2 drives at a time on this thing. It won't work.

Other Thoughts: You get what you pay for. I wish I knew where the gold standard is for an ExpressCard USB 3.0 adapter is, because I'd pay whatever I needed to so that I could have it. I suppose with these ports coming standard on most laptops today it's a moot point, but I still have a few years left on my XPS Studio 17 and Latitude E6500 series laptops.

Pros: Installs flush which is great for my application. It was very fast when it worked.

Cons: Driver support/instructions were terrible. I had to read reviews on here and other sites to figure out which files on the CD to use. Then I updated to newer drivers and firmware also described in online reviews. It would work fine for a while, then disappear requiring either a reboot or ejecting and pushing the card back in. It finally quit working all together, and isn't recognized by several different computers. Outside of 30 days so I'm out $40. I just ordered 2 different cards from another site for $10 shipped each. Hopefully one will work.

Other Thoughts: If this worked all the time as it did sometimes, I could have overlooked the short comings with the drivers/instructions. Even if it still worked, it only intermittently worked for me in Win 7 anyways. Now that it's dead, it's good only for keeping dust out of the slot.

Pros: FLUSH MOUNTING and also comes with power cable to boost power from another usp port if your machine lacks enough power from its native port. pleased to have 3.0 on this notebook.

Cons: DRIVER HASSLE... supplied cd is worthless. 2nd download from site and it installed normally. MAY unplug if not held in when removing flash drive... not a big deal.

did get a copy failure when it said the filename was too long. never had that problem on 2.0. it just truncated instead of continuing to copy and leaving message about file not transfered. maybe its an xp problem.

Other Thoughts: Tech support responded to email in reasonable time, with a detailed note. overall pleased at this writing.

Pros: IF it worked, it would be great.. fits flush. luckily i have another brand [sticks out tho] so i can have 3.0 but thats a pain. tried latest driver offline. my dell precision m6300 simply does not recognize it

Cons: doesnt work

Other Thoughts: may rma if not solved in a week.

Pros: Flush mount. Usb 3.0. Read and Write speeds are super fast... WHEN IT WORKS

StarTech RMA process is very very good. Paid shipping both ways.

The device itself deserves 5 eggs, but I'm knocking off 2 for the poor drivers and lack of tech support knowledge.

Cons: Drivers off website are wrong! Comes with a MiniCD which is ridiculous cause a lot of laptops don't support these.

Tech Support is Horrible with actually fixing your problem. I needed to read the other reviews to get this thing to work properly.

Poor manual, poor driver availability

Other Thoughts: Here's the story:

Purchased this card a while back and worked originally. Started to have problems with only 1 slot working. RMA'd with StarTech and got a new one.

Downloaded drivers off website, device was not recognized. Hmm... submitted support ticket and they were little help. RMA'd the thing again... got another card back... same issue. Was about to start using it as a frisbee and then.........

THANK G O D I READ THESE REVIEWS!

After installing the 72021_2/RENESAS-USB3-Host-Driver-30160-setup.exe on the Mini CD the thing worked like a charm!

I'm on Windows 7 x64 with a Dell E6420

Pros: Flush mount

Cons: Flush mount "cool" does not matter when your system does not recognize the device. Dell Studio XP 1645 Win 7 (64) is a 100% fail. I tried a replacement card in both this and a friend's netbook. Both cards failed. Now too late to return to Newegg.

Other Thoughts: I can keep the card in my PCI slot to prevent dust from entering.

Pros: It fits in my notebook that I managed to destroy all the USB ports on. Seems like good quality. Also stays in the port and the USB pulls out not the entire card. I am only using it for a full corded mouse have not tried the powered port for drives on it yet.

Cons: A bit pricey. DHL sucks for shipping took 5 days to get here and it shipped from 153 miles away

Other Thoughts: The correct driver on the mini disc is the last one labeled 72021_2 for windows 7 , seeing how the model number on the box is not listed anywhere on the disc's driver folders

Pros: Slim and flush with the exterior of the laptop.

The manual is in English.

It works great after the correct driver is installed.

Cons: It's a good thing that Newegg packs things well because there is no padding or isolation in the box.

The manual is pointless and incorrect. You get more information here on Newegg then you do in the manual. The incorrect part deals with the drivers.

The website is easy to navigate, but it only gives a single driver install file which either doesn't work, or it just doesn't work on Win 7 X64.

The box it comes in is big enough for a standard CD, but it comes with a mini CD. This WILL be an issue if you have a slot load optical drive (which is fairly common on laptops, which is funny because this device was made for laptops).
The manual mentions AutoPlay functionality on the CD which is funny as there is no file for the computer to call for the AutoPlay function.
There are 7 folders on the disk. Only one will work on your computer. Only one will work for your computer. Pick one and hope, or run the EXE file in every one until your computer finally recognizes the controller. A simple batch, VBScript, or 5 minutes in Visual Studio could be used to simplify this, but they didn't care enough to do it.

There is a aux power jack on the card to supplement the card's power output. They supply a USB to power jack cord for this purpose, but if you use it, you're using one of your existing USB connectors. This means that this $50 card only gives you one extra USB connector.

Other Thoughts: Bottom line: It appears to work very well.
It's just irritating when manufacturers give obvious short comings.

There's no reason not to have good drivers available for all required platforms on the website. Many people don't even bother with the disks that come with a product. The most up to date version will usually be on the website, so they go there first.
Have some quality assurance check the website data/downloads.

If the manual is going to have the same data as the box, either save the money and don't print one, or make a single page installation card.
Have some quality assurance fact check the manual.

MiniCD's are fine for desktop products. Most Desktops will have tray loading optical drives. Laptops often have slot load drives. If a user forces the disk into the drive, the disk may end up getting stuck in there.

There is no reason not to have an executable (AutoPlay) that will check the version of the computer's OS and install the correct file. I could write even a simple bat file that could do it in 15 minutes. This is the case even if I were hungover, had a broken hand, and could only use a keyboard with all the vowel keys broken.

Installing this thing is like jumping in a car that has it's steering wheel and pedals hidden somewhere else in in the car. Sure, the car works great after you find and install them, but wouldn't be great if things were where they should be?