PPA 2 Port SATA RAID + 4 Port USB2.0 + 3 Port 1394a PCI Card Model 1318

Pros: I bought this because it has a lot of ports and extends the life of my 6 year old vaio. I have only tested out the usb and firewire ports, but they work fine, hopefully the sata ports work also. Very simple to install.

Cons: The installation CD is useless. Thanks to the poster who gave the link to the correct driver.

Also the box is misleading, there are only 3 usb ports and they are all positioned vertically. This can be a problem for those whose PCI slots are tightly packed.

Pros: Difficult to find a card with this combination of ports. Most of the ports work.

Cons: No internal pin headers so inside ports can't be used for front panel case ports.

The rear USB ports are arranged sideways. Fine in theory, but there isn't enough tolerance there for USB connectors to go through the PCI brackets on my case and line up with the USB ports on the card.

That is also a problem with the external SATA port. In fact if I move the card so that USB ports can fit, the SATA port would be too far behind the case metal to plug in at all.

Other Thoughts: The external SATA port is NOT eSATA.
The external SATA port is NOT eSATA.

It's the L-shaped internal-type SATA port. I just tried a SATA-to-eSATA cable and the card could not recognize any of my drives. Tried the same cable on a different internal-type SATA peripheral and the same drives showed right up. (So either the SATA spec isn't all there and doesn't support eSATA, or the external SATA port is DOA.)

Pros: The USB ports work excelently.

Cons: The SATA ports are SLOW! Even causing the PC to become unstable. The USB port works faster!

Other Thoughts: I wish I'd bought a different card. :(

Pros: Drivers installed with no problem at all, recognized and booted immediately. Lost its mind at one point, but I simply re-installed the drivers and it worked flawlessly again (for past 3 months or so)

Cons: Unknown brand name - anxiety of buying a technical product of unknown quality and support.

Turned out great for me however.

Running XP pro with SP3

Other Thoughts: New Egg policy and prices make it possible to buy something like this of unknownsuitability and just give it a try - nothing to loose.

New Egg is the bomb.

Pros: Zip. The number and variety of new ports would have been super, if they worked.

Cons: Opening the box and seeing little to no packaging or documentation was the first sign that this was low quality. I installed it anyway, and guessed at which driver to install from the oh so useless driver disc they sent. Everything seemed to be up and running fine, until I tried to use one of the firewire ports for my external drive. I was able to see the drive, but formatting it or accessing it in any way was a crapshoot. Drive works fine on my computer's USB but this card didn't work at all. Don't buy.

Pros: Nice compact card for Firewire, USB 2, and SATA 150 controller. Both VIA USB and Firewire drivers were available via Microsoft Windows Update for Windows 2000 (I was building a W2K Pro PC).

Cons: Drivers ... the CD was totally useless and no documentation is included.

Per previous poster, the SATA RAID driver is located at http://www.ppa-usa.com/Drivers/SATA/VIA_SATA.zip

Other Thoughts: Someone at PPA-USA should be fired for a real bad packaging. The fact that it continues since the first posting is inexcusible.

Pros: -Frees up a PCI slot for me (bonus: IDE slot)
-Has a bunch of stuff on it
-IDE RAID instantly works without special drivers

Cons: -Driver CD is useless. I had to search for the drivers elsewhere just to get USB working right.
-The IDE slot would've worked nicer on the top, but it's not a big deal. Cable crunching is annoying, but fine.
-Box is misleading

Other Thoughts: This thing RULES! One thing not mentioned at all on NewEgg is the fact that this card has an IDE slot. You have to look at the picture to see it. It's an ATA RAID slot nonetheless! Works on bootup as normal.

The box was misleading though - there isn't an extra internal USB hub that is included. Don't use the drivers on the CD. Thanks to first poster for the driver ZIP file, too bad I already got it elsewhere.

This card is great for those stuck with too few PCI slots, but if you have the extra PCI room, go ahead and grab the bigger cards that have more ports.

Pros: Speedy, featurrific

Cons: Lack of drivers, lack of documentation

Other Thoughts: Thanks to the previous poster for putting in a link to the drivers from the PPA site. That helped a ton.

Pros: Great looking card.

Cons: Drivers don't work. The CD that came with it does not have drivers for this card (model 1318), and the manufacturer's website doesn't even have drivers for it.

Other Thoughts: This is the second one I'm sending back, the first time I thought they just made a mistake, but now it's two in a row. This time I'm going to probably get the Vantec card, I really wanted SATA and 1394, but I'll just have to settle for SATA. Newegg has the best return policy!!

Pros: Good card for the money. USB worked instantly and well.

Cons: Includes a mini cd with little or no help. I contacted the manufacturer for a clear set of instructions on which files on the cd that I should use and they sent me this link: http://www.ppa-usa.com/Drivers/SATA/VIA_SATA.zip. I haven't tried it yet, but it should work.