HighPoint Rocket 620 PCI-Express 2.0 x1 SATA III (6.0Gb/s) Controller Card

Pros: Easy install if you do it right ! Provides two SATA III ports. Sequential Read speed on SATA III SSD increased from ~280MB/Sec. to ~385MB/Sec. 4K random and 4K QD32 speeds also increased significantly. This may the greatest benefit of using an inexpensive add-on controller. 70% cheaper than faster controller cards.

Cons: To use this for your Windows or other operating system the install requires extra steps. See Other Thoughts below .... Adds an extra 15 seconds to boot-up time. Sequential Write speed decreased about 20% (but could never detect it in normal use).

Overall Review: Quick Install Guide says plug it in, connect a drive, boot up the computer, install driver, then re-boot and the controller is ready for use. All true except if you connect the drive containing your operating system at the beginning then your computer won't boot up - error, error, ERROR. The best way to install this requires a couple of extra steps. At first, just plug in the card - don't connect a drive ! Boot up, install the driver, then re-start the computer. After it boots up and is ready to use then shut it down once more. Now, while it's shut down, remove the power cord and connect your chosen drive or drives to the controller card. Now you can boot up and all should be well. If you want to be extra careful you could connect only the drive containing Windows and disconnect all other drives from the motherboard temporarily. When you boot up the computer, the controller card will be working and it will see only one drive with Windows on it. After that, you may shut down again and reconnect all other drives. I don't think temporarily disconnecting all other drives is necessary, but a friend who has a similar add-on controller card said he avoided problems with his dual-boot system by connecting only one drive to begin with. Since we use Sleep mode most of the time the extra boot time required while this card attempts to scan all drives (maybe looking for RAID arrays?) is not much of a drawback for us. The Marvell 9128 controller has been criticised by some because it doesn't achieve full SATA III speed. All of these inexpensive controller cards require a PCI-e x1 slot which has only one "lane" of bandwidth which is simply not sufficient for full SATA III speed. To achieve full speed requires at least two lanes of bandwidth and that means using a controller card that connects to a PCI-e x4 slot (or bigger). Those cards cost around $89 to $299. So, the only real criticism for these inexpensive cards is the failure to mention that, although they are SATA III, they don't provide full bandwidth/full speed. And that seems like a legitimate gripe aimed at all brands and models at this level.

Pros: Using it as a boot card for Vista OS. Used 2 x 1TB WD Hard drives connected to it and they showed up as JBOD (two separate hard drives.) It does work fine with Sata 2 devices and is plug and play certified. *Cables are by Foxconn and are blue and very long and are good quality but do not have SATA 2 latches--it can be qualified as SATA 1 cables but will work with any SATA drives.

Cons: *NOT a RAID *STOP posting reviews about a product if you don't know what it does. No RAID 0 and no RAID 1 for this product. *This card will add about 5 seconds to your computer's bootup time--be aware if you reboot your computer often--it might be a nuisance.

Overall Review: I was disappointed because it was not RAID, as some reviewers have mentioned, so read the description carefully. I can still use it as SATA 3 controller if I buy a 2TB SATA 3 hard drive in the future. For now it's a future proof entrance into SATA3 world for me providing extra SATA ports for the computer. I have tested speed and it was not much different from my motherboard's RAID for SATA 2 hard drive attached--buy this only if you intend to use it for SATA 3 drives and JBOD mode at that.

Pros: A low cost SATA controller that supports SATA 6Gb/s along with PCI-E 2.0, I ran a bandwidth test with a WD Black 1TB HD on my onboard SATA controller and then on this one. Both results came within 3 MB/s of eachother.

Cons: None experienced

Overall Review: Some may complain that PCI-E 2.0 1X can only do 500MB/s while SATA 6Gb/s can do 600 MB/s...... well if your motherboard doesnt have SATA 6Gb/s connections to begin with it's still faster the SATA 3Gb/s whic can only do 300MB/s. so regardless.... 500MB/s is still faster then 300MB/s.

Pros: This won't give you full throttle SATA 3 speeds but it will improve SATA 2 speeds beyond their limit. I installed on my Asus P6TD LGA1366 board with SATA 2 in order to run my new Veritex 3 120 at higher speeds. No raid ... just a straight SSD to the card. Max Read: up to 386 MB/s (CARD) up to 265 MB/s (SATA 3Gbps) Max Write: up to 180 MB/s (CARD) up to 140 MB/s (SATA 3Gbps) It is what it is. Installation wise I installed the card first without connecting the SSD. I booted W7 x64 normally and searched for the device (which will not be installed properly as windows will not be able to find a driver for it). I loaded the Marvell driver manually (which I previously downloaded and unzipped) and it was good to go. Turn of the machine and hook up the drive. The way I see it you trade some boot time for some additional speed. To my mind use of the card makes little real world improvement. Benchmarks look better though...

Cons: One egg off for the card's infernal bios script at boot up which slows boot times by 5 or so seconds. Read the other reviews and use the links to the Marvell driver (or see below) The CD is worthless as is Highpoint's site and the installation manual. What is it with these people? This thing is NOT plug and play and its not 6GB thru. There is no cheap way out folks. You want SATA 3 speed you need a new motherboard or an expensive controller.

Overall Review: http://drivers.windows7download.com/win7-ecs-p55h-ak-v1-0-marvell-91xx-sata-6g-controller-driver-1-0-0-1039/download-ykhje.html

Pros: Easy to install. Recognized immediately by Windows 7 x64. Drives show up in Safe to Remove Hardware list.

Cons: None

Overall Review: Bought this card to connect two additional eSata sockets, one on top of my Thermaltake Armor and one in the rear of my case. Had used up all motherboard connections for internal drives (Gigabyte GA EP45 UD3P). Will worry about SATA 6.0Gb later.

Pros: Installed in older mobo that had an available PCI-E 2.0 slot, installed the drivers for it, hooked up my SSD, and it blazes like it's supposed to do. The drivers were easy to find on the manufactures website. I saw someone already posted it, but here it is again: http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/rr600_download.htm You will only get the results you're supposed to get if you're plugging it into a PCI-E 2.0 slot. Other wise your read/write speed is going to lack.

Cons: None

Overall Review: For those of you that are complaining about the speeds, is the PCI-E slot you're using a 2.0 slot? If not, it's not going to get you the speeds you're supposed to be at. This card will work in a 1.0 slot, but you're not going to get the best results.

Pros: Cheap and using X1 slot which are typically unused anyway and it does work well if not cutting edge. Mainly I got it to access more 3 TB drives!

Cons: The drivers on the CD are utterly useless for Win7 64 bit and so is the Highpoint site downloads. Get the driver/console from "http://drivers.windows7download.com/win7-ecs-p55h-ak-v1-0-marvell-91xx-sata-6g-controller-driver-1-0-0-1039/download-ykhje.html" that Sal Mucci posted earlier. They work well.

Overall Review: All in all it is a good way to add some 2+ TB drives on an older MB with limited SATA 6 ports.

Pros: Cheap & simple little card that works perfectly in a Windows 7 system... The previous reviewer's ("Aussie_Z") problem is that he doesn't have the correct Marvell miniport drivers installed. He's let Windows 7 install it's default IDE driver for the controller when it should be using it's own "AHCI" driver instead. That's why his drives are showing up as "removable". To correct it he needs to locate the controller under "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" inside Device Manager. It will be the only one listed there with "AHCI" in it's name. He should then update the driver with the Marvell one that comes on the CD (it's the latest version I've found). Once the correct driver is loaded (and the system is restarted) the card will then relocate itself to "Storage controllers" where it will then appear as a "Marvell 91xx SATA 6G Controller" and the attached drives will no longer be flagged as "removable"... Hope this helps a bit...

Cons: Would like to have more than 2 ports...