HighPoint RU1144A (RocketU 1144A) PCI-Express 2.0 x4 USB 3.0 Controller Card

Pros: 4 independent USB host controllers allow fast concurrent transfers with multiple devices hub'd to each one. Out of the box support in Linux kernel 3.x. Haven't tried it on 3.0, have it working on 3.2.0-36 (Ubuntu Precise) with no issues so far.

Cons: Not supported in Linux kernel 2.6.x, which still has a lot of installs. Even if a driver backport were available, it would be a hassle to get it built for your kernel and update with each kernel update, unless you are using DKMS and a specially built deb package with sources, which auto-rebuilds with kernel updates -- and to the best of my knowledge no one has made such package available for 2.6 so far.

Overall Review: This is a PCIe x4 card, meaning 20Gbps total per card (via PEX 8609 chip), so theoretically should support 4 concurrent transfers at USB3 max rate of 5Gbps. Haven't tested under such load, and it would be hard to generate it consistently at even one port, and it would only be achievable if it all goes over DMA, without interrupts. Shows up as follows on a Linux kernel 3.2.x system: # lsusb -v Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub iSerial 1 0000:0c:00.0 Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub iSerial 1 0000:0c:00.0 < 4 times > # lspci -vv 0a:00.0 PCI bridge: PLX Technology, Inc. PEX 8609 8-lane, 8-Port PCI Express Gen 2 (5.0 GT/s) Switch with DMA (rev ba) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 5GT/s, Width x4, ASPM L0s L1, Latency L0 <2us, L1 <4us 0c:00.0 USB controller: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1042 SuperSpeed USB Host Controller (prog-if 30 [XHCI]) LnkCap: Port #1, Speed 5GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s L1, Latency L0 unlimited, L1 unlimited Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd < 4 times > The key here is ASM1042 -- the chip that the driver (xhci_hcd) needs to support.

Pros: This beats the pants off my integrated (very disappointing) USB 3.0 controller on my motherboard. This is the fastest USB add-in card I've used to date (Used a few SIIG's and several integrated setups on motherboards).

Cons: None so far

Overall Review: I have a Shuttle SH61R4, with integrated USB 3.0 (2 ports). Well, I was using this setup as a TV server with a Ceton card & a Seagate GoFlex USB 3.0 1.5GB drive attached for my recorded TV target. Sadly this did not work due to a performance issue with the USB 3.0 ports on the MB. It was fine if I was just watching a show or just recording a show to it in HD, but doing both was not working. I benchmarked the drive and saw a very disappointing 45MB/sec max throughput on the drive. I knew the drive was faster than that and suspected the interface was the issue. So I said...I'm going all out and spending $100 on a card. My Seagate now hits 90+ MB/sec RW speeds (Using default settings ATTO Disk Benchmark). I was pretty happy with that and it is inline with the drives capabilities. I decided to do one more benchmark using an external 2.5" 3.0 SIIG enclosure with a 256GB VERTEX 3 SSD. I couldn't really break 200MB/sec. O well, it is an improvement.

Pros: The board easily went into my computers video card slot which I do not use. It did not cause any negative issues that I am aware of. Once the driver was loaded from HighPoints website my 3.0 hard drive was recognized and everything seams to be working perfectly. I have not tested the performance yet all I will say for now is that it seams to be faster with my hard drive. I am waiting until I get a cable for my 3.0 SSD before I comment on how well it works.

Cons: No cons at this time.

Overall Review: I did not load the driver from the disk as the installation booklet tells you to go the their website to load the driver which was very easy. I am waiting for a cable for my SSD (Crucial C4 128gb) before I test this thing for speed. I have a USB 3.0 flash memory card, a hard drive, and a SSD so I thought I might as well get the ports to allow them to work their best.

Pros: Works great on my ASRock Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen3 motherboard: the same exact ASMedia USB 3.0 driver ver:1.10.1.0 is downloadable from either HighPoint or ASRock, and the "XFast USB" utility does speed up the throughput quite a bit, especially for small file sizes. Considerably faster than $30 2 Port USB 3.0 NEC-chipset controller I also own.

Cons: You'll need to pay attention to the slot type, you can't fit this into a PCI Express 2.0 x1 Slot (the super short slot), so you'll need to install into a PCI Express 3.0 slot (normally used for GPU).

Overall Review: It really is composed of 4 separate ASMedia controller chips (visible on the pcb) and in Windows Device Manager. Also works fine with in VMware ESXi 5.0 passthrough configuration, which I tested with the bottom PCI Express 3.0 slot (which is in 2.0 mode with Sandybridge), on my ASRock Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen3 motherboard

Pros: This card rocks. I'm using it on my video editing workstation and have been extremely pleased with it. I bought it solely for the purpose of being able to transfer video footage (which is recorded on compact flash cards) much faster than with USB 2. I also wanted the option of having multiple USB 3 drives attached without the bottleneck of sharing the bandwith across all four ports. Here are my pros. *SUPER fast *4 ports with individual controllers allowing for 5Gb/s per port *Easy installation (no issues on my windows 7 PC) *No additional power required (uses PCIE x4 )

Cons: A little pricey, but worth it if you need it.

Overall Review: Previously, I had bought a cheap PCIE x1 USB 3 card and had all sorts of issues. Although I didn't mind having to plug in an extra power source, it was inconvenient. Sure, this card is spendy at $90, but you get what you pay for.

Pros: Installs easily, small internal size, fast speed.

Cons: Um... drivers don't immediately install?

Pros: It works and it's fast.

Cons: There's a missing driver for the PLX PEX 8609. I can't find the driver anywhere and high point offers no support.

Pros: Fast Works well when it works

Cons: 100% DEAD IN THE WATER without a firmware update

Overall Review: FIRST AND FOREMOST: 1. Download and learn to use YUMI . This lets you make a USB drive filled with boot CDs, Linux or otherwise. 2. Install YUMI onto a blank USB drive, and add FreeDOS to it (it's in the 2nd-to-last section) 3. Go to HighPoint's website for this device and download the latest firmware. Extract it to a folder, and get that folder onto your USB drive. 4. Preferably with ONLY the 1144a plugged in, boot from the USB drive, and start FreeDOS. The USB drive's contents will be in C: 5. Run the .bat file in the README.TXT folder. 6. Your card is now FUNCTIONAL. Not fantastic, but it will finally work. If you're having horrible trouble in Linux AND Windows trying to get this piece of mess to work, this is how to fix it. Seriously, I almost returned this thing (but the return policy and shipping meant that I woulda spent something like $30 returning a $90 item, and that wasn't really worth it)