Add true SuperSpeed USB 3.0 storage to any PCI-E compatible PC. The RocketU 1144A is an external 4-port, each dedicated USB 3.0 port delivers transfer speeds of 5Gb/s, for a combined bandwidth up to 20Gb/s. RocketU HBA’s support USB drives of any generation, and can be easily installed into any free PCI-Express Gen 2.0/Gen 1.0 x4, x8 or x16 slot. Driver support is readily available for all major Microsoft operating systems including 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows 7, 2008 and Vista. xHCI complaint RocketU HBA’s are natively supported by current Linux distributions.
The RocketU 1144A is the ideal upgrade for any Windows or Linux PC’s, and is well suited for portable storage devices, external backup solutions, and high-speed SSD’s for the ultimate gaming multi-media experience.
Dedicated 5Gb/s Per-port Performance with RAIDWith a 20Gb/s transfer bandwidth, and dedicated 5Gb/s per-port performance, the RocketU 1144A is the ideal, high-performance external USB storage solution for any PC. For the ultimate gaming and multi-media experience, configure RAID 0 arrays using multiple external USB 3.0 drives for maximum performance.
Uncompromised Performance for Every Generation of External USB Drive and External Storage ConfiguratRocket U HBA’s support all generations of USB hard drives, SSDs and Enclosures. Dedicated 5Gb/s ports provide the throughput needed to support any type of drive, from today's fastest 6Gb/s SSDs to external RAID enclosures. RocketU HBA’s will automatically recognize any external USB hard disk or SSDs that are pre-configured or already contain user data, and are fully compatible with USB 1.1, 2.0 and 3.0 hard drives, SSDs, RAID enclosures and docking bays.
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.