Koutech IO-PSA420 32-bit PCI SATA II (3.0Gb/s) Controller Card

Pros: 1. Features are exactly what I was looking for to create a second RAID1 set in my machine containing an old ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard using the on-board RAID1 as my OS drive. 2. Reasonable price. 3. Customer service via email was prompt and efficient.

Cons: The manual is extremely terse, and it would cause problems for someone not tech savvy. The RAID setup screens are not very intuitive and the manual is obviously not as helpful as some may require.

Overall Review: As mentioned above, my machine contains an old ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard using the on-board SATA ports for the OS boot drive configured as RAID1. I had never upgraded the BIOS, so this caused the mainboard's SiS BIOS and the Koutech's SiS BIOS to conflict and hang upon boot. Once I flashed the latest BIOS upgrade (1013) onto the mainboard, the system booted into Windows XP just fine. I then restarted the system, entered the PSA420's setup, and configured it as RAID1. I then had to format the new RAID1 drives within Windows XP as follows: Boot Windows. Right click on "My Computer" -> Manage -> Disk Management. You will see your Raid drive there, then format the drives, your system will assign a new letter for this RAID Set. You may want to customize the drive letters to suit yourself. I then moved "My Documents" and other files/folders. Viola, I now have a functioning 465 GB SATA2 RAID1 drive for my ever-growing music and photography collections.

Pros: Finally an easy solution to adding a 750+ gig drive to my A7N8XE Deluxe motherboard. The on-board 3112a Sata raid chip-set locks at the raid screen during when I attach any drive over 500gig. My 750 gig drives would only work if I plugged them in after boot. So I bought this card stuck it in the PCI slot and it and both drives are instantly recognized and windows boots just fine problem solved. Easy format of drive under disk management and I was good to go. Now I have a cheap and easy 1.5 gig video file server with room to add two more drives. Very easy install with driver disk included. I didn't use raid so I can't speak about that.

Cons: Could have been cheaper

Overall Review: You don't need super fast equipment to run an HTPC file server and this card put new life into my old A7N8XE motherboard by allowing me to plug in up to 4 huge storage drives. Other cards were cheaper but some had the old 3112 chip-set which would give me the same problem and most didn't have 4 Sata slots. So I guess you get what you pay for and this card was super easy to install and did exactly what I expected

Pros: Now I have 8 SATA II ports, works well, I'm not concerned with transfer rate, just as long as its not noticeable, or laggy. Seems to work just as fast as my original motherboard Sata Ports

Cons: Set up is a pain but I'll tell you how to do that, the way I have mine set up.

Overall Review: I dont have mine set up for RAID or anything like that. I am a media person. I just purchased my 5th TB HDD and I needed more SATA ports before I could install my new drive. Basically once I installed the card my display wouldn't boot. So I plugged in a few drives to the card, display booted then came up with "install OS disk, there in an error". Called Cust Service, basically OS HDD needs to be connected in Motherboard port 0 or 1 whatever the lowest number on your board is, also you need to have at least one drive plugged into your PCI card. Also make sure you have your CD drive plugged into your motherboard to install the software that comes with it. I only had those three things connected to make sure it would run, Worked perfectly, then i went back and plugged in the remaining HDD's and players. Works great.

Pros: Linux drivers (sata_sil24) are in the Redhat & CentOS 5.x kernel/modules for this card and all the drives are found without problems. Should be the same for most distributions. Big positive.

Cons: Drives present themselves individually (google search for fakeraid). CentOS 5.x builds the RAID array using /dev/mapper and there are some performance issues versus using the software raid (dmadm). Rebuilt using the software raid due to this and how I use the system.

Overall Review: By using software raid that comes with linux, and leaving one of the drives on the existing SATA port on the motherboard, the second on this card, read/write throughput almost doubles (stats from atop while drives re-synced and large filesystem copies). If you are only using linux as your OS, would hightly recommend the software raid. If dual booting between linux and windows, then this gives you the option to have both.

Pros: Cheaper then a true hardware raid. Bought this for my media server and it's working perfect I have 4TB HDD in raid 10/0+1. Not as fast as a true hardware raid but not as slow as software raid. No problems on installation(64bit Windows 7 RC) works as advertised its host raid people not hardware raid or software raid(no software is needed).

Cons: Not hardware raid but I knew that before I bought it. Didn't come with any cables. Raid 5 really is as slow as people say it is but I really didn't buy it for that just buy another drive and do raid 10. Wish it was cheaper but it does the job at pretty desent speeds so I'm happy.

Overall Review: Bought this not really wanting speed or a bootable raid setup mostly for storing media. Its not software raid or hardware raid its host raid which mains you get most of the benefits as you would with hardware raid except it uses the PC's CPU to do the processing not really a problem for me because I have a pretty strong quad core.

Pros: Good functionality. Great product for the price. I use this card to stripe raid for back up computer.

Cons: none.

Overall Review: When it states to make sure not to push the card in all the way make sure you dont push it in all the way - computer wont boot.

Pros: Cost, Ease of installation, Reliability. I am running Vista 32 Bit, and I have not had any problems at all from this card. I am using it on an old Pentium 4 (approx 6 years old) to control two 1.5 TB hard drives in raid 1. The controller is fast, and seems completely reliable. Highly recommend.

Cons: None that I know of.

Pros: I bought this for use in my MythTV Server and it's working perfect and I it was support by default with MythDora so what else can I ask for. Supports my OS drive on 1 SATA and my 1TB RAID 5 on the other 3 perfect!

Cons: N/A

Overall Review: I will buy another if ever needing more SATA ports than my motherboard supports or just wanting an affordable and good RAID/SATA card!