Question 1

What type of connection is used to connect to the PSU?

Accepted Answer

Hi David,

The power connector on my units were the 4 pin molex style connector used on older ATA type drives. It is not the smaller 4 pin as was used on floppy drives, nor is it the type used on the newer SATA drives. A SATA to 4 pin Molex adaptor can be purchased if you do not have the right connector available on your system. The amount of power available is sufficient to run light loads, but if you are looking to run four drives simultaneously, there may not be enough to run some high speed power hungry units. Also, the total bandwidth is up to 5 Gbps. That total would be split between any devices connected to the card. There is only one controller on this card. There are cards that have four controllers and four ports, which would allow full bandwidth for each connector, up to the limitations of the slot the card is placed in.

Despite any of these limitations, it performs quite well for average usage and throughput is adequate and on par for a single controller. I've installed a dozen or so and all have performed as expected. I am usually careful to have the proper drivers on hand during installation. If in doubt, download the latest, or be sure Windows is set to look for an updated driver, depending on your operating system.

Question 2

I have had trouble with PCI-E cards to add SATA3 drives, and I suspect it's because my mobo pcie spec is revision 1.0. Specs on this card say it's fully compliant with rev. 2.0. Will this card work for me?

Accepted Answer

PCI-Express 1.x and 2.x (and 3.x) are designed to be upward and downward compatible, and to run at the lower rev level specs when mixed. So it should work at pci-e 1.0 speeds. My mobo has pci-e 2.0, so I don't speak from experience.

Question 3

Any pin out for front panel ?

Accepted Answer

Sorry, there's no internal USB connector that I'm aware of.  To be honest, this hasn't bothered me any because: (a) I got this card from Newegg at a superduper price, (b) It has worked great since I first installed it, and (c) If, as and when I decide to invest in a front panel connector insert, it wouldn't bother me overly to use an admittedly kludgy setup by connecting a USB cable to one of the four rear ports and leading it back inside the computer case through an unused and uncovered card slot, thence to the front panel.

Question 4

upon installing the card, how do i set up a wifi connection? in windows 10

Accepted Answer

On my Win 10 system, I plugged in a WiFi dongle. The system recognized it. In the tray on the right side of the task bar, left click on the WiFi icon. Your network name should appear. Click on that choose connect and you will be asked for network password. Once that is entered, you will have WiFi connection to the internet. My WiFi dongle is a simple one bought from Newegg. Nothing special about it.

Question 5

Does it require drivers?  Trying to determine if it might work with Linux and or Macintosh....

Accepted Answer

Hi Gary,
I am using this card on a linux computer and it works fine. I am running Slackware14.1 which 
is not the newest at this point. I did not install any drivers, it just worked after I plugged it
in and booted it up. If your system is not very old I suspect it will work for you too.  I do not
know if it works on Macintosh but their are similarities between linux and Macintosh so
I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

Question 6

Specs indicate  PCI Express Base Specification Revision 2.0 required.  How do I determine if this is what I have?

Accepted Answer

The best way to determine what PCI Express slots you have in your computer is to open the case and look on the Motherboard where your PCI slot is located and read what the specs on the slot are. I don't know what system you have so I cannot tell you what you probably have. The only other way to determine this is to read the spec sheet for your motherboard which would have come with the paperwork that was included when you bought your computer or your motherboard (if you built you own computer.) Most newer computers will have the PCI slot that is needed to plug this Add-On card into.

Question 7

Does this work with old Mac Pro towers?

Accepted Answer

I installed this card on my MAC PRO.  My MAC PRO will only run 10,11.6.   I installed the usb3 card in PCI SLOT 2.

The good news is that when I click on the APPLE and ABOUT THIS MAC, and then click on SYSTEM REPORT, I first scroll down the hardware list on the left of the report and look in PCI.  This will show  the card i just installed in SLOT 2.  It will also give a status on whether or not OSX successfully attached a driver.  Assuming yours looks good like mine does, then you scroll down the hardware list on the left to USB.  It will show the USB DEVICE TREE, and will list your onboard USB 2.0 items first, then like mine, it will show USB 3.0.  Viola, your card is operational.   Next challenge!

Question 8

I must be missing something basic. The USB ports are on a bracket that connects to the case so you can plug USB devices into it.. And the card is directly attached to that bracket.  How does the card plug into a PCI Express card socket on the motherboard, which is nowhere near  where the bracket has to go?

Accepted Answer

Open the case and locate the motherboard.  Find an empty PCI slot. Insert the card.  The bracket will now be on the back of the case where more USB cables can now be attached.

Question 9

free BSD support?

Accepted Answer

This is not the proper forum for such questions.
Running off advice from random users here would be dangerous for a BSD user.
If you know enough to run FreeBSD, you should know enough to search google, the FreeBSD forums, or other Unix forums.
You are likely new to the OS, so I will offer the below. (I was new to Windows, Unix, and Linux at one time too.  This is not an insult.)

What I can say:  Rosewill only released drivers for Windows.  
This said, Rosewill appears to largely be a Chinese board builder.  They order chips, components, and PCB designs, and combine them.  Rosewill didn't even write the drivers for this device.  The driver package was written by Renesas.  (Please note:  There is nothing wrong with this.  I own a plethora of Rosewill devices and have been very happy with them.)

What does this mean for you?  The same chip they used on this board is likely unmodified and the same version used on countless other add in cards as well as motherboards.  If any product using the µPD720201 chip functions under BSD, this product will.  This stated, driver support in Linux and Free Unix platforms such as FreeBSD is most often supported by their communities.  The µPD720201 chip has been out for some time, so it might be supported.

Google "µPD720201" and "FreeBSD µPD720201" for further information.  Good Luck!

Question 10

Does anyone have multiple USB 3.0 external drives attached?

I need to hook up three external hard drives and transfer files between them.  Can this do it?  The hub I bought can't.

Accepted Answer

For purposes of archiving TiVo recordings I'm running 2 PCs, Windows XP on both, with Western Digital My Book 2, 3, 4, and 5 TB USB3 external drives attached, and this card is in one of them,  as are some other 2, 4, and 5 port cards of various brands I got from newegg.

Moving files from one of those drives on the same card to another isn't super fast (it's a bit quicker between one of them and an internal  drive on one of the PCs SATA ports, although it's even faster between those), but it's do-able without any problems.

Questions & Answers