Question 1

Can this card push an SSD to the SATA 3 limits?

Accepted Answer

No. This is like asking if you can get 3 gallons per minute from a hose that is only rated for 1.5 gallons per minute.  Your hard drive is the bottle neck in this case and simply doesn't have more bandwidth just because the controller card allows it. What the card does allow is attaching a better SSD with SATA III to attach to a system that only has SATA I or II connections.

Question 2

Anyone know for sure/ tried this as bootable? I'm looking for a Sata III card to stick in an older Dell T7400 server.  I want to use a SSD as the boot drive.  The card needs to boot, be AHCI, and also pass TRIM to the SSD.  Any and all suggestions or recommendations welcome. I can't seem to find any non-raid Intel cards but I swear I've seen them somewhere.  I'm thinking that an Intel card will pass TRIM to the SSD without issues.  Thanks in advance.

Accepted Answer

I am using this for my boot drive right now.  The only problem I run into is if I plug a removable device into one of the external port and reboot.  It changes the boot order on my computer and I just have to go in the BIOS and set it and reboot.  A small pain, but it only happens if I change the attached hardware.  The two external ports are numbered 0 and 1, the internal ports are 2 and 3.  So, in my situation, I have my boot drive on port 2 and my data drive on port 3.  Works like a champ and it wasn't any problem moving over to it either.  I installed the device and drivers while my drive was still running on the built in controller, then shut the computer down and moved the cable over to the new controller.  Once I went into the BIOS and set the boot order, it booted right up.

Question 3

Will this work with Windows 10 64 bit?

Accepted Answer

Yes it works with Win 10/64 bit. However it only supports 4 drives. Depends on what kind of drive bay you are using. I have a 5 bay Orico and only the first 4 drives work.

Question 4

Is there a driver for this card on windows 10?

Accepted Answer

Not that I know of, but Win 7 driver should work.
The card is relatively slow, but easy to setup and adds only one brief screen on startup.
I use it for backup drives.
Good luck

Question 5

I have a Intel core i5-2400s on a Gigabyte motherboard running Windows Home Server 2011. When I install the SI-PEX40063 which I just bought from Newegg, the board is not recognized. The instructions that came with board (which by the way is NOT from Syba, but from IOCrest) don't work. When I look in Driver Manager there is a Microsoft Standard AHCI SATA Controller shown, which does not recognize or use my Mediasonic JBOD boxes connected via eSata. There seems to be no way to remove the Microsoft driver, or to update it - Windows tells me "the best driver is already installed"! Any suggestions?

Accepted Answer

Had to get the Marvell92xx driver from the IOCrest Website.  Then it worked.

Question 6

Is it Windows 8.1 64 bit compatible ?

Accepted Answer

Works on Ubuntu 13.10.  Not sure about Windows 8.1.

HP z600 Workstation - Loaded w/3 internal SATA drives configured as JBODs.  The controller had some trouble with RAID initially but found there was a conflict with another SATA RAID controller.  Pull the conflicting RAID controller and all was well.

I had trouble with it on my Windows Home Server 2011.  I may have been having trouble with my BIOS on this one though.

HP xw8400 Workstation - loaded with the latest BIOS
Internal SATA with 6 disks configured as 2 RAID logical drives

Attempted HighPoint controller but RAID stunk, card resets.  Stuck with JBOD on this card in my home server with no problems.

Question 7

The small manual that comes with the card, on the last line it says, "for external use, see the external users manual." Anybody know where to find it? It is not on the mini-cd that came with the product; nor in the Win 10 Download from the SYBS site. I left them a question, but haven't heard from them yet.

Accepted Answer

If you're running Windows 10, you should be able to use the standard Microsoft drivers for the Card.  Some older cards, the manufacturer does not provide software drivers for some of the newer OS's like Windows 10, Linux, Mac OS-X, etc.... There may be jumpers on the card that you need to move if you're trying to use the external SATA connectors rather than the SATA connectors that would hook up to internal drives.

Question 8

I have a Dell desktop running Win 8.1 Pro with a motherboard that has an Intel H61 chipset, (a) which I understand does not support AHCI, and (b) is only SATA II compatible. I have recently purchased a 2.5” SSD and would like to make that SATA III compatible (and, if possible AHCI compatible as well). How may I achieve that? If I install this  PCI-Express 2.0 Controller Card (available on Newegg), into a PCI slot on my computer and then connect the SSD to this controller card (or to the motherboard, not sure what would plug into what), would it make my SSD, SATA III compatible? Also, would I need to upgrade the cable that connects the SSD to the motherboard/PCI controller card? Thanks.

Accepted Answer

You can add a SATA III controller card to your motherboard, but make sure that the slot you're installing it into is fast enough.  There are small PCIe X1 connectors, and also X2, X4, X8, & X16. Try a Syba PCIe X4 SATA III controller card with 2 or 4 SATA III connectors.

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