Question 1

I already purchased, and it physically  won't fit any of the PCIE slots in my Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DS5.   Compared to a graphics card that I pulled from the PCIE x16 (2.0 compliant) the pins on this SYBA are larger - the notch is located correctly, but the first 11 pin set is 37% to big for the slot.

Is there more to PCI compatibility than I am aware of?

Accepted Answer

PCI and PCI-express are not backwards compatible. PCI-e 1x and PCI-e 16x are cross compatible but not with the original PCI. You need a PCI (non express) port on your motherboard to use this card.

Question 2

I want to install the card on a dell dimension 3000 pc with pci connectors and ide ports. Want to install windows on a sata 2 drive and boot from the drive. Will the BIOS see the controller/sata disk as a boot drive?

Accepted Answer

The sata controller on my system board failed on my file server and I purchased this card to get my drives back as it was cheaper than replacing the system board.  I was not able to get my OS drive to boot from this card.  I had an eSata card with an internal Sata connection.  I was able to get my OS drive to boot up with that one.  Every time I reboot I seem to have an issue with the 2 cards showing up together.  I have had to reboot a few times for the eSata controller to show up so that the OS to load.  I have not had time to troubleshoot.  I would not recommend this card for the OS at this time.  It works fine as a secondary controller.

Question 3

My current Motherboard is Asus P8H67-M Pro. Will this PCI card will fit on the PCI slot on this Motherboard? because this card look a little bit bigger than the PCI slot of the Motherboard. Please give me an confirm on this. Thanks

Accepted Answer

It should provided you are not using them.  According to the specs your mother board has the following:

1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (blue) 
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black) 
2 x PCI  -  This card will use one of these expansion slots.

Question 4

Does this support 3TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB drives (with no RAID involved)? I have a home server running Windows 7 x64 and use Stablebit Drivepool with drives currently in 1TB, 2TB, 3T, and 4TB sizes. The largest drives are connected to the newer mobo or PCIe SATA3 controllers, and the smallest drives are connected to SIL3114 PCI controllers. The 1TB and 2TB drives are dying and so I am looking to upgrade to PCI cards that can support at least 4TB drives. Will a SIL3124-based PCI card support 4TB drives with drivers for W7x64?

Accepted Answer

This is a PCI card which is older technology and I believe it is a 32bit card. I do not believe it can see more than 2tb drive.  I could be wrong. But I would choose at least a newer pcie card which has newer technology. Only way to know is just try it and see. They might have improved the card since.

Question 5

Can I use this card to connect an interal DVD or BluRay drive?

Accepted Answer

not sure, sorry.  without doing a bunch of research I couldn't tell you the right answer.  The item work well for me.  The one thing I can tell you is it has been real reliable.  As for compatibility, it is up to you to figure it out, if it will work for your computer and your computers  specs.

Good luck
Steve

Question 6

Will this item work in the newer version of windows? The 8.1
My goal is to be trouble free

Accepted Answer

Have several SYBA PCI40010 units working as data storage only cards. Please note the manufacturer suggests Windows 7, XP, 2000,, 2003 server and Mac OSX as recommended operating systems. Go to the SYBA site and you'll find they recommend using Windows 7 drivers for 8 OS.

As data storage only the cards have worked fairly well for PCI interface cards, however they tend to loose channels periodically and have to be replaced through the SYBA RMA procedure with a fast response time. I keep spares for these occasions. The channel loss did not affect the data or HDDs.
Hope the above helps.

Respectfully

Question 7

Will this card work with Windows Server 2012 R2? I saw on the website it claims it will work with Server 2012, but it is not listed here on Newegg. Thanks.

Accepted Answer

I used it with windows server 2012 and worked fine. I am not sure if R2 will work with it as I never had it installed. However, I don't see why R2 will loose compatibility over this card. It should inherit drivers as to my knowledge they're both 64bits.

Question 8

A little confused.  Is this card Mac compatible?  Syba's website says that it isn't.

Accepted Answer

It is not. However, when we tried it, it was on an older MAC IOS ver 9.  It may with later OS.  However, the manufacturer would be the best source of information.

Question 9

Will his work in a Dell Dimension 8200?

Accepted Answer

I have a Dimension 8200 that is now sitting dormant. As long as you have an available PCI slot, it will work in that ten-year-old computer. If you want the system to boot from this card, you will have to change the configuration in the CMOS Setup of the computer.

Question 10

Is it really a hardware RAID, as it states? After I read the reviews saying you have to install a software, I doubt...

Accepted Answer

The adapter ships with a RAID BIOS installed.  The adapter can be flashed with a non-RAID BIOS download.  The adapter requires installing an OS software driver for the respective OS and adapter BIOS installed... this software driver interfaces the adapter with the OS as is usually required to integrate hardware with an OS.

From the manual:
Product Introduction
The Silicon Image Sil3124 Serial ATA I/II to PCI-X32/64-bit Host Controller card
is a high performance, server class storage interface device, which provides a
multi-port SATA connectivity to minimize the host overhead and the host to
device latency. It also supports the latest NCQ hard disks. With this NCQ feature,
the hard disk performs more efficient, which means higher performance and longer
lifetime of the hard disks.

From my notes:
Hardware RAID Array Maximum size: 2.3TB; Except for JBOD mode.

I have only used this adapter with the non-RAID BIOS to extend the usable life of older motherboards.  Currently running it in a 2003 Dell Dimension 4600 P4 2.6GHz Win7 Pro x86.

Given they claim server class storage interface/RAID device, I'd say it should be hardware RAID.  It is cheap and old.

Cheers!

Questions & Answers