StarTech.com 1 Port eSATA + 1 Port SATA PCI SATA Controller Card w/LP Bracket - eSATA Controller - SATA II Controller (PCIESATA2I)

I already had the need to expand the disk space on an older PC, and I used this card to introduce a SATA disk to a Windows XP PC. When I needed to do the same again, I went back to this proven SATA controller. Important safety tip: you cannot use a SATA drive as the boot disk on a Windows XP computer.

The card is simple to install - insert it in a PCI slot and run the accompanying CD to install the drivers. It gives you one internal SATA connection and one external connection. However, as I found out and confirmed with the company, do not use this card if you want to connect a SATA DVD or CD drive to your computer. It is designed only for SATA hard drives. It worked fine for me when I connected a hard drive to it, just wouldn't work with an optical drive.

Build quality is poor, quality control does not exist. It can't be properly installed AT ALL

Never measured the i/o speed -- was just super-happy to get the server duplicated to another drive

This won't work in newer Linux kernel, Support told me it requires an older one (ST website has the info). That Driver is built in, there's no driver to download and mess with for Linux. But newer Linux doesn't have that. I couldn't even research enough to obtain something I could work with/modify. They only have a Win driver available, but Win10 will probably just figure it out on its own.TBF, it is PCI, so I shouldn't be surprised, but the product description really needs to clarify that. The seller in the Q&A said it works for Linux.StarTech Support is really good, live chat in seconds, knowledgeable technician.Amazon's "Tech Support" is in way over their heads on something like this. Told me to download "Linux 2012" ... which isn't a thing.Return wasn't a problem thankfully.

This does not support port replication for external enclosures with multiple hard drives...

This SATA/eSATA adapter board works nicely in my 10 year old PC. Sadly my motherboard or bios does not allow me to boot from this device as I had hoped. This is probably no fault of the product at all and more likely due to the antique nature of motherboard I am using.

Bought this unit to add an internal eSATA port for an additional drive unit. It's small, installed quietly and quickly, and performs just like a motherboard header.

Lieferung war pünktlich da....Leider fehlte hier die Treiber CD ,obwohl laut Beschreibung eine dabei sein sollte. Im Internet nach dem Treiber gesucht u auch gleich gefunden. Installiert und ging auch sofort. Kann es weiter empfehlen

Arrivato nei tempi prestabiliti (anzi prima). Ottimo venditore.La scheda funziona molto bene.Purtroppo NON E' in grado di fare il BOOT ma se non serve questa funzione è ottima.

Elle fonctionne bien mais elle ne peut pas booter sur un disque dur installé sur carte mère ASUS A8V Deluxe.

This PCI card has a VIA VT6421 chipset, which only supports SATA-I disks.VIA's website says the chipset is incapable of auto-negotiation: i.e. unlike some newer VIA chipsets it CANNOT negotiate with the disk's controller to recognise a SATA-II disk as SATA-I, to run it at SATA-I speed.The only way to connect a SATA-II disk to this card is to set the on-disk hardware option as SATA-I, using an (optional)  mini jumper pin . This forces the hard disk to emulate a SATA-I disk, and runs it at SATA-I speeds, i.e. at 150Mbps only.Not all SATA-II hard disks have an option to emulate SATA-I, and those which can emulate it require a jumper-shunt pin, which is NOT usually supplied with the disk but must be purchased seperately.Some Western Digital disks (e.g.  WD5000AAKS ) have the option to emulate SATA-I by jumpering pins 5 and 6 on the disk. But you will have to buy separately a 2.54mm mini jumper pin (e.g. from Psylins Computer, in their  CMP-SCREWKIT10 ).Because I'm using Windows ME, upgrading the computer to support a disk larger than 137GB, by installing a PCI card that supports 48-bit LBA, is an attractive option.SATA is the safest choice, since by purchasing a SATA hard disk there is no way it could ever be accidentally connected to the motherboard (which doesn't support disks exceeding 137GB), since the motherboard only has IDE connectors.I looked around for a PCI card which would be compatible with an older (year 2000) model PC, and chose the this one, which uses the requisit PCI 2.2 connector and provides driver files for Windows 9x. With its VIA VT6421 chipset it provides one internal SATA port and one external e-SATA port: this gives scope for future expansion, as the e-SATA port will accept external SATA devices.For now, I'm just using the internal SATA port, to make use of my one free 5.25 inch drive bay. I've installed a StarTech.com caddy (a  Serial-ATA Drive Drawer  type DRW110SAT) in that bay. I thought this was likely to be a success: matching a StarTech.com PCI card with a StarTech.com drive caddy. And I was right.The caddy is designed for both SATA-I and SATA-II disks, so it is okay to use a  500GB SATA-II disk  with it. But this PCI card is rated for SATA-I disks only, like all PCI cards that support SATA (for SATA-II support you need PCI-Express, something you don't find on pre-2001 motherboards); so to use this hard disk with a PCI card you must fit a 2.54mm mini jumper shunt on pins 5 and 6 on the hard disk (not supplied: I bought some; they're include in the  Psylins CMP-SCREWKIT10 ).This PCI card comes with a SATA data cable, for connecting the PCI card to the caddy or disk. So it's not necessary to buy a SATA data cable.A driver CD comes with the PCI card. This includes, in a Win9x subdirectory, the files VIAMRAID.mpd and VIAMVSD.VXD (which Windows will put in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS) and VIAMRAID.INF (which Windows will put in C:\WINDOWS\INF\OTHER).With the computer switched off, I plugged the PCI card into a PCI socket, but I didn't install the caddy or the hard disk. On startup, the computer detected this PCI card and asked for the driver CD. I inserted it and navigated to the location of the Windows 9x drivers (they're in D:\Windows\VIAStor\driver\Raid\win9x if your CD-ROM drive is drive D:).Once the desktop appeared, I did a quick check in Device Manager (go to: Start > Settings > Control Panel > System), under "SCSI controllers", for the entry "VIA VT6421 RAID Controller". (It was NOT necessary to run the RAID BIOS utility, because I was only attaching a single SATA disk. Furthermore, it was NOT necessary to run the Setup.exe program in the CD's root directory.)I then shut down the computer normally. I then installed the drive caddy (now containing the hard disk), connected it to a 4-pin power connector, and connected it to the (red) SATA data cable (which I also connected to this PCI card). I then restarted the computer.All was fine so far. But of course the new disk was not yet partitioned, so Windows ME could not yet "see" it in My Computer or Windows Explorer. The next step was to download a special partitioning program.Western Digital's website provides a downloadable program called "Data Lifeguard Tools for Windows". This can partition and format a SATA disk."Data Lifeguard Tools for Windows" can also copy files from an existing disk to the new disk. So I did my first backup: I successfully copied my entire C: drive (80GB) onto one of the four partitions on the new SATA disk.The only reason I gave this unit just two stars, originally, was that it was being advertised as a SATA-II device, when it is not; but this has now been corrected. I'd now give the device a much higher star-rating, but it's unfortunately not possible to change that aspect. mini jumper pinWD5000AAKSCMP-SCREWKIT10Serial-ATA Drive Drawer500GB SATA-II diskPsylins CMP-SCREWKIT10

I did not like the way it totally failed to work not to mention running so hot as to present a fire hazard!