USB 2 or eSATA PCI card

[Jason Joines]

Michael Hipp wrote:
> Jason Joines wrote:
>> Michael Hipp wrote:
>>> Jason Joines wrote:
>>>> From: Michael Hipp <Michael at Hipp.com>
>>>>>>         
>>>>> I've had great success with StarTech.com USB2 PCI cards. I've used them in 
>>>>> several servers. Plug them and they work.
>>>>>       
>>>>     Thanks for the tip.  Do you happen to know the difference between
>>>> their "4 Port USB 2.0 PCI Card" and their "Value 4 Port USB 2.0 PCI
>>>> Card"?  I looked at the specs and couldn't tell but the value card is
>>>> less than half the price.
>>>>     
>>> I have no idea. I'm pretty sure I've always used the "value" card judging from 
>>> the price, but I don't remember that moniker on it. I strive to be a 
>>> cheapskate whenever circumstances allow.
>>>
>>> If you'd like I can look at a couple of mine to see which model they are. I 
>>> have one in a server at my office and one on the shelf IIRC. But it will be 
>>> tomorrow as I'm onsite at a client today.
>>>
>>     Just heard back from their sales folks.  The "Value" card uses an
>> ALI chipset and the more expensive one uses a VIA chipset.  That doesn't
>> mean anything to me so I'll probably go with the cheaper one too.  If
>> you get a chance it would be nice to know which one you are using
>> successfully though.
>
> I found 3 StarTech cards here. Two of them are using a NEC chip. The 
> other is VIA. I didn't find any ALI. The VIA one is a StarTech PCI220USB 
> which is not the one labeled as "value". I stuck it in a machine over on 
> the bench, booted a Kubuntu disk, plugged in a thumbdrive and it came up 
> and worked with zero effort. I have NEC chipset cards in running servers 
> so I know they work.
>
> I'd have to say the ALI is an unknown to me. However, this seems to 
> indicate that ALI chipsets are no problem:
>    http://www.linux-usb.org/usb2.html  (search the page for ALI)
>
> I did a Google search on 'ALI USB chip linux'.
>
> Michael



    Thanks for all the info.  I ended up emailing the manufacturer of
just about every reasonably priced card I could find to see what chipset
they used.  ( I wish manufacturers and retailers would just post that
info on their websites. )  I ended up with a Kanguru USB2PCIcard with
NEC ?PD720101GJ chipset for $20 from kanguru.com.

    It works just fine but USB 2 in general seems to be much slower than
I'd hoped.  Connected to a drive enclosure with an SATA II ( 3 Gbps )
drive, it still gets outperformed by internal ATA 100 drives though it
may be the particular USB to SATA bridge ( Sunplus Technology ) in the
enclosure slowing things down.


Jason
===========