[est1895]

Syba has told me that this controller card will work with my Asus P5N-D motherboard.  I would like your thoughts about adding this controller card to my system.

http://sybausa.com/productInfo.php?iid=1397&currentPage=0

[MP-Ryan]

I think that you already have USB ports, right?  Why do you need more?

[Nuke]

its a 4 lane card, so it should work in any slot pcix slot 4x or larger. ive seen articles where people were able to run top tier video cards on a notebook with only one lane broke out. dont think of pcix as a parallel interface, think of it as an array of serial interfaces.

[est1895]

I think that you already have USB ports, right?  Why do you need more?

Actually I already have USB 2.0 ports on my motherboard, but this card will give me 2 X USB 3.0 ports and 2 X SATA III ports for 2 SSDs that I want to get.


BTW. My brother is going to have 2 X http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136928  of these to his computer.  They are rated at SATA 6Gs.  Doesn't 6gs mean SATA III also?

[Nuke]

yea i think they are the same.

[est1895]

yea i think they are the same.

So if I buy another controller card for my brother, his hard drives should be able to connect to it then?

[Klaustrophobia]

sata is backward/forward compatible anyway.  there might be some extreme cases i don't know about where it won't work, but in general any SATA drive can use any SATA port.  you'll just be limited to the speed of the port.  which for mechanical hard drives, is not limiting.  i really don't know if SSDs can saturate a SATA 2 link.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

sata is backward/forward compatible anyway.  there might be some extreme cases i don't know about where it won't work, but in general any SATA drive can use any SATA port.  you'll just be limited to the speed of the port.  which for mechanical hard drives, is not limiting.  i really don't know if SSDs can saturate a SATA 2 link.

Yea and I keep finding combs that aren't it seems so best not to take a chance.  I've got one SATA 1 drive that wont work on any system except for the one with the SATA1 controller.  I've got 3 SATA2 2TB WD green drives that work fine on one SATA3 controller but another SATA3 won't recognize them but the SATA2 ports on the same controller do.  It's a 6 port controller with 2 SATA3 and 4 SATA2. 

[Klaustrophobia]

well that's rotten luck 

i can imagine an old sata I drive not working on modern chipsets, but i'm quite surprised by a II drive not working on a III port.

in any case, my general advice would be if you have open ports on your motherboard already, try them first before spending money on something else.  if they don't work (or you just don't have any more), by all means go ahead and buy an expansion card.  but read reviews.  the general feeling seems to be they are less... stable than native ports.

[Nuke]

ive had situations where sata ports would out of the blue decide to stop working with a particular drive, but if you move the drive over to the next port it will work fine, if you put a new drive on the original port it will work fine too. i have a feeling thats more to do with the cables and not the controllers and drives though. but i mix and match speeds all the time. unless its an optical drive (which get put on the slowest port) i will use up the faster ports first and then the lesser ports,  whether the drives support it or not.

[est1895]

Here is what one of my friends said:

You will have to install it in one of the the PCIe 16x slots your motherboard has or the USB 3.0 ports will automatically downgrade to USB 2.0 speeds.  So make sure the other "long" PCIe isn't blocked by other cards.  Beyond that, not too much else to say, Syba makes good stuff in my experience.  That MB is a tad older, but assuming you are wanting access to a few faster busses without having to upgrade the whole machine.  You won't get the same performance as you would with a completely upgraded machine with those busses onboard due to the additional CPU time and lower overall buss performance of the P5N-D motherboard.  I've still got a P5N32E SLI Plus that is a solid performer.

[Klaustrophobia]

unless your board has pci-e 4x slots (which i doubt, i've only ever encountered a couple that do), it's not that it will downgrade to 2.0, it just flat out won't fit.

[est1895]

unless your board has pci-e 4x slots (which i doubt, i've only ever encountered a couple that do), it's not that it will downgrade to 2.0, it just flat out won't fit.

Here are my motherboard specs:

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5ND/#specifications

[Klaustrophobia]

yep, it's going to have to go in the second graphics slot, no 4x.  but it's two slots away, so your vid card won't cover it.

[est1895]

yep, it's going to have to go in the second graphics slot, no 4x.  but it's two slots away, so your vid card won't cover it.

Do you think it will increase the amount of heat produced, in the tower?  Or a strain on the system's speed?

[Nuke]

nah, its just an i/o board.

[Klaustrophobia]

do you already have all 4 of your onboard sata ports filled?  a quick google search shows that sataII is plenty even for SSDs.  there is no measurable speed increase from II to III.  no sense in spending extra money if that's the only reason you want it.  the USB 3.0 also won't do you any good unless you have usb 3.0 devices.

[est1895]

do you already have all 4 of your onboard sata ports filled?  a quick google search shows that sataII is plenty even for SSDs.  there is no measurable speed increase from II to III.  no sense in spending extra money if that's the only reason you want it.  the USB 3.0 also won't do you any good unless you have usb 3.0 devices.

Well this combo card is suppost to have 2 SATA III ports.  My motherboard is very old and only has SATA I ports.  The reason I'm going with SATA III is so that when I get a new system, the SSDs will hook right up to the new motherboard.

I do have another question though.  Can the SSDs receive damage in this configuration with the old motherboard and the combo card?

[Klaustrophobia]

i can't see how it would.

[est1895]

I got another question.  I bought 2 Western Digital VelociRaptor hard drives 3 years ago at a really good price.  I need to know if the time span has 'hurt' the drives, if I use them today?