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on January 23, 2015
Great card that worked well with all of my portable external HDD's for over two years. The card that I received contained the NEC chipset. The drivers for this chipset were contained on the provided mini-CD. I did not ever have to use the included power cord to provide extra juice for my HDD's as the Expresscard bus worked fine on its own.
Eventually around two years into ownership, my drives started randomly disconnecting. I thought that it was just the drive or one of my applications causing this initially. After troubleshooting the problem by moving the drives to the built-in USB ports on my laptop it was apparent that the card was shot.
I don't regret purchasing this card for $12 as it worked perfectly for two years of heavy use. I had to cut my losses and move onto another card. My next NEC chipset powered card was a dud as I couldn't find this exact card again so I ended up picking up a Gmyle card with an Asmedia chip that has two ports and has been working fine now for about a week.
Eventually around two years into ownership, my drives started randomly disconnecting. I thought that it was just the drive or one of my applications causing this initially. After troubleshooting the problem by moving the drives to the built-in USB ports on my laptop it was apparent that the card was shot.
I don't regret purchasing this card for $12 as it worked perfectly for two years of heavy use. I had to cut my losses and move onto another card. My next NEC chipset powered card was a dud as I couldn't find this exact card again so I ended up picking up a Gmyle card with an Asmedia chip that has two ports and has been working fine now for about a week.
on June 29, 2011
Pros: Fast 185MB/sec transfer speed; Provides good power; Sits flush; Package is easy to open.
Cons: My driver disk was blank; Power Cable that connects to USB Port to provide power makes your laptop look funny; USB has lots of overhead.
The diver disk included with this product was a blank CD-R, this was probably a manufacturer oversight. Thus, no driver was included. Windows 7 could not find a driver for the product automatically. Product that was sent to me has an NEC (Renesas) Chipset.
Once I found a driver this product worked great. I was able to push 180-185 MB/sec with an SSD in a USB 3.0 enclosure. Around 180MB/sec is known to be close to the top speed of the USB 3.0 certified NEC chipset. The NEC chipset is used on many motherboards to provide built-in USB 3.0 support. The same drive connected internally over SATA revision 3 (aka SATA 6.0 Gb/sec) pushes about 250 MB/sec. If you want full speed connection to a fast SSD, you are probably better off with eSATA. Obviously there is some slowdown in the conversion from going from SATA to USB. 185MB/sec is fast enough for my needs, and super fast compared to the slowness of normal USB at about 40 MB/sec. This powered a 160 GB SSD and a 500 GB HDD in an external enclosure just fine with the extra power cable attached.
Link to Driver in comment below.
Cons: My driver disk was blank; Power Cable that connects to USB Port to provide power makes your laptop look funny; USB has lots of overhead.
The diver disk included with this product was a blank CD-R, this was probably a manufacturer oversight. Thus, no driver was included. Windows 7 could not find a driver for the product automatically. Product that was sent to me has an NEC (Renesas) Chipset.
Once I found a driver this product worked great. I was able to push 180-185 MB/sec with an SSD in a USB 3.0 enclosure. Around 180MB/sec is known to be close to the top speed of the USB 3.0 certified NEC chipset. The NEC chipset is used on many motherboards to provide built-in USB 3.0 support. The same drive connected internally over SATA revision 3 (aka SATA 6.0 Gb/sec) pushes about 250 MB/sec. If you want full speed connection to a fast SSD, you are probably better off with eSATA. Obviously there is some slowdown in the conversion from going from SATA to USB. 185MB/sec is fast enough for my needs, and super fast compared to the slowness of normal USB at about 40 MB/sec. This powered a 160 GB SSD and a 500 GB HDD in an external enclosure just fine with the extra power cable attached.
Link to Driver in comment below.
on February 7, 2012
I bought this card after looking at every Expresscard to USB 3.0 adapter on Amazon. I won't deny that cost became an important decision as I figured if it didn't work was much money lost. Beyond cost though my biggest concerns were fitting flush in laptop and over heating.
Many reviewers other Expresscards reviewed kept saying the card wasn't fitting flush to the edge on their Laptop. This seemed especially true of Dell laptop owners. This card fit completely flush in my Dell Inspiron 4500. Really nice when I travel as I leave the card in all the time and just remove USB cable.
A few other (I think one or two) Expresscards for USB 3.0 were said to be very hot after constant use. This worried me as most times my laptop would be docked and I planned to have the card hooked up 24/7. This card has not shown any issues with being too hot or even too warm. I run it 24/7 and have checked couple times. Every time its been barely warmer than room temperature. No concern that it gets too hot.
Lastly the only reason I'm giving this 4 stars and not 5 is that I'm not sure about the speed. Technically speaking the Expresscard slot speed can be anywhere from USB 2.0 (480 Mbit/s) to 1xPCI (2.5 Gbit/s). The USB 3.0 specification is for 5.0 Mbit/s. Therefore no matter what I wasn't going to get maximum USB 3.0 speed and I knew this up front.
I'm using this card with a SANOXY USB 3.0 to HDMI/DVI Multi Monitor Video Adapter 1080p with Audio Video converter 2048 x 1152 pixels High Resolution/ Multi Monitor USB 3.0 graphic adapter link up to 6 displays and Mirror Mode supports hot plugging use for PC/Laptop to USB cable .... Because I'm driving video I was hoping for the 1xPCI speed.
My problem is I can't find any technical documentation from Dell on what the expected/supported speed for the Expresscard slot in laptop is suppose to be. Therefore I can't say if what appears to me to be slower than expected speed is due to the card or due to Dell's design.
Many reviewers other Expresscards reviewed kept saying the card wasn't fitting flush to the edge on their Laptop. This seemed especially true of Dell laptop owners. This card fit completely flush in my Dell Inspiron 4500. Really nice when I travel as I leave the card in all the time and just remove USB cable.
A few other (I think one or two) Expresscards for USB 3.0 were said to be very hot after constant use. This worried me as most times my laptop would be docked and I planned to have the card hooked up 24/7. This card has not shown any issues with being too hot or even too warm. I run it 24/7 and have checked couple times. Every time its been barely warmer than room temperature. No concern that it gets too hot.
Lastly the only reason I'm giving this 4 stars and not 5 is that I'm not sure about the speed. Technically speaking the Expresscard slot speed can be anywhere from USB 2.0 (480 Mbit/s) to 1xPCI (2.5 Gbit/s). The USB 3.0 specification is for 5.0 Mbit/s. Therefore no matter what I wasn't going to get maximum USB 3.0 speed and I knew this up front.
I'm using this card with a SANOXY USB 3.0 to HDMI/DVI Multi Monitor Video Adapter 1080p with Audio Video converter 2048 x 1152 pixels High Resolution/ Multi Monitor USB 3.0 graphic adapter link up to 6 displays and Mirror Mode supports hot plugging use for PC/Laptop to USB cable .... Because I'm driving video I was hoping for the 1xPCI speed.
My problem is I can't find any technical documentation from Dell on what the expected/supported speed for the Expresscard slot in laptop is suppose to be. Therefore I can't say if what appears to me to be slower than expected speed is due to the card or due to Dell's design.
on September 30, 2011
I recently replaced my internal Seagate ST9200420ASG 200GB hard drive with a Seagate ST95005620AS 500GB (4GB SSD). The 200GB drive is still functional, so I bought a external drive enclosure to allow me to use it for backup purposes. The enclosure supports USB 3.0, so I bought the AKE USB 3.0 express card to see if I could eek any better performance out of the drive.
Below are timings for my experience. My external drive usage is pretty much limited to backup, so I did not test read time from the drives, only write.
My hardware:
Dell XPS M1530
Intel Core Duo T7700 2.4GHz
4GB memory
Ultra ATA 100 controller
PCI 1.0
Internal Seagate ST95005620AS 500GB (4GB SSD) hard drive
External Seagate ST9200420ASG 200GB hard drive
External Western Digital Passport 070A 500GB USB 2.0 hard drive
AKE ExpressCard USB 3.0 (no additionial power supplied)
Aluratek SuperSpeed USB 3.0 2.5/3.5 SATGA Hard Drive Docking Enclosure
Testing scenario
Copy a single 1.2GB binary file from Internal Seagate ST95005620AS 500GB to:
1) Internal Seagate ST95005620AS 500GB
Copy took 0:0:35.99
2) External Seagate ST9200420ASG 200GB - Internal USB 2.0
Copy took 0:0:51.83
3) External Seagate ST9200420ASG 200GB - AKE USB 3.0 Express Card
Copy took 0:0:39.72
4) External Western Digital Passport 500GB - Internal USB 2.0
Copy took 0:0:58.47
5) External Western Digital Passport 500GB - AKE USB 3.0 Express Card
Copy took 0:0:41.58
I was pleased to see the 23% performance increase when using the Aluratek with USB 3.0 vs 2.0.
I was surprised that the USB 2.0 Passport drive showed a 29% performance increase when it used the AKE USB 3.0 ExpressCard.
The card is definitely worth the money.
Below are timings for my experience. My external drive usage is pretty much limited to backup, so I did not test read time from the drives, only write.
My hardware:
Dell XPS M1530
Intel Core Duo T7700 2.4GHz
4GB memory
Ultra ATA 100 controller
PCI 1.0
Internal Seagate ST95005620AS 500GB (4GB SSD) hard drive
External Seagate ST9200420ASG 200GB hard drive
External Western Digital Passport 070A 500GB USB 2.0 hard drive
AKE ExpressCard USB 3.0 (no additionial power supplied)
Aluratek SuperSpeed USB 3.0 2.5/3.5 SATGA Hard Drive Docking Enclosure
Testing scenario
Copy a single 1.2GB binary file from Internal Seagate ST95005620AS 500GB to:
1) Internal Seagate ST95005620AS 500GB
Copy took 0:0:35.99
2) External Seagate ST9200420ASG 200GB - Internal USB 2.0
Copy took 0:0:51.83
3) External Seagate ST9200420ASG 200GB - AKE USB 3.0 Express Card
Copy took 0:0:39.72
4) External Western Digital Passport 500GB - Internal USB 2.0
Copy took 0:0:58.47
5) External Western Digital Passport 500GB - AKE USB 3.0 Express Card
Copy took 0:0:41.58
I was pleased to see the 23% performance increase when using the Aluratek with USB 3.0 vs 2.0.
I was surprised that the USB 2.0 Passport drive showed a 29% performance increase when it used the AKE USB 3.0 ExpressCard.
The card is definitely worth the money.
on August 11, 2011
Apparently this card comes with either a NEC USB3.0 or a Frescoe Logic FL1000 chipset. The description on the site does say NEC as the chipset. Mine was labeled LT-230 and came with a NEC one. Lenovo does have the updated drivers for mine. Its found under T520. Only con is if it's not inserted properly, the computer will go haywire on Windows restart. Lack of documentation is understandable since it pretty simple to install. Just not labeled properly so you have to install each driver and see what works.
on July 30, 2011
Shipping packaging could have been a little better but the box that the unit comes in to begin with protects it quite well. The card is not plug and play but after a few minutes it is quite easy to install the card. It works quite well with usb 2.0 and I am reserving the right to add another comment as I try it with a usb 3.0 device.
on January 21, 2011
I got the AKE USB 3.0 adapter today. Very simple package with singel CD with no instruction. It was easy enought to find dirver on the package and install.
Run a quick test using external 2.5" USB 3.0 HD. Card provide enough power for the HD so don't need external power supply. Benchmark software shows it double transfer rate of my external HD (see in product pictures. The best thing is that I can just keep this adapter in my Expresscard slot.
CON: The adapter can came out too easily when I remove USB cable but this not a big issue.
Run a quick test using external 2.5" USB 3.0 HD. Card provide enough power for the HD so don't need external power supply. Benchmark software shows it double transfer rate of my external HD (see in product pictures. The best thing is that I can just keep this adapter in my Expresscard slot.
CON: The adapter can came out too easily when I remove USB cable but this not a big issue.
on July 29, 2011
This USB adapter works, once the right driver is installed. Unfortunately the speeds (benchmarked per optimistic Atto 2.46 utility) weren't close to the maximum USB 3.0 standard.
With two different USB 3.0 devices, such as the Seagate Go-Flex, transfer rates maxed out in the 65-70 MB/sec range. This is higher than speeds through a USB 2.0 port, which were about 30-35 MB/sec. With a very fast USB 3.0/eSATA external hardware RAID drive speeds through this device topped out at 96 MB/sec read/ 75 MB/sec write. I was expecting double that rate. [For the sake of comparison the same drive RAID thru the eSATA port achieved 233 MB/sec write, 210 MB/sec read.]
I noted that the included power cable that is supposed to provide additional current drawn from an adjacent USB port did not affect anything. So for the money I got another, somewhat faster USB port.
Overall maybe it's a fair deal, but don't expect too much.
With two different USB 3.0 devices, such as the Seagate Go-Flex, transfer rates maxed out in the 65-70 MB/sec range. This is higher than speeds through a USB 2.0 port, which were about 30-35 MB/sec. With a very fast USB 3.0/eSATA external hardware RAID drive speeds through this device topped out at 96 MB/sec read/ 75 MB/sec write. I was expecting double that rate. [For the sake of comparison the same drive RAID thru the eSATA port achieved 233 MB/sec write, 210 MB/sec read.]
I noted that the included power cable that is supposed to provide additional current drawn from an adjacent USB port did not affect anything. So for the money I got another, somewhat faster USB port.
Overall maybe it's a fair deal, but don't expect too much.
on April 9, 2013
This card adds USB 3.0 to my laptop. I wasn't overly impressed with this card. It didn't fit my laptop tightly so would disconnect and required a reboot to work again.
