The benefit of eSATA is high performance data transfer typically 2-3 times faster than FireWire 800 for connecting external devices. A drawback has been the need to install and maintain drivers for modern eSATA controller cards… Until now.
The NewerTech MAXPower eSATA 6G PCIe 2.0 Controller Card is among the very first in eSATA Controller cards for the Mac Pro and PCs that is fully Plug and Play. No drivers required for Apple OS 10.5 and later (also Plug and Play driverless with Windows Vista and later), this ACHI compliant PCI Express card is as easy as it gets for adding external SATA device support. Just “install it and forget it” by plugging it into an available PCIe slot and you can then enjoy the performance offered via the eSATA port standard on many OWC, NewerTech, and other third party single drive and hardware RAID solutions. This card isn’t for multi-drive Port Multiplier enclosures/solutions that require software or special RAID controller to enable RAID operation – but it’s an excellent choice for those solutions like the NewerTech GMAX, OWC Elite-AL Pro RAID, and OWC Qx2 solutions that provide a hardware controlled RAID solution and support higher data throughput via standard eSATA ports.
And for all you speed freaks out there, we’ve created the ultimate performance bundle. And we’ll have some benchmarks up soon showing just how fast you can go!
But I digress…back to this awesome card…it offers exceptional ease of use without the worry of a driver that may not work with a future OS release – it’s also an exceptional bargain priced at just $59.99. Because it doesn’t have those pesky drivers to maintain and possibly cause incompatibility down the road, one of its greatest benefits – that Plug and Play ease – also allows it to be exceptionally affordable too.
Bottom line…if you’ve ever wanted to enjoy the higher level of performance available from eSATA – but with the Plug and Play operation that you’ve grown accustomed to with FireWire – the NewerTech MaxPower eSATA 6G PCIe 2.0 Controller Card is your ticket to the fast lane.
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“Also, check the Drobo website for compatibility issues. They list a lot of cards & brands that currently have known issues.”
Unfortunately they did not mention the MAXPower eSATA 6G PCIe 2.0 Controller Card…! so I can’t use my Drobo S with this card either.
This card does not work in the 2008 MacPro trying to boot into VISTA with the ELite AL pro eSast enclosure hooked up via eSata. The card freezes and will not get past initializing. When the drives are off VISTA will boot. When there are on, just freezes up. Support said the card must not work properly when trying to boot into VISTA, they suggested I try a diff card. They said the card must not have certain drivers needed and it is freezing because it can not find them? Bummer! All dressed up and no where to go.
Thanks for stopping by and then later contacting our Tech Support department. Sounds like they got you all squared away.
Zegor, The Drobo requires the Port Multiplier feature on the e-SATA cards and as this blog mentioned, this card does not support it.
Also, check the Drobo website for compatibility issues. They list a lot of cards & brands that currently have known issues.
Installation was easy.
However, when I am using it with a 5-bay Drobo3 on a Mac Pro 2,1 the disk freezes up after a while, and the whole file system becomes unresponsive.
Connecting the Drobo with a FW 800 instead works just fine – so there seems to be an issue with the eSATA-Drobo interplay (or the eSATA card by itself, I have not tested it with other peripherals).
The system is a Snow Leopard 10.6.3
Installed easily in my Mac Pro tower (early 2009 model) in about 10 minutes…works perfectly with StarTech 2-bay hard drive dock that has SATA connections…I dropped in two, 2-tb drives in and added 4tb capacity to my system today.