External 2 Port SATA III Controller

I've come to the conclusion that my current controller card has gone south, thus I'm looking for a replacement. It is simple to compare cards in terms of their basic specs, but even with cards of the same specs, the prices vary widely.

Often, the higher priced cards seem to emphasize their performance, but this is something that I don't know how to evaluate. How does one choose a card for the best combination of quality and performance, without wasting money on a brand name?

essenbe said:

Seekermeister, i have been considering one too. What I do is go to a place like Newegg and read all the reviews. It depends on what you want to do with it. I just need 2 or 3 extra ports. I don't care about raid. I've seen some that have low reviews, because they can't get top performance from raid, but if used as a single drives they work well. For me, that's all I care about. It seems if you want to run raid, a good card will cost some extra money.

That is the kind of card that I want also...no need for raid. However, even with that in mind, the prices still vary quite a bit. I'm just looking for something tangible to make a decision by, because opinions just don't quite cut it.

Zepher,

have you considered getting a new motherboard instead of a card?

Actually, I have. But not because of the controller issue. I suppose that the motherboard could be the cause of the problems, but I somehow don't feel so. I did move the controller to a different PCIe slot, which made no difference, but I find it difficult to believe that the motherboard is simply incompatible with a controller card. The controller's BIOS page does appear as it should, it simply won't boot with a drive powered on.

However, the reasons for my decision go beyond the boot issues, because I have been having other problems, like VLC crashing when I try to play a video on the external drive. I have to admit that much of what I'm going on is just intuition, but sometimes that serves the purpose.

essenbe,

If I decide to go the cheap route, here is one that interests me some:

Syba SY-PEX40038 PCIe 2-Port External SATA3 Controller | eBay

I'm not particularly impressed with Syba, because if this one is like one that I already have, it has a VIA chipset, which I don't really care for, but the specs are good, and from the picture, it looks short enough to fit into my first PCIe slot, without having to pass through the slot in the mosfet HS/fan. However, that is not my first consideration, I just want the best card that I can afford, but best needs to be defined in some fashion.

I don't understand, both cards only have external ports.