On Sat 20 Sep 2014 11:49:31 NZST +1200, Chris Hellyar wrote: > Random Q: for the weekend.. Got a M/B without USB 3 I'd like to > stick a card in. > > Anyone bought one recently? Chipsets to avoid? Emotional outbursts?
Oh boy, you're gonna be glad you asked... I was looking at this for the purposes of connecting CF cards at proper speed, i.e. with the card being the limiting factor, not some stupid 8bit microcontroller in a flash hub USB card reader whatnot. Couldn't find anything, other than a USB3-connected flash card reader. Sold the first one because it turned out to be a paperweight. You are aware that USB3 connectors are 2x10 pin headers internally, not 2x5? I.e. what used to give you 2 USB ports from the mobo pun header now gives you one. There are 4 different chipsets for USB3 on the market. Only the NEC (now Renesas) has a Linux driver, from a competent programmer at Intel I think, which was also the world's first USB3 driver IIRC (yes Microsoft was later). It's uPD720201, or some variation on the last digit. Cards with any of the other 3 chips are electronic junk. One of them is a VIA VL800 4-port USB3.0 host controller: http://www.via-labs.com/en/products/vl800/index.jsp I can probably dig out the names of the remaining two. There may be Linux drivers for some, but not something which actually deserves that name! 02:00.0 USB controller: NEC Corporation uPD720200 USB 3.0 Host Controller (rev 04) 06:00.0 USB controller: Renesas Technology Corp. uPD720201 USB 3.0 Host Controller (rev 03) (the first is on the mobo) The card is a http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/241462886.html The flash card reader on my thing I think is implemented with a Genesys Logic GL3220 http://www.genesyslogic.com/en/product_view.php?show=12 When transferring large amounts of data (several gigabytes) the kernel driver tends to crash on fast CF cards, but not on slower ones. I am unsure whether it's the card reader driver or the USB3.0 driver. At least now the system keeps running and the driver can be re-loaded, when I reported the bug it was black screen with the usual panic gibberish. Theoretically it's also possible cheap Chinese PCIe electronics have troubles with higher speeds... I have not tried any hard disks connected with USB3.0 (USB2 is totally useless), and above experience makes me reluctant to try. Give me SATA any day, it just works, is hot-pluggable and as fast as things go. If you want this for a hard disk, you're on the wrong track, go buy a SATA card instead. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.top.geek.nz/ Please do not CC list postings to me. _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.canterbury.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
