Thanks, Igor - this is very helpful. I had not even considered that the
USB 3.0 interface would be faster than the drives themselves until I
read Toine's comment earlier today. So I will just go with the one card
in an PCIe slot. In my case a hub will be essential since the USB 3.0
ports will be in the back of the PC, which is rather difficult to reach.
I'll be ordering the card and hub shortly.
USB 2.0 has not be a huge inconvenience since I am usually moving fairly
small chunks of data either off the PC onto backup drives or when
mirroring the backup drives onto another set of USB drives. At worst, I
sometimes need to queue the mirroring of drives to run overnight, since
it could take a few hours. But I again need to add another drive, which
means rearranging the entire library, and that is a process that takes
several days at USB 2.0 speeds. So I want to get this in place before
taking on that task.
Mark
On 7/7/2015 2:00 PM, Igor PDML-StR wrote:
Mark,
I have an old (circa 2007-08) desktop computer that I retrofitted with
a USB card in the PCIe x1 slot.
Yes, there is some speed limit compared to the _theoretical_ maximum
bandwidth of USB 3.0, but in reality it doesn't matter as the drives
do not have that throughput anyway.
And the advantage over USB-2 is very noticeable.
(And no, in this case, I wouldn't bother with the legacy PCI slots)
I don't remember the reason, but I remember that I decided not
to buy a card with more than 2 USB ports.
(It was likely for one of the following reasons:
1) insufficient power for more than 2 mobile drives, - a powered hub
does the job, see blelow)
2) those were unavailable (for PCIe-x1) or impractical. )
I haven't bothered to put two cards. For your two HDDs, I'd suggest
you try with one first, and only if it is insufficient, you go for the
second.
I don't know for sure how much speed advantage two cards would offer
over one, if at all.
Here is the card I bought in November 2012 for 12.03 at B&H. It is now
$12.99 there.
Transcend 2-Port USB 3.0 PCI Express Expansion Card
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/696114-REG/Transcend_TS_PDU3_2_Port_USB_3_0_PCI.html
I haven't used it heavily, but I am happy with the purchase, it is
adequate for what it is.
I've also been using a USB-3.0 hub (although mostly with my laptop).
Since you mentioned you are interested in one, here is the info.
USB-3.0 hub with 7 ports and 25 W external power.
The power is important with the [mobile] HDDs that don't have their
own power supplies (I have at least 2 of those).
Plugable Model: USB3-HUB7-81x
http://www.amazon.com/Plugable-SuperSpeed-Adapter-Charging-Support/dp/B008ZGKWQI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1436289196&sr=8-2&keywords=plugable
And while we are on the subject, - last December I bought this USB-3.0
SD-card reader (compatible with SDXC, etc., and UHS-1 capable, AFAIK):
Trancend TS-RDF8K
It is available for about $13 on Amazon, and I am very happy with it.
http://www.amazon.com/Transcend-Super-Multi-Card-Reader-TS-RDF8K/dp/B0056TYRMW/
It seems to be faster than all my cards (including UHS-1). I wrote
about it on PDML earlier, as a feedback response to Rob S., who
recommended this card reader when I was looking for one.
I would buy all three devices again.
HTH,
Igor
PS. As for the MoBo-upgrade idea, - beware of some caveats: you'd have
to check the compatibility with the existing CPU, memory, and the
power supply.
(There is a chance that the old power supply may not have sufficient
wattage for the newer motherboard, especially if you have plenty of
other power-hungry devices (video-card, HDDs) added/upgraded since the
computer was assembled at the beginning.)
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