[Yvonne Schultz]

Thanks a bunch for your help. I believe I’m leaning toward the Sonnet currently as well. Anyone else have any opinions? Some further assistance would be a huge help. Thanks all!

Proud owner of a happy pet Cthulhu!

[Yvonne Schultz]

So I’m going to purchase a new eSATA card. I’m trying to decide between the Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P and the CalDigit Fasta-4e cards, both of which I’ve found in stock at a retailer. Any idea which is better quality, offers better performance, etc? Opinions would be HUGELY APPRECIATED so I don’t end up with another Vantec, LoL. Thoughts?

Proud owner of a happy pet Cthulhu!

[Yvonne Schultz]

Looks like I went totally wrong with the Vantec. It causes all sorts of problems with my new PC. Freezes, BSODs, black screens until I turn the enclosure off two out of every three times I try to use it, random restarts, corrupted data, conflicts with my video card, and to even get it to work I have to keep restarting the PC until it decides it wants to show up. And this is with the newest drivers for Vista x64. I’m totally frustrated and furious. They state right on their website that it is Vista x64 capable and FIS capable as well. Not so. It waits until one drive is finished transfering before starting another drive’s transfer. All around a total piece of garbage. I called their tech support three days straight and was told someone would call me back as they were “busy”. Left my name and number all three days but….you guessed it……no call back. Finally the following week I demanded to speak to someone. Got a guy on the line who knew nothing. I knew more than he did. He didn’t even know what FIS was! He told me that they hadn’t really tested much on Vista x64 and it was Vista’s fault. He told me to buy XP! Ridiculous! When I asked why they listed it as Vista x64 compatible, he had no answer. I asked if I could return it to them and get my money back since thay had falsely advertised it as having features it did not, but was told they couldn’t do that. He actually had the nerve to tell me that I could order ANOTHER one and see if that would work! Totally ridiculous! As you can probably tell, I’m furious…….and unable to access my data! Can anyone advise me on any other cards that support port multipliers, FIS, and Vista x64? Caldigit and Max have both turned me away. Anyone left that makes quality cards? Geez, I’m seriously considering buying a new motherboard at this point with an ESATA port, but that will cost upwards of $300 and be a TON of work tearing everything apart. Any advice please?

Proud owner of a happy pet Cthulhu!

[Yvonne Schultz]

Well, I went with the Vantec V13-1110 for now. Anyone heard anything or have any opinions on it? Cost around $60. I’m so disappointed I couldn’t purchase a higher end card, especially the CalDigit. What kind of company doesn’t have any of one of their flagship products in stock and can’t tell you where you might purchase one? Hopefully the Vantec isn’t a total piece of garbage. I looked at reviews for the IOgear and they were less than stellar. At least the Vantec supports FIS switching. Wish me luck, and feel free to weigh in with any further thoughts….

Thanks again all…..
Yvonne

Proud owner of a happy pet Cthulhu!

[Yvonne Schultz]

Hi and thanks for the info. I called CalDigit and spoke with a few people there last night. Unfortunately, I was told that they are no longer selling the Fasta-4e, do not have any in stock, and do not know of anyone who does. The card did support FIS switching, FYI. They told me they would be coming out with a new generation of ESATA card in the next couple of months. Too long for me to wait, unfortunately.

I also contacted Maxx Digital, and was told that their only ESATA cards come as a package with Multiple Drive Enclosures. I got the feeling they didn’t want to mess around with someone just buying a card, and it was too small an order for them to accommodate me, but who knows. Looking on their website as well, I don’t see any separate ESATA cards for sale.

So I guess both of those companies are a bust. I was really hoping to go with CalDigit too, as they were very helpful and friendly on the phone and their products looked to be of excellent quality.

Anyway, does anyone have any other recommendations? I’m getting a bit frustrated with the search here. I was hoping to get a card by the weekend. Should I just go with a cheap solution like Vantac or IOgear? I had really wanted to avoid that after seeing people here being advised the cheaper cards are “junk” and to “throw them in the garbage”, LoL.

A friend of mine advised me to purchase one of these cards from a seller on Ebay, but the brand of card doesn’t appear to be listed. Any thoughts on this one:

https://cgi.ebay.com/4-PORT-3G-S-RAID-5-SATA-eSATA-PCIe-PCI-Express-x8-Card_W0QQitemZ250341574844QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item250341574844&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318

Further assistance would be greatly appreciated guys…..thanks for everything……I hope to hear back from you soon. Thanks again for taking time out of your busy schedules to help a girl out!

Yvonne

Proud owner of a happy pet Cthulhu!

[Yvonne Schultz]

Hello and thank you for the info. I’m just curious, in your opinion, do you think I would see any significant performance increase between one of the cheap “garbage” cards like the Vantec I mentioned (or take your pick of other cheap ones) and a high end card like a CalDigit? I’m just curious whether speeds would be significantly better with a better quality card. And what about my old motherboard sloution for that matter? Do the PCIe cards provide an advantage over something like that?

Again, thanks so much for the info you’ve given me and feel free to weigh in on what you think would be my best option if you haven’t already. I must say, I was hoping to hear from Bob Zelin, as I’ve read quite a few of his posts while researching and he sounded like he knew the subject up and down. He also called cards like the Addonics “junk”, which prevented me from purchasing one of those or another cheap solution.

Anyway, I can’t thank you all enough and keep the opinions/advice coming if you have the time!

Yvonne

Proud owner of a happy pet Cthulhu!