Best Internal FireWire Port Cards
Each posted write data queue and completion data queue can store up to 8K bytes of data. Fully Interoperable with FireWire, iLink, and SB1394 Implementation of IEEE 1394 Standard.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I bought this for the sole purpose of connecting a Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 DAW interface and it works perfectly."
"Haven't done any extended captures yet bu a five minute capture went smoothly, no sign of lagging or dropped frames. If you open Power Director and then try to capture it won't work. -. I have not tried to load the software that came with the card since so many other reviewers have said they had problems when they did. I have described the environment it's working in as most of the questions I have seen about it are looking to know if the card will work with a specific PC, OS or editing software."
"This card was recognized by my Windows 7 PC, but it was not recognized by my Tascam DM 4800 mixer's Firewire card."
"Attached the Satellite Duo to one of the FW800 ports on the card and the UAD-2 control panel now show the satellite running a full FW speed."
"I sometimes think there is a little gnome down inside Firewire cards and drivers that just looks for opportunities to cause problems."
"After rebooting the drive and computer a couple times, it would eventually kick back in and be fine for a day or so. After multiple reboots and restarting the drive as Drobo recommended, I decided to just give USB a try as a last ditch resort. Upon taking out the PCIe Firewire card, I discovered that one of the 1394b ports essentially broke out of its solder joints."
2 Inateck KT4004 4 Ports PCI-E to USB 3.0 Express Card for Mac Pro (Early 2008 to 2012 Late Version)
Supported Operating Systems The Expansion card is applicable to the MAC Pro ( 2008 to 2012 Version) - Incompatible with Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite or aboveMac OS 10.8.2 - 10.9.5 & Windows 8 - No additional drivers are needed for Mac Pro/Win8, it has built-in support for the FL1100 chipset Windows XP and Windows 7 (with included drivers)Power Usage Alerts-For stable operation, do not connect it to more than two high power-consuming devices, such as 1 TB hard drive.-For Mac OS users, the devices on the PCI-E card will disconnect if the computer goes into sleep.-This USB 3.0 express card is not meant to serve as a stand-alone charger. Expansion of 4 ports USB 3.0 connections; No additional power supply for normal recognition and operation needed anymore, fast and easy installation, keeps your Mac Pro case tidy.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"As with my other PCI cards, I had to reset PRAM (command-option-P-R at startup) before the card was recognized. My Dycom USB 3 hub, Transcend USB 3 flash drive, Lexar USB 3 card reader and Seagate Backups USB 3 basically burned rubber compared to USB 2. As other posters have indicated, USB3 drivers are not written in Mac Pro ROM so USB devices attached to this card will not be recognized until the system loads (so don't connect a startup drive or keyboard)."
"I installed it when I was on Mavericks and I did not install any additional drivers or updates (gotta love Apple's Mac OS X)."
"Another factor is, when I mount partitioned "Disc Images" from a connected external drive, it ejects these drives when going into sleep mode and they must be re-mounted. If you are running external / USB mount hardware that would be harmful to loose connection due to computer sleep mode times,, be advised, running Yosemite, you are likely to experience ejections and disconnection. As far as drives, they will re-mount by automatically upon waking from sleep mode, but other hardware where constant connection is imperative, may become an issue beyond just a nuisance."
"One thing I have noticed is it is not as fast as my mac book pros usb 3 speeds when reading and writing to the same USB 3 SSD drive macbook pro gets 450 mbps and mac pro gets 380mbps with this inateck card."
"Pros: Easy to install. No "power" needed. Tranfers files from USB 3.0 drives at 80-100mb/s. Cons: Definitely not running 3.0 speeds on my Icydock Raid that clocks at 750mb/s on my mac pro at work with buily in 3.0."
Add 2 native FireWire 400 ports to your desktop through a PCI Express slot - The PEX1394A2V 2-Port PCI Express FireWire Card lets you add two native FireWire 400 ports to your desktop PC, allowing you to connect IEEE 1394A FireWire devices such as digital cameras, external hard drives, DV camcorders, and more. Fast and reliable FireWire expansion solution with a native PCI Express chipset and no bridge chip. Fits into full or low profile/small form factor (SFF) systems, with a dual profile design.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"When i went to purchase a new laptop for audio and video editing, I went with a Dell Precision for multiple reasons, but the biggest was the fact that it came with an onboard firewire port. Anyone who has recently shopped for a laptop knows how rare that is these days, and I was not excited about having to ditch a perfectly good audio interface just because I could not find a laptop with firewire."
"This is due to the decision to use full size Firewire connectors rather than mini connectors. However, given that a laptop is more likely to be used to capture video while out in the field, rather than in a studio, and given that conditions in the field tend to be more rugged, it is probably good that the fit is snug."
"I read in some review that this card work with another sound card however it did not supply the sound card with power and had to supply power to the sound card via a power cable/adapter."
"I used a JVC camcorder with Firewire access and it worked well on the laptop."
"I have an M-Audio Firewire Audiophile external sound card with a firewire interface, and I used to use an old laptop with a PCMCIA firewire adapter with success."
"I bought this, which, I've only done some testing, and, after messing with it quite a bit, I finally decided to forget about doing 24/96 recording and stick to 24/48 or 24/44 recording, as it will work with 1 to 3 units, at least with initial testing. For whatever reason, in 24/96 mode, using 2 units, which, I know is supported/works, occasionally the 'master' unit will lose sync."
Best Internal USB Port Cards
![Inateck SuperSpeed 4 Ports PCI-E to USB 3.0 Expansion Card - Interface USB 3.0 4-Port Express Card Desktop with 15 Pin SATA Power Connector, [ Include with A 4Pin to 2x15pin Cable + A 15Pin to 2X 15Pin SATA Y-Cable ], KT4001](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71QW9ZEDV3L._SS600_.jpg)
Attention 1) if your PC's power supply unit has only free 4 pin Molex plugs left, PLEASE power the card using the enclosed 4 pin Molex to SATA converter. Please make sure the power cable Strand colors match each other when connecting to the power augmentation to avoid a faulty current. PCI Express expansion card with 4 USB 3.0 ports: with quick and easy installation, this PCI Express card expands your PC by four high-speed USB 3.0 interfaces. Backwards compatible: works great with USB 2.0 and 1.1 devices.Supports USB hot Plug, Plug and play.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"A four-port, single-controller USB hub is fine for fast transfers through one port and stable connections to printers, scanners, and other peripherals."
"I knew ahead of time that the included power cable adapters were not going to be long enough due to my case design so I ordered a 12" SATA power extension cable along with the card."
"It turned out to be a Carbonite issue but before I even had a chance to get back to Inateck support they had emailed me again asking if my problem was resolved yet and assuring me that the card was guaranteed for a year."
"I sent this Inateck adapter card back because of my mouse pointer froze for seconds at a time when it was installed."
"I installed the card in my PCI-E 1x slot, and used the included power splitter with the older Molex type connector. I simply started using one of the new USB 3.0 ports to do a full backup of my computer using a WD My Book external drive."
"Power indicator on the board lights up when the computer is turned on but the device is not detected by Windows 10. Plan is to use this with an Oculus Rift as it is recommended on their hardware/support forums for 3rd sensors on older hardware (z77 Motherboard). -- UPDATE 12/19/17--. Received the replacement card promptly on 12/11. Moved the card to PCIe 3.0 (x16 mode) slot and Windows 10 immediately detected and installed the default drivers for it."
Best Computer Internal SCSI Port Cards
¡ï HDMI output port: up to 4K UHD (3840x2160 @ 30Hz) or 2K/1080p/720p/480p/360p. ¡ï Ethernet port (RJ-45 port): 10/100/1000 Mbps. ¡ï USB 3.0 Type-A port: data transfer up to 5Gbps. ¡ï USB 2.0 Type-A port: data transfer up to 480Mbps. ¡ï SD/TF card slot: supported memory card capacity up to 512GB, read/write speed up to 104MB/S. ¡ï USB Type-C female PD charging port: charging up to 87W of power delivery (Only for laptop charging). ¡ï System requirements: laptop with an available USB-C port, Windows 7/8/8.1/10, macOS X v10.0 or above operating systems. The USB-C female port of this product is only for charging USB-C laptops whose USB-C port supports USB Power Delivery (PD) and does not support data transfer. Connect devices (e.g. mouse and keyboard) to USB 2.0 ports on the laptop. Connect the USB 3.0 hub to the laptop with a high-quality 1-foot or longer USB 3.0 extension cable; keep USB 3.0 devices away from the host computer. 8-in-1 multiport USB C Hub: USB-C Power Delivery Charging Port, USB C to HDMI Output, 2 x USB 3.0 Ports, USB 2.0 Port, Gigabit Ethernet port (RJ-45 port), SD card reader and TF card reader. USB 3.0/2.0 Ports allow you to connect keyboard, mouse, thumb drive to MacBook Pro, Chromebook and other Type-C devices, and access files from TF or SD card reader.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The USBs work for other things, just not my phone."
"I had an adapter before, but there was a problem."
"I like the fact that the product has 2 USB 3.0 ports as well as HDMI and SD card reader."
"If you want to connect wired keyboard and mouse to this hub, try connecting them to a small usb hub and then connect it to this usb-c hub to avoid the clutter, as this usb-c hub has only one usb slot at the back of the hub. I have hidden the usb hub (to which mouse and keyboard are connected) under the desk."
"Also, when transferring files, a new USB device will interrupt transfers of already connected devices."
"The USB A ports on the hub did work with my wife's computer."
"This is a gift for my son as his new Mac only has one USB-C slot."
"So far I have tested the usb a connections, and the usb c and the Ethernet connects and all of those worked."
Best Serial Port Cards
8Port Ext. Enter your model number to make sure this fits.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It might affect you if you are trying to boot from usb as your root drive may change from da0 to (say) da4 if you have 4 disks on the controller and they get da0, da1, da2 & da3. Mine came in a retail box with a low profile bracket which is perfect for a 2U server or a small form faactor desktop case."
"I bought an External Mini SAS 26pin (SFF-8088) Male to 4x 7Pin Sata Cable so I can use the second 4 lane plug to control up to 4 sata drives. If you look at what SAS controllers cost you should appreciate getting a quality server grade SAS controller for under $60."
"I connected my Lenovo SA120 enclosure to this box with SATA 5900RPM drives and it works fine."
"I needed to increase the storage capacity and this combined with CableCreation External Mini SAS 26pin (SFF-8088) Male to 4x 7Pin Sata Cable, 1.0M looked promising."
"Pretty good so far."
"Works perfectly for both Debian and ESXi for JOBD usage."
"Came in original LSI box and included additional low profile bracket."
"it works and was really cheap, keep in mind this is a external port device which is most likely so cheap, but for the money if you want to add something like a a DAS to you pc it's totally worth it."
Best Parallel Port Cards
This high performance SPP/EPP/ECP parallel card adds one DB25 parallel port, perfect for connecting printers, scanners, CD-R/RW drives, memory card readers, bar code scanners and more. With the added convenience of plug and play capability, installing the parallel adapter card is hassle-free!The PCIe Parallel Adapter card includes both standard and half-height/low profile mounting brackets and is backed by a StarTech.com two year warranty and free lifetime technical support. Use existing parallel devices such as printers, scanners, CD-R/RWs, Zip drives and memory card readers with PCI Express systems, saving the cost and hassle of upgrading peripherals to work with newer systems.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Every StarTech product I've purchase has lived up to my performance expectations. I expect nothing less than an easy install letting Windows 7. load any needed drivers. Always had good luck with StarTech products and given them 5 star ratings. Don't purchase this card and install it in a computer with Windows 7/64 bit OS unless you want alot of frustration. They suggested doing the following: Below are the steps that need to be taken to install the drivers from our website on a Windows 7 64bit machine: Please download the drivers for your product using this link: [...]. When you download files, Windows usually saves them in the Downloads folder which is located under your user name in the users folder on the drive where Windows is installed (for example C:\users\your name\downloads). To open Device Manager: o Press Windows Key + R. o Type - devmgmt.msc. o Click OK. Driver Installation. 1. Select "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer." If a list of hardware types appears leave it set to show all and click Next. Repeat steps 1-5 for each serial port that appears after the OxMf or OxPCIeMf driver is installed, this time choosing "OxPCIeSer." Note: To check your System Type, click Start > right-click Computer > Properties. Since I already downloaded the .zip file I knew where to look for the drivers. Sent an email back to StarTech Tech Support suggestion they get the installation instructions updated and make mention of checking Port connection."
"The other version is the exact opposite: The half-height bracket is already installed, with a full-height bracket also included in the package."
"I installed this on a new HP Envy 750 64 bit Windows 10 computer with no problems."
"I have to give it 5 stars because everything is pretty-much how I'd like with a port card like this."
"I like this HP printer and really didn't want to replace. The parallel to USB adapters will not work with this particular HP."
"My system recognized the card but I needed to manually install the drivers which were on the supplied CD (it had versions for Win7 32-64, Vista 32-64 and earlier). Software & port lock all happy now and running fine (your mileage may vary depending on application/dongle type)."
"But since this computer never had a parallel port, it also had no LPT1."
Best RAID Controllers
Designed for businesses which require large data storage. Compliant with PCI-E Specification V2.0 and backward compatible with PCI-E 1.X. PCI Express x2 Interface, and Compatible with PCI Express x4, x8 and x16 Slots.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"While the SATA ports on the card is capable of SATA III (6 Gb/s or 750 MB/s, where Gb = Gigabit and MB = Megabyte, and 1 Gb = 125 MB), the maximum speed of this card is limited by the 1 lane of PCIe slot, which depends on the version of PCI Express on your motherboard. In the SATA III ports, the max R/W speeds are 504/457 MB/s, as measured by CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1. In the SATA II ports, the max R/W speeds are 275/262 MB/s. The max R/W speeds are 385/286 MB/s. So, the PEX-40064 is capable of delivering a higher speed than SATA II, but far from SATA III (read on if you have PCI Express 1.1). I ran the same tests on an older motherboard -- Gigabyte P35-DS4, which has only SATA II ports and supports PCIe Express 1.1. In the SATA II ports, the max R/W speeds are 260/254 MB/s, similar to those in the SATA II ports of the newer ASUS board. I then plugged the SSD into the PEX-40064, and put it into the PCIe x1 slot of the older P35-DS4 board: The max R/W speeds are 202/168 MB/s. Indeed, the PCI Express 1.1 slots are slower than the PCI Express 2.0 slots and the SATA II ports. -If you have a motherboard that has SATA II ports (but no SATA III ports), and you have PCI Express 2.0 slots, then you can use the PEX-40064 card to get a faster speed (if your SSD can achieve it) but you will not get close to SATA III speeds (even if the SSD is capable to achieve it). -If you have a motherboard that has SATA II ports but no SATA III ports, and you have PCI Express 1.1 slots, then you are better off using the SATA II ports than the PEX-40064 card. SECOND AFTER THOUGHT: It is possible to achieve close to SATA III speeds in a motherboard with PCI Express 2.0 slots with more than 2 data lanes (e.g. x4, x8, or x16) with the PEX-40054 card instead of the PEX-40064 card."
"The bad news is there are many variations of the PCI-E interface and this card based on the Marvel 88SE9215 which is only an X1 device. That means that you will only get a single channel for your data (X1) and that the ability to get a SATA 3 speed is greatly reduced."
"This is a fine card for old school mechanical drives and CD/DVD reader/writers. So the SSDD went back to the motherboard's controller, and the other drives were connected to this board."
"BTW most of the time SATA drives formatted on PCI cards generally wont be recognized as formatted when plugged into an onboard SATA port."