IOGear eSATA 3 Gbps Dual Port ExpressCard/34 GPS702E3
by IOGEAR
|
List Price: Category: CE See more product details |
|---|
(Click here)
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of IOGear eSATA 3 Gbps Dual Port ExpressCard/34 GPS702E3
Customer Review: Great piece of gear
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this locally a few months ago and have been using it almost daily for important things which require a lot of bandwidth to the disk.
I see a few reviews which mention issues with this card. One of them says that a unibody Macbook Pro won't work with it. My unibody Macbook Pro works fine with it. Another says that the drivers on the included CD are no good. I use those drivers, they installed fine and continue to work with no problems. Some people mention kernel panics. I find that I cannot reproduce any kind of kernel panic error, even if I am careless with this card. That said, my 17" MBP has had a kernel panic while this card was plugged in, but it's anyone's guess as to why. It almost never happens unless the machine has been up for weeks. I don't know what everyone else is doing with their hardware, but for me it wasn't a big deal to get this going and it hasn't been a big deal keeping my system stable with it.
My only gripe is that I couldn't find the drivers on the website. Ideally you should be able to do this inside of five minutes. I wasted ten, but the CD drivers were fine.
Customer Review: Works well when it's not causing kernel panics on MacBook Pro
Summary: 2 Stars
I've used this product with my 17"MBP, then again with a 17" Unibody MBP - both were running Leopard. Here comes my rant of frustration: IOGEAR SHOULD NOT CLAIM IT WORKS FOR MACS WHEN THEY DON'T EVEN PROVIDE DRIVERS ON THEIR WEBSITE. It was frustrating that I had to call the company, then the guy had to get his manager involved in order to email me a driver. You cannot find a driver for Mac on their website at all. How ridiculous is that?
Now, I will admit, when everything on the card worked I got amazing connection speeds to my eSata hard drives. The good times, however, were always clouded by the fact that plugging (and sometimes unplugging) the card from my Mac OFTEN caused kernel panics forcing me to power down. Ugh!
The short of it: If you need a reliable eSata card for your Mac, this is NOT it. If you don't mind forcing your computer to shut down from time to time potentially losing all your work, go for it.
Customer Review: Excellent so far
Summary: 5 Stars
I just got this product recently, so I don't have long term experience, but I'll definitely update this review in the future.
At first, my PC wouldn't recognize it, but after I took apart my laptop on a whim, I found the expresscard slot wasn't even plugged into the motherboard! Stupid Dell!
Anyways, installation was a breeze. Insert the card, windows "add new hardware" window pops up, insert CD, then done.
Has worked perfectly with my Sans Digital MS2UT+ 2-bay External RAID1 system (highly recommended), including with the port multiplier functionality, showing two separate discs when in "JBOD" mode. Many eSATA setups don't have the PM capability, one reason why the Silicon Image chipset is great while also being affordable.
Only drawback in the slightly bulky head of the device. Overall, these expresscards are so much better, faster, and smaller than the ancient PC CARD / cardbus.
Customer Review: Mac Users: READ THIS
Summary: 5 Stars
DO *NOT* USE THE DRIVERS ON THE INCLUDED CD.
My set-up: MacBook Pro 17'' (mid-2009) running Snow Leopard
I tried that the CD's drivers ... the install bar got half way when the kernal panic kicked in.
Then I went through the process of chatting with tech support, and eventually got a link to download the correct drivers. The Macally external enclosure with a new Seagate Barracuda 1.5 TB mounted immediately on the desktop, and it's been running non-stop for 150+ hours without a hiccup.
You will find the Mac drivers (as well as all the others) at: [...]
The most current drivers are at the top.
Read carefully before downloading, and you should have no problems.
Customer Review: how to make it work on 10.6 MBPro
Summary: 4 Stars
Below is only way it worked for me, just upgraded to 10.6.4 MBPro non unibody old school 17"
Sounds weird but works!
I.
Yes, smooth sailing for the upgrade from 10.5.8.
One 3rd party issue to share with a solution that might help others:
Early 08 MB Pro, I use an Iogear eSATA (GPS702e3) ExpressCard 34 controller. The controller didn't work in SL 10.6 until I downloaded this, based on Iogear Support advise:
"You can use the driver on the Silicon Image website. Follow the link below and download the driver dated, 8/14/2007."
[...]
Once installed, this driver required Rosetta.
But it is working great with my 1Tb external HD with Final Cut Express.
MBP 2.5Ghz, 250GB, 4G ram Mac OS X (10.5.6) iLife 09, FCE 4.01, 2x eSATA card
found this at:
[...]