StarTech.com 4 Independent Port PCI Ex PCIe SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Controller Card Adapter with SATA Power Model PEXUSB3S400

Pros: Appears to have great specs. Customer Service via Chat works well.

Cons: Not a true half height board. It's too long both forwards and backward from the PCIe connector. Even if the SATA power connector ws not at teh end, the card would still not fit in a tight server.

Overall Review: Purchased this to go into a Dell R620 with ESXi 5.1. Was not successful getting it to work even after finally making it fit in the slot. StarTech support (via chat) stated it's not tested in VMware. It wasn't listed in the specs, but decided to try it.

Pros: All 4 USB ports run fast at the same time. Setup was a breeze.

Cons: Sideways ports make it very difficult for cables to connect.

Overall Review: This card went into an HP ML310e Gen 8 server. OS is Server 2012R2, 24 GB RAM. Installation was a snap. Plug it in, turn the server on, drivers were installed and working before I was fully logged in. I have two external hard drives and a 4-place external CineRaid storage unit attached to this card. The single hard drives are able to run at 150M/s+ simultaneously. The CineRaid box, not so much. It has a USB3 interface, but when it was connected to another server by eSata it was much faster. I ordered an PCIe eSata card for it (still waiting for it). Since the RAID unit holds 3 TB of my stuff, I need to make sure the backup jobs going to the external hard drive can run fast. Based on the single drive performance, I can't blame the card for the RAID speed issues.

Pros: Full Speed on all 4 ports. Easy install. This card was GREAT for the first 2 months!! Hence my earlier positive review.

Cons: The 4th port FAILED after only 3 months!!!

Overall Review: Will be contacting customer support at Star to see about a replacement!!