Pros: USB 2.0 and FireWire; 5 years of warranty; internal port for front panel hub.
Cons: Software available on manufacturer's site only.
Verdict: The $57 Adaptec DuoConnect gives you big bang for the buck by offering 4 USB 2.0 and 3 FireWire ports.
It’s sometimes disheartening to find out that the hardware on your shopping list won’t work with your system, because the device requires either a FireWire or Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port. FireWire is the de facto standard in the digital video arena, and Hi-Speed USB 2.0 is an emerging interface boosted by the popularity of USB 1.1 and Intel. Both standards, comparable in speed, have a long list of compatible peripherals. Should you want to make the best of both worlds, then Adaptec DuoConnect, adding both FireWire and Hi-Speed USB 2.0 interfaces to your system, is undoubtedly the most future-proof purchase.
A Crowded Card The PCI 2.2-compliant Adaptec DuoConnect comes with 4 Hi-Speed USB 2.0 ports (1 internal) and 3 FireWire ports, one of which is also internal. Controllers provided by NEC and Texas Instruments power the USB and the FireWire ports respectively. There is also an auxillary power connector, which you can use for providing extra electricity to the FireWire ports. This might be necessary if you intend to plug some bus-powered FireWire devices.
Software Support Microsoft began supporting FireWire by supplying a patch on Windows 98 SE. From Windows ME on, every MS operating system comes with built-in FireWire support. You will see that Windows 2000 and XP already have robust support for FireWire networking (direct connect two computers via a FireWire cable), video cameras and storage devices. Since FireWire is standardized on all Apple computers, there’s no hurry for Mac users to get this card. Basically, when you pop this card into an empty PCI slot, the 400Mbps FireWire ports are ready to work.
Since only Windows XP is the first to get USB 2.0 driver, support for Hi-Speed USB 2.0 is rather sketchy on Windows platforms for now; MacOS support is non-existent at the moment. To make those Hi-Speed USB ports running at 480Mbps, you have to install the driver from Adaptec website. It is, however, recommended that you check for the latest version before installing the ones on the CD. There’s also a nifty utility called USBControl which graphically displays your peripherals in a tree diagram and all other relevant information for troubleshooting purposes. There’s no FireWire equivalent though.
Touted as a DV editing solution, DuoConnect comes with MGI VideoWare for video editing and MyDVD for DVD authoring. Mac users are advised to get iMovie 2 software. Coupled the DuoConnect with a DVD-R drive, you can make your own DVD or VCD movies. The package also includes a 6-pin to 4-pin FireWire cables fro DV camcorder connectivity.
Solid Performance While FireWire is good at streaming video, it also provides plenty of bandwidth for storage devices. Our Maxtor 1394 hard drives all exceeded 25MBps on our transfer tests, although their performance is largely limited by the onboard IDE converter. Daisy-chaining these drives didn’t slow down the bus until we connected the ADS PYRO 1394 reader to the end of the chain.
Maxtor Hi-Speed USB 2.0 hard drives lagged behind FireWire hard drives by a large margin. We attribute this to ISD300 bridge chip of the hard drives, which has a maximum sustained transfer rate of 18MBps. You can expect future models with more efficient bridge chips to perform better.
Between Hi-Speed USB 2.0 and FireWire, the latter is apparently more established in terms of software support and industry acceptance. However, since USB 2.0 is still in its infancy, there are still a lot of improvements to be made before the high-speed standard catches on.
The Bottom Line For a card that only retails for $57 after $20 rebate, the Adaptec DuoConnect saves both a precious PCI slot and money while delivering the best connectivity options for external devices.
-- By Ian Chiu, Managing Editor
Where to buy Adaptec DuoConnect?
User Review(s)
"Provides versatility and is easy to install." he Adaptec Duoconnect USB 2.0 / firewire combo adapter provides me with more than sufficient connectivity for my needs. Having both USB 2.0 ports and firewire ports available lends versatility to my computer system. And since I had only one vacant PCI slot left, this card appears to provide the perfect combination to complement my system.
I am not a "techie" but installation was clean and simple. The card was immediately recognized by my Win2K "Add New Hardware" wizard and within a few seconds after boot up, all was configured and usable.
I've had the card installed and in use only a few days, but I'm very pleased with my choice so far.
While street prices are generally in the $65.00-$70.00 range, as of this writing this card can be purchased at an advertised price of $62.59 less $30.00 with an in-store mail-in rebate. The cost ends up being in the neighborhood of $33.00 for a card that provides both USB 2.0 and firewire connectivity. And with Adaptec's reputation behind it, that's hard to beat.
From Stomper, August 10, 2004
"No Multi-Processor Support, Poor Customer Support, Known Win2k Issues" When making the decision to spend upwards of twice as much for an Adaptec product over a smaller brand, once expects that they are dealing with a professional company with good support.
Fact: the DuoConnect, even with the latest 3.x drivers, is not supported under Windows 2000 or XP in a multi-processor environment (even workstations).
Fact: this useful bit of information is *NOT* mentioned anywhere on Adaptec's site -- not on the product info page, not in the knowledge base, not in the install guide (jeez!) and not in the user manual. The only place you'll find it is in a brief note in the readme file accompanying the drivers, or if you install the product and your machine blows up.
This is completely unacceptable for a company like Adaptec -- this should be obvious to people before they buy the card or try to install it.
And as for support? Let's just say that Adaptec is not what they used to be. long wait times, bad attitudes and unhelpful "policies."
Methinks Adaptec is being propped up by a name built on former glories. It's no longer worth it to pay more over Belkin, D-Link, etc. if the support sucks just as bad.
Note: one of the reps said this card is having "lot of issues" under Windows 2000 aside from the multi-processor bug.
STEER CLEAR! From Bradley, May 14, 2003
"Corruption" I have an older firewire drive that has worked flawlessly on the Duoconnect for months. I have a g3 biege. My roomate connected a new 80 gig firewire drive to my computer and it corrupted the drive! We returned the drive, than the case and now I realize it is the card, because the drive works fine on other computers/ From George, December 01, 2002
"Problems with Mac G3" According to Adaptec's site this card should work in a Mac G3 beige Rev. 3 with OS 9.0.4 or greater following installation of suitable Apple drivers. I can get System Profiler 2.6.3 to detect the USB ports, but not firewire. When I actually connect a Firewire external hard drive that works perfectly well on other computers with Firewire to the DuoConnect, it corrupts the files, gives me a hard drive error message, and I have to reformat the drive to get it to work with the other computers again.
Adaptec's technical service is very hard to reach (keep you on hold for 30 minutes with no toll-free number) and they told me that even though their information says it should work with OS 9.0.4, you have to upgrade to OS 9.2. Well, I did that and it still doesn't work. I even ordered a replacement card from the vendor, and that doesn't work, at least the firewire part so it isn't a particular card that is faulty. I haven't tried the USB, the main point being to get it to work with my external backup drive on Firewire.
So, thumbs down on tech. support from Adaptec. Thumbs down on information on Mac configurations supported. It's nice having the USB2 and Firewire combo with lots of ports, but not if it doesn't work. From Candona, October 28, 2002
"driver complains ???" to all you people that are complaining about the drivers. all the USB 2.0 pci cards on the market are identical, they use the same drivers, made by OrangeWare. if one company doesn't have the newest version, then go the next company and use their drivers. i have a OrangeMicro card and i use Belkin drivers. Remember all the USB 2.0 PCI cards on the market right now, use NEC chipset, and they are indentical.
BOTTOM LINE From qwert, October 18, 2002
"Slick product, but pricey. One pays for quality, as well as the Adaptec name!"
As you may know, this is a combined Firewire and Hi-speed USB (USB 2.0) card. It features three USB and two firewire external ports in the metal bracket, as well as an additional USB port and firewire port mounted internally. Internal ports are functionally identical to external ports, so one can treat them as such too by hooking up stuff to the internal ports and draw the wire out through some opening in the chassis somewhere. Not very elegant perhaps, but it works.
This card is one of the few I've ever seen that delivers maximum power to all firewire ports (18W at 12V), but to take advantage of this a free floppy-drive style power connector is required. Any computer hardware store should be able to sell a Y-splitter at a cheap price to enable the use of this feature. Anyway, this connector doesn't HAVE to be hooked up to use the firewire ports, it's just a nice thing to have if one has equipment that draws a whole lot of bus power.
The card is populated by four major ICs; the standard Texas Instruments firewire chipset that one sees on most, if not all expansion cards, and an USB2 host controller chip from NEC. There is also a PCI-to-PCI bridge chip on the card, which is required since there are two different functions on the same circuit board. Windows Millennium automatically detects the various components and installs the required drivers without intervention, but the USB half of the product will only run at 12Mbps speed as long as one doesn't install the USB2.0 driver that Adaptec offers.
Windows XP users can simply visit Microsoft's windows update page to gain USB2.0 support, but Win98SE and ME users need to use Adaptec's driver (plain Win98 and Win95 are not supported). The driver is a bit cumbersome to install, requiring the user to fiddle around a bit in the device manager. Not too difficult for a person with some PC experience, possibly daunting for a novice. I do wish Adaptec would stop bragging so much about how great they are, and fix a proper driver installer instead! Also, the driver STILL doesn't support isochronous transfers, which means that devices like webcams, and possibly scanners and such, that require a guaranteed steady bandwidth will NOT function.
That is definitely un-good, especially since there are USB2.0 webcams available now, or will be soon anyway. As always, the driver available on their website is newer than the driver on the CD that comes in the box.
As a small consolation perhaps, Adaptec includes a 6-to-4-pin firewire cable in the package. Not sure how useful that is really, especially since the cable is quite short.
Anyway, the thing works, and it's well put together too. As a space-saver in PCs with too few expansion slots this thing is a blessing, and it's actually very much possible to use the firewire function of the card to network two or more PCs, at least in Windows Millennium and upwards. Just assign the firewire card in all computers an IP number with the network control panel applet, hook them up with cable and you got a 400Mbps network! That's almost half the speed of gigabit ethernet, and at a fraction of the cost.
There are other combo cards available too, and they might be cheaper than this one. I don't think they offer as much power to the firewire ports as this card, but then again, most don't need that. Also, some cards might not have as many external or internal ports as this one. A total of seven simultaneous connections is pretty slick after all!
Is this product worth the extra money? Can't really say; I haven't tested any alternative! But it works fine for me anyway, so I consider it a good buy.
From Lenny Valentin, April 30, 2002
We're currently upgrading our user review system; so we won't be accepting new reviews for now. DuoConnect Specs
Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, MacOS 9.1
Interface
PCI
Required interface revision
2.2
# of USB ports
4
# of internal USB ports
1
Independent host controller for each port?
Yes
USB host controller interface
EHCI, OHCI
USB chipset
NEC PD720100
# of FireWire ports
3
Software
--
Extra?
6-pin to 4-pin FireWire cable
Power source
PCI bus
Warranty
Five years
Extras Lost a USB cable? Get a replacement USB cable.
Running out of USB ports? Get an extra USB hub.
You may need a new USB card to achieve Hi-Speed USB speeds.
Confirm with our USB 2.0 FAQ if you have Hi-Speed USB on your PC.
