In what surely brings new meaing to the word "overkill" comes news of the all new HighPoint RocketU adapter. While on the surface a four-port USB 3.0 PCI Express card does not sound all that exciting - even if this one is a x4 form factor- the truth of the matter is the RocketU is different.
The reason why the HighPoint
RocketU 1144A USB 3.0 card is different is simple: four external ports powered by not one, not two, not three, but
four ASMedia USB 3.0 host controllers. Yes, each of the RocketU's four USB 3.0 ports provides full 5Gbps speeds. This means that if you have numerous
external drives,
hubs or just need to move a lot of data from your workstation to direct attached backup devices, the RocketU is not overkill. In fact, it is perfection as it can provide a whopping 20Gbps theoretical throughput. This unique idea of course is meant for serious workstation professionals running internal RAID arrays capable of pumping out such insanely large numbers and not consumers.
Though, with that being said, as long as you have the (extremely reasonable) $89 required to obtain one of these adapters, there is no reason to not get one. After all, PCI Express 2.0 x4 slots are not exactly hard to come by as x8 and x16 slots are backwards compatible to x4. We truly doubt you will ever hit its "performance wall" in a SOHO environment. The HighPoint RocketU 1144A should make a pretty affordable way to upgrade your computer system to one mean
USB 3.0 machine.
AREA Flush-fiting USB 3.0 ExpressCard Offers Two Ports of Goodness
By Ian Chiu on August 2nd, 2011
