SUNIX IT USB 3.1 Enhanced SuperSpeed Dual Ports PCI Express Host Card with Type-A Receptacle (USB2312)

Pros:- Dual USB 3.1 SS ports.- Half Height and Full Height Slot Compatible.- Does not require additional power to run port.- Firmware Disk with Drivers included with card.- Good quality build.- Reliable after more than 2 years service.- Works with External Raid enclosures.Cons:- Price for the card has risen more than 30% in 2017.- No option for 4-ports.- Have not achieved USB 3.1 transfer speeds ever. Even when using PCIe 3 X 16 slot on M.B.Other Thoughts:I currently have seven (7) of these Sunix USB 3.1 PCIe cards operating in five different servers that run 24/7. Two of the cards have been operational for more than 2 years. So far, I have had zero failures with these cards. Installation of these cards has been painless in the Lenovo TS140, and HP Proliant Microservers I use them in. I also use these in Lenovo SFF M82 desktops running as media servers. The included disk contains the drivers and driver install package that works very good with Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Server OS's. I have not tried these with Linux or other OS like Windows 10. I have as many as 12 drives in External bays (some in RAID configurations) running on one of these cards and operating flawlessly.Reliability is not an issue with these cards and that is the critical criterion for me. If I had anything negative to say about these cards is that the performance of the cards in terms of transfer rates is not what I could hope for. Running a Seagate IronWolf Pro HDD running at 7200rpm with 256MB cache in an enclosure connected with USB C to USB 3.1 card connection on a PCIe 3 X 16 slot, going to an internally SATA III connected SSD, I was only able to achieve transfer speeds with a maximum of rate of 180MBps. Usually, I am getting transfer speeds in the 1Gbps (114MBps) range for transfers to/from External drives to/from Internal HDD's. Even when transferring from an external SSD to an internal SSD through a USB C cable connection to an internal SATA III bus, I have never achieved transfer speeds with large files of greater than 280 MBps. This doesn't even approach the theoretical transfer speeds for USB 3.1 (10Gbps).Overall I am very happy with the cards reliability and performance levels. That is why I own seven of these cards. I would recommend them to anyone using external enclosures with/without RAID. YMMV. For my servers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Server 2012, these cards are an inexpensive way to have reliable access to external storage.

It's always annoyed me that the USB ports on those Gen8 servers are 2.0, and this fits perfectly and works correctly with no need to download drivers. It is 3.0, however, not 3.1, but still do a nightly Veeam Agent backup of about 30 minutes--a quarter of the time it took with a 2.0 USB hard drive. This is a no-brainer for DL360P users

I bought this card upon recommendation by a friend without my normal research. I hoped that it would give me a cheap and easy way to connect externally docked hard drives for video storage and backup. What I failed to realize before installing is that my Asus motherboard already had an ASMedia USB host controller on it for USB 3.0 ports. The ASMedia drivers for this card rendered ALL my 12 of my USB 2 and 3 ports unusable to connect USB drives (WD Passport, SanDisk, Cameras, Card Docks). Uninstalled and reinstalled USB drivers dozens of times - including via network by TeamViewer so that I did not have to rely on USB keyboard and mouse. I can't restore a complete system backup that I did prior to installing the card because my backup is on a USB WD Passport External Drive. As of this writing - after three weeks and a hundred plus hours I still have no USB drive capability. Is it worth the risk to you? EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTION.

A couple of things to note before I get started.USB 3.0 bandwidth is 5 Gigabits per second (Gbps). To convert that to Megabytes per second (MB) is 128 × dGb = dMB. Therefore, USB 3.0 speeds have a theoretical max full duplex speed of 640 MB/s. However, since USB uses 8b/10b line code, turning eight-bit symbols into ten-bit ones, it incurs a 20% bandwidth hit. Thus, you'll see peak throughput of 512 MB/s. However, something causes slowdowns up to 45.5% or more, not just 20%, and no one really has specified why that is. That means you could see USB 3.0 flash drives or SSD's connected via USB 3.0 reach speeds close to 348.8 MB/s for sequential reads and writes, but no faster than that.USB 3.1 bandwidth is 10 Gbps, twice as much bandwidth as USB 3.0, which equates to 1,280 MB/s theoretical speeds. Encoding is 128b/132b, so instead of a 20% bandwidth hit, it's only 3%. Nice! Thus, you'll see peak throughput of 1,241.6 MB/s? That means you could see USB 3.1 SSD's connected via USB 3.1 reach speeds close to 676.62 MB/s (factoring in the 45.5% bandwidth hit theory of mine). Sounds crazy, right?Unfortunately, we are not going to hit that mark with the Sunix USB2312. Here's why.The Sunix USB2312 supports PCIe 2.0 x2. Since a single PCIe 2.0 lane supports 512 MB/s, multiply that by two, and that's 1,024 MB/s. However, we run into the same 20% bandwidth hit (because we're still using PCIE 2.0), so, at best, that's 819.2 MB/s. That means you could see USB 3.1 SSD's connected via USB 3.1 reach speeds up to 446.46.6 MB/s (again, factoring in the 45.5% bandwidth hit theory), but no faster.However, when using the Sunix USB2312 with PCIe 3.0 x2, things can potentially get interesting. Since a single PCIe 3.0 lane supports 1,024 MB/s, multiply that by two, and that's 2,048 MB/s. However, with 128b/132b encoding, we would get just a 3% bandwidth hit, so, at best, that's 1986.56 MB/s. That's pretty crazy. Maybe that's something we'll see?To be continued with tests and results...HD Tune Pro 4.61 Read Benchmark results using a MX200 M.2 SSD:Windows 7 Intel M.2: 524.4 MB/sWindows 7 USB 3.0: 282 MB/sWindows 7 USB 3.0 with Boost: 312.1 MB/sWindows 8.1 USB 3.0: 343 MB/sWindows 7 PCIE 2.0 x16 Sunix USB2312 with USB 3.1: 334.5 MB/sWindows 8.1 PCIE 3.0 x16 Sunix USB2312 with USB 3.1: 419.3 MB/sWith USB 3.0 on Windows 8.1, I've been able to hit around ~343 MB/s. With USB 3.0 on Windows 7, it seems to top out at ~282 MB/s. However, when I'm able to use an ASUS board with USB 3.0 Boost, and enabling UASP, I hit around ~312.1 MB/s.Using the Sunix USB2312 on Windows 8 with a PCIE 3.0 x16 slot, I get ~419.3 MB/s. On Windows 7 with a PCIE 2.0 X16 slot, I get ~334.5 MB/s. Interestingly enough, the Sunix USB2312 might utilize PCIE 3.0 encoding, even though the specs doesn't mention it? Or, is the faster speed due to the Windows 8.1 OS?I'll probably play around with this some more in the future. The Sunix USB2312 is definitely nice to have, and it does provide the fastest USB Sequential Read speeds, but it's still not better than using a M.2 or SATA 6G connection. There's just too many known and unknown bandwidth hits preventing USB 3.1 from reaching it's peak theoretical potential.However, it is nice to have something like this on an older x58 system to get 334.5 MB/s, although I was surprised that on Windows 8.1 using PCIE 3.0, I was able to get up to 419.3 MB/s. I'll need to do another test with Windows 7 and PCIE 3.0 x 16 to see if I get the same numbers. It may just be that Windows 8.1 handles USB 3.0 and USB 3.1 protocols a bit better, and not that the Sunix USB2312 is capable of utilizing PCIE 3.0's 128b/132b encoding.