Review of ASUS U3S6 USB 3.0/SATA 3 (6Gbps)
add on card for ASUS P7P55D Premium
Bluetooth 10 Nov 2009
Introduction
A few weeks ago, ASUS launch it's flagship product
the ASUS P7P55D series of mainboards. These series of Intel P55 mainboards are
one of the first in the industry to incorporate SATA3 (6Gbps) interface
connectors on board. A lot of people might be wondering what is the point as
there are practically no HDD or SSD with the SATA3 interface.
Shortly after that, Seagate announces their first
SATA3 interface HDD. As it is a conventional HDD, it falls short of the
performance expectations of many. It was able to reach around 120~130MB/s. This
speed has been achieved by many SSD enthusiasts saturating their SATA II (3Gbps)
interface reaching 220MB/s on an Intel X25 SSD drive.
Knowing that incorporating new technologies gives a
technology jumpstart. Gigabyte also launched a series of P55 mainboards that
incorporates the SATA3 interface and lately a new series with USB 3.0 integrated
on board. ASUS on the other hand releases a add on card for it's P55 series of
mainboards model ASUS US36. This card is powered by a NEC USB 3.0 controller and
Marvell SATA III (6Gbps) chipset. It can be used on ASUS P55 mainboards after a
BIOS upgrade.
We received the add on card in a package with the
card U3S6 and an enclosure with a Seagate SATA2 HDD inside. The enclosure uses a
ASM1051-SuperSpeed USB to SATA Bridge Controller. ASM1051 is a single chip
solution designed to bridge USB3.0 to SATA Gen 2, and has already passed the
Electrical Specifications and Transmission Protocol validation test of PIL
(Platform Interoperability Lab). The package also comes with the USB 3.0 cable,
CDROM for the drivers of Marvell SATA3 and USB3.0. Below is a video of the
package.
