HighPoint Launches Cost-Effective, Dual-Port USB 3.0 5Gb/s HBA

btarunr · Sep 5, 2011

HighPoint Technologies, Inc., an industry leading HBA and storage solutions manufacturer, launches the first of its Dual-Port 5Gb/s USB 3.0 HBA's, the RocketU 1022A. These low-cost, PCI-E 2.0 x1 USB 3.0 SuperSpeed HBA's are ideal upgrades for any desktop PC, and are well-suited for a variety of external storage configurations.

The Introduction of the low-cost Dual Port RocketU USB 3.0 HBA's is in keeping with Highpoint's long standing reputation as the manufacturer of choice for cost-effective, cutting-edge storage HBA's. The RocketU 1022A is a PCI-E 2.0 x1 USB 3.0 SuperSpeed HBA and delivers 5Gb/s of transfer bandwidth. The two type-A ports have been designed to deliver optimal performance for USB 3.0 hard drives and SSD's, and are suited for a wide-range of applications including portable/removable storage, storage expansion, personal media libraries, and backup solutions.

Upgrade any PC with USB 3.0 External Storage
The RocketU 1022A an ideal, low-cost upgrade for any Windows or Linux PC, and has been optimized for external SSD and hard drive configurations.

The RocketU 1022A is fully backwards compatible with every generation of external USB drives and enclosures, and can be easily installed into any free PCI-Express Gen 2.0/Gen 1.0 x1, x4, x8 or x16 slot. Driver support is readily available for all major Microsoft operating systems including 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows 7, 2008 and Vista. The RocketU 1022A is xHCI compliant, and is natively supported by current Linux distributions.

Availability
HighPoint RocketU HBA's are available immediately, from a world-wide network of Distribution and Resellers.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

Mussels · Sep 5, 2011

what does HBA stand for?

iLLz · Sep 5, 2011

HBA stands for Host Bus Adapter.

t_ski · Sep 5, 2011

Sounds like this could definitely be a more affordable option that the four-port version they have already. That one is selling for about $90 here in the US.

Athlonite · Sep 5, 2011

and the difference between this

http://www.msi.com/product/mb/Star-USB3.html#?div=Overview

and something the same with Highpoints name on it probably around $50's

AndreiD · Sep 5, 2011

Athlonite said:
and the difference between this

http://www.msi.com/product/mb/Star-USB3.html#?div=Overview

and something the same with Highpoints name on it probably around $50's

Funny thing is that the MSI one seems to be a lot better built.

kajson · Sep 5, 2011

It's so cost effective we won't mention the price in our press announcement!.

I got my MSI star 3.0 PCI card last spring for about 20 euro, together with a Samsung S2 640 GB (supposedly 7200rpm) and have been loving the combination. The external drive doesnt work noticably slower then my internal harddrive, at least not writing and reading speeds.

But who knows maybe they'll sell it for under 20$.

Athlonite · Sep 5, 2011

kajson said:
But who knows maybe they'll sell it for under 20$.

Doubtful Highpoint aren't known for selling their name cheap

and you paid more than me for the MSI jobbie your 20 euro's works out to be NZD $31.67

I got mine for only $29.95

[H]@RD5TUFF · Sep 7, 2011

As long as it's sub $40 they have a winner.

newtekie1 · Sep 7, 2011

t_ski said:
Sounds like this could definitely be a more affordable option that the four-port version they have already. That one is selling for about $90 here in the US.

Yes, but there is a reason their 4-Port one is so expensive. Unlike normal 2 and 4-Port USB 3.0 cards, each port has its own USB controller. So each port has a dedicated 5.0GB/s, with the other cards the 5.0GB/s is shared between the ports, which is fine if you only ever use one device, but not so nice if you have more than one device in use at a time.

This 2-Port card isn't anything special though, just a standard 2-Port card with a single controller. So I can't see this being priced more than $30.

As for them pricing their products high just because of the name, I have to disagree. Their budget RAID cards are quit nicely price, and extremely good too.

Athlonite · Sep 7, 2011

Their budget RAID cards don't you mean their Budget Software Raid cards ie: the ones with Marvel or Silicon Image chips on em all of their SoftRaid cards are over $100NZD here I don't call that a nice price (highpoint Rocket raid 620 $107.95 vs ST-Lab A341 $44.44 )

newtekie1 · Sep 7, 2011

Athlonite said:
Their budget RAID cards don't you mean their Budget Software Raid cards ie: the ones with Marvel or Silicon Image chips on em all of their SoftRaid cards are over $100NZD here I don't call that a nice price (highpoint Rocket raid 620 $107.95 vs ST-Lab A341 $44.44 )

If you look at 4-Port RAID cards, Highpoint pretty much offers the cheapest full feature solution. There are cheaper options, but they aren't full featured or even ideal.

$120 gets you the 4-Port RocketRAID 2300 w/ RAID 0/1/5/10 + JBOD.

You can get a SYBA 4-Port card, but the two cards they offer are shit. One is an old PCI chip with a PCI to PCI-E bridge chip. The other uses a 2-Port SATA II/2 Port IDE chip, with two ATA to SATA I ports to give the 4-Ports, oh and both of these cards are limitted to the RAID configurations the offer.

Adaptect offers a 4-Port card for $100, but it uses a weaker RAID controller that doesn't offer RAID 5 or JBOD.

So yes, I call $120 for a full feature 4-port card a nice price.

laszlo · Sep 7, 2011

anyone tried maybe one of this?:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-e-PCI-E...296?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4cf80b43b8

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-e-PCI-E...047?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4cf7c9481f

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-port-PCI-...432?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27bbdce0e8

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Port-USB-...149?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a0f241825

are they real at those prices?

Athlonite · Sep 7, 2011

newtekie1 said:
If you look at 4-Port RAID cards, Highpoint pretty much offers the cheapest full feature solution. There are cheaper options, but they aren't full featured or even ideal.

$120 gets you the 4-Port RocketRAID 2300 w/ RAID 0/1/5/10 + JBOD.

You can get a SYBA 4-Port card, but the two cards they offer are shit. One is an old PCI chip with a PCI to PCI-E bridge chip. The other uses a 2-Port SATA II/2 Port IDE chip, with two ATA to SATA I ports to give the 4-Ports, oh and both of these cards are limitted to the RAID configurations the offer.

Adaptect offers a 4-Port card for $100, but it uses a weaker RAID controller that doesn't offer RAID 5 or JBOD.

So yes, I call $120 for a full feature 4-port card a nice price.

the Highpoint Rocket raid 2300 = $277.72 here so no I don't call that reasonable

newtekie1 · Sep 7, 2011

What I just noticed, and found rather surprising, is that this card and the 1144A got news posts but the 1144AR didn't. IMO, the 1144AR is by far the coolest of the recently released Highpoint products. Why? Because it not only offers the 4 dedicated USB 3.0 ports like the 1144A, but it also offers RAID for drives connected to those USB ports. That's right USB RAID!

Athlonite said:
the Highpoint Rocket raid 2300 = $277.72 here so no I don't call that reasonable

That's nice, and what does a comparible full features RAID card cost? To validate the reasonable claim it has to be put into context with local prices, as I have done. Simply saying it costs X amount without comparing it to the rest of the market is useless.

Even your original comparison was utter crap. You compared the Highpoint 620, which is a SATA III card w/ full RAID 0/1/5/10 + JBOD support, to a generic off brand SATA II card with only RAID 0/1... Plus everywhere that lists the ST-Lab A341 for sale only lists support for XP/2003, with no mention of Vista/7. Does it even work with modern operating systems? I tried to find out. So I went over to ST-Lab's site and started looking for the manual. After searching for the model number on their site, I got nothing. Finally I got lucky and found it in their horrible product list under "PCIe SATA II 300 2CHANNEL (2P+2P) CARD". Awesome, that makes it easy to find. :rolleyes:

The manaual does mention Vista support(no mention of 64-bit support at all though). I tried to get to the driver download page, but that section of their site seems to be down, so I don't know what drivers are avaialble. So, yeah, it might be cheaper. But not only is it a lower end product, but the support for it is utter shit as well. No wonder it is cheaper. :ohwell:

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HighPoint Launches Cost-Effective, Dual-Port USB 3.0 5Gb/s HBA

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