APIOTEK DUAL eSATA II with RAID Express Card Adapter

Notice that this card isn’t as large as a conventional PCMCIA card? Well that’s because the Apiotek’s DUAL eSATA II card conforms to the new Express 34/54 standard. So make note of this if you’re thinking of buying this device. If you got a relatively new laptop it’ll no doubt have the correct slot for this card. The card comes enclosed in a hard plastic casing giving it adequate protection during shipment. Apiotek sent this card all the way from Taiwan and it arrived safely to us.

Opening the case you’re offered with a User manual, Driver CD and of course the card itself. Before we installed the card we first read through the installation manual which gives a good explanation on how to perform the installation either on a new install or an existing installation of windows.

Installation of the DUAL eSATA II card was pretty straight forward. Its’ just a matter of plugging it into the express card slot on the Laptop and installing the driver CD. Windows automatically detects it as a RAID controller and puts it in the appropriate location.

If you’re installing Windows on a new Fresh installation a driver is supplied which needs to be copied to a floppy disk so that you can install the card during the initial installation stage.

The Card is based on the Silicon Image SiI3132 chipset and it supports RAID0, RAID1 and Soft RAID 5 (PC/Windows Only). There are heaps of documentation available on these types of RAID types, so if you’re not familiar with what type to use, read up on them before you configure the system. The manual provided also gives a brief description about these RAID types and guides you through the total process of setting up the whole RAID system. So if you’re completely new to this, you can get things running in a matter of minutes.

Time to see how APIOTEK’s DUAL eSATA II card performs.