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Orico USB3.0 PCIe out of stock everywhere?

xcodeSyn said:
After several months' absence, looks like the Orico PFU3-4P and 2P USB3 cards are back in stock at Amazon.com. The 4-port version has a much better value at $19.99 than the $17.99 2-port version.
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That looks interesting. Does it need the molex hooked up or does it draw power from the PCIe slot?
 
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OrangeSVTguy said:
That looks interesting. Does it need the molex hooked up or does it draw power from the PCIe slot?
Click to expand...
I think the two-port version doesn't need the (optional) molex, but the four-port needs it according to the review. I have used another chipset version from Orico without molex, which also has two ports.
 
xcodeSyn said:
I think the two-port version doesn't need the (optional) molex, but the four-port needs it according to the review. I have used another chipset version from Orico without molex, which also has two ports.
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I was going to run wires down from from optical bay anyways so powering it isn't a big problem. I think I'll order the 4 port card. Just need to find something else for $5 so I can get the free shipping lol.

I got the long black wires and molex plug from an old G5 wiring harness. Should work out great.
 
Sata to Molex for ORICO PFU3-4P

Hey there and thanks to all of those providing useful info from their experiences.

Just ordered: ORICO PFU3-4P from newegg (it's on sale at the moment):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1DS0NZ0600

Couldn't find an instruction manual, but does anyone know if it's safe to power this from an unused drive bay's sata power using a sata to molex adapter like this one?

http://www.nipponlabs.com/sata-fm.html

Seems to be just fine with the 2 port version, just wondering if anyone had experience with the 4 port, as it seems possible to overdraw the power from a single sata power source if, say, 4 bus powered devices were connected.

Thanks in advance for any help with this!
 
stmp said:
Seems to be just fine with the 2 port version, just wondering if anyone had experience with the 4 port, as it seems possible to overdraw the power from a single sata power source if, say, 4 bus powered devices were connected.
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I think it is possible. Maybe someone can double-check my numbers:

It is unknown how much is being provided by the PCI slot, if anything at all. To be safe I'll assume zero since the card doesn't work without the Molex power.

SATA power cable cable has three 5V pins that can each carry 1.5A each, which is 4.5A.

USB 3.0 is rated up to 1.5A@5V per port. With all four ports used, that is 6A.

4.5A is more than you need for things like flash drives, hubs, and hard drives with their own powered enclosures. I would be wary about how many bus-powered devices you attached and how much power they draw. For example, I wouldn't do anything crazy like using the port for charging four iPads at the same time!

In the other thread Tesselator pointed out the Orico cards don't have a dedicated controller for each port, so another drawback is that the more devices you hook up to the card and use at the same time, the lower your speed gets because they all share the same bandwidth. I have tested and confirmed this.

It is a very inexpensive and fast solution if you use one port at a time. It also uses native drivers which I like. But it's not a good solution if you want to hook up multiple drives in a RAID or some such thing.
 
Sata to Molex for ORICO PFU3-4P

Oops! Double post.
 
Last edited:
stmp said:
Hey there and thanks to all of those providing useful info from their experiences.

Just ordered: ORICO PFU3-4P from newegg (it's on sale at the moment):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1DS0NZ0600

Couldn't find an instruction manual, but does anyone know if it's safe to power this from an unused drive bay's sata power using a sata to molex adapter?

Image

Seems to be just fine with the 2 port version, just wondering if anyone had experience with the 4 port, as it seems possible to overdraw the power from a single sata power source if, say, 4 bus powered devices were connected.

Thanks in advance for any help with this!
Click to expand...

I'm getting deja vu. Look upward ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
Many thanks Mango + Sorry for double posting before.

Seems like you have a good understanding of the electrics at play here.

I have no plan to run 4 ports at once, but rather want to safeguard against someone else in my office seeing a row of USB ports sticking out the back of my desk and thinking "that looks like a great place to charge my phone... and my ipad... and my..." you get the idea. Sad as it is, I leave the machine on for remote access so this is a concern for me.

In your opinion, would it be safe to combine power from two unused drive bays to power the Orico 4 port USB3.0 with 9A, coming from the 6 5V pins (3 pins on each sata power) on the two sata to molex adapters?

Many thanks again! (Hopefully I can manage to post just once this time.)
 
Actually my understanding is very basic and based off of specs from Wikipedia. Not the best information to rely on random stranger on an Internet forum.

You really have random colleagues plugging stuff into your computer? They could theoretically exceed the power of the SATA plug.

I really don't know about combining SATA power. I didn't know there was a cable for that. You could just put a sticker over one of the ports or just get the two port model.
 
I picked up the 2 port version and can confirm a few things.

I'm running the 2 port version without the molex power to a Newer Technology Voyager S3. As you may know, this is a powered hub that let's you swap 2.5" and 3.5" drives.

I moved a 4.68GB file between an OWC Mercury Accelsior to a Samsung 830 SSD plugged into the Voyager. The transfer took 19 seconds.

I've not run any benchmarks beyond this, but hopefully my experience will be helpful to some. I'm pretty happy with the setup.
 
aminadab said:
I picked up the 2 port version and can confirm a few things.

I'm running the 2 port version without the molex power to a Newer Technology Voyager S3. As you may know, this is a powered hub that let's you swap 2.5" and 3.5" drives.

I moved a 4.68GB file between an OWC Mercury Accelsior to a Samsung 830 SSD plugged into the Voyager. The transfer took 19 seconds.
Click to expand...

246MB/s. About half speed. Not too bad for a Hong-Kong-Phewy card I guess.
 
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