14 DAY TRIAL // Portable storage devices come in handy often, so it might help to have a means to connect them to a PC without crowding the motherboard's USB ports.
The new RAID hos bus adapter from HighPoint, called RocketU 1144CM, does that and more.
It has four USB 3.0 ports, each one capable of handling any external SSD, HDD or drive enclosure.
Each port has its own USB 3.0 controller though, which means that the fastest SATA performance possible over USB is available to all drives connected, instead of splitting the bandwidth.
There is also the matter of RAID support, which turns four connected drives into a single partition.
The four 5 Gbps links become a single 20 Mbps connection in such situations.
HighPoint made the RocketU 1144CM USB 3.0 RAID HBA for Apple's Mac OS X 10.8x Mountain Lion, so Mac owners can rejoice. RAID 0, 1 and JBOD levels are selectable. The price is of $149.99 / 112.10 Euro.