Motherboards supporting the new storage interfaces SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0 are coming soon. But few are those who are looking forward to investing in a new motherboard. HighPoint, widely known for its storage expansion cards, has launched what could be the solution for these people. With two SATA 6Gbps expansion cards all PC users with a free PCI Express 2.0 slot can make use of the new format with the right drives.
The letdown is the used PCI-E x1 interface which is nowhere near of unlocking the full potential of SATA 6Gbps (x1 = 250MB/s, SATA 6Gbps = 500MB/s+). HighPoint Rocket 620 offers two internal SATA connectors, while Rocket 622 use external eSATA connectors. The controller chips comes from Marvell and the cards are expected to cost $60 and $70 respectively.
