I recently purchased the HP USB 3.0 4-port SuperSpeed PCIe x1 Card (QT587AA) and installed it in the back of my HP Compaq 6000 Pro as directed. I then installed the software driver directly from the TI web site because it is newer than what's on the included CD.
The new ports are recognized, with no errors in Device Manager. Everything "looks" good; the ports are working, in that they connect to my USB 3.0-compatible external hard drives, but the USB 3.0 speed is much less than anticipated, only about 3'xs faster, benchmarked using HD Tune Pro. Is this normal, or am I missing something?
Likewise, I've installed a brand new Samsung 840 EVO SSD. I used a SATA II "drive" cable from one of the optical drives to connect it internally. It's definitely faster, about 212Mb/s vs. 87Mb/s for the old ST3160318AS drive that came standard with the 6000, so about 2.5x's faster, but again, not near expectations.
I notice there is an eSATA connector available on the motherboard (orange connector as specified here). Should I use this drive connection instead, and will it give me faster read/write speed on the SSD, or does it matter? I realize the 6000 does not provide full SATA 3 6Gb/s capability, but I'm still hoping all this money I just invested in USB 3.0 and SSD can be fully utilitized.
Any tips or advice would be great. Thank you.