Saturday, March 1, 2014

Inateck KT4004 4-Port USB 3.0 PCI-E Express Card for Mac


Still recovering from major surgery, I did get up today and decided to remove the Orico 2P card and install the new Inateck KT4004 4-Port USB 3.0 PCI-E Express Card for Mac in my 5.1 system.

I only did a few quick tests which are in no way comprehensive, but here's my take on it.

The card preforms well and had no problems recognizing more than 1 dozen devices I tried (web cams, keyboard, mice, printers, scanners, belkin hub, thumb drives, portable USB drives etc...)

This card is easily installed, and works immediately with the OS X built in drivers. It has no conflicts with any of my other hardware (including the installed HighPoint 1144CM).

I transferred hundreds of GB of data to and from a mechanical USB 3.0 drive and it's just as fast as the 1144CM with a single drive. Plugging in multiple drives does slow it slightly, giving the 1144CM the edge for raw storage speed where multiple drives are installed. Keep in mind however that the 1144CM can't handle most of the devices I listed above, it only works with storage devices.

The Inateck card for Mac easily powers 4x 7200 RPM 1TB laptop drives without any additional power requirements. I've tested it pretty extensively and I can't find any negative characteristics to this card.

I had no bluetooth interference during large or short transfers. In fact, so far I have nothing but high marks for this card. It works VERY well and has found a permanent slot in my Mac.

If this card had been available when I first started my quest for USB 3.0, I would have purchased this card rather than the 1144CM. There's nothing wrong with the 1144CM and in fact is well worth the money if you need a USB 3.0 Raid system, but the Inateck KT4004 is far more versatile and likely to suit the needs of more users.

You can purchase the card from Amazon

Note about sleep mode: In my current configuration, none of the drives are ejected prior to or during sleep mode, therefore remounting of drives isn't needed upon wake. This occurs on my system because of the Rocket-U. It prevents the drives from being ejected because it's a RAID controller. I will test this later with the RocketU removed when I get a chance. YMMV.

For now, both cards will remain installed in my system, but if I need to free up a slot for anything else, I'll keep the Inateck card installed and remove the 1144CM.

If I had an SSD, I'd post some speed results but that's not the case right now so there's no point to it.

The Inateck KT4004 card is my recommended product for anyone who asks about USB 3.0 in a cMP.

The box includes:

1 - PCIe card in an anti-static bag
1 - Instruction Manual
1 - Ziplock bag with 2 screws
1 - Windows Driver CD, and PDF version of documentation.
1 - Thank you card with support and contact information.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

What cables are needed? I have 4 HDD installed, can this still be installed? Power?

Bucknasty said...

Bill, no cables are needed. It's self powered and has no power connectors.

http://www.amazon.com/Release-Optimized-Inateck-Expansion-Version/dp/B00I027GPC/

It has nothing to do with your HDD's and yes, you can install it as long as you have an open PCIe slot.

George B said...

Hello, thanx for your review. Very helpful!
Will it work on 10.6.7 OS though?

Bucknasty said...

George,

It's designed to work with 10.8.2 and above. I think there are drivers for earlier versions but I haven't looked into that. You should do some googling or go to their website and ask a support question to be sure. Good Luck.

Anonymous said...

Work like a charm.
Installed on MacPro 5.1 with 10.10.2.
However, I have never been able to boot with this card as an external SSD/HD.

Any luck?

Bucknasty said...

I'm sorry I didn't notice your comment / question earlier. You can't boot from any USB 3.0 card in Mac Pro's 1,1 - 5,1. This ability would require BIOS/ EFI boot support on the Mac Pro firmware. This is a limitation of the early Mac Pro and is not the fault of the USB card.

Unknown said...

I found this article and would like to ask you if you are still using the Inateck KT4004 with El Capitan. According to Inatecks website, this card is not compatible with Yosemite and up. I purchased a Sonnet Allegro USB 3.0 4-Port card number USB3-4PM-E card because I thought I was not getting USB 3 speeds. I ran some tests with XBench on both cards and they are almost exactly the same. The reason I went through all this is because my Hoodman USB 3 Steel CF card reader does not work on USB 3 ports anymore, but does work on USB 2 ports. Having a Nikon D810 with 75MB files is very time consuming uploading photos into Lightroom. Do you have any thoughts on this please? Thank you in advance, Dean.

Bucknasty said...

The card works fine in El Capitan. They just didn't want to maintain additional support due to being expensive. I would purchase a new reader if I were you.

Bucknasty said...

Just a quick update. This card still works well on Mojave 10.14.4 & 10.14.5 (Developer Preview).