So if you do not have SATA3 and are stuck on SATA but do want to maximize SSD performance, OWC might have the answer for you, at the expense of a PCie slot though. Other World Computing announced the... OWC offer SATA3 SSD PCIe Daughter Board
Yep, way too overpriced imho. 57USD is simply too much. Few years ago for that rig in my sig (X58 mobo without SATA3, just SATA2) to use it with Intel 520 series 120GB SSD as it's meant to be on SATA3 I've bought Transcent PCIEx 2.0 x4 combo SATA3/USB3.0 controler card for just around 20€. If the price is 20$/€, even 25$/€ that would be OK, but 57$ is way too much. btw, cards like this OWC Accelsior S (for fair price, of course) could be really nice upgrade for all running SATA3 SSD's on non-SATA3 mobo's.
if it was cheaper i'd consider one or two, i have multiple free PCI lanes and would love to get rid of some power / SATA cables that run to my 2 SSD's if i could help it wouldn't pay in excess of $100 for them though.
Looks like they used a run of the mill multipurpose USB/SATA/PCI-E controller, slapped on a cheap PCB. Better save some extra cash and go for a true native SATA-6G with a new (or second hand) mobo. Those auxiliary controllers usually suck at write speeds anyway.
Definitely not worth it. I bought a PCIe card with 2 SATA ports (with RAID support) for about $20 including shipping. I'm guessing its performance isn't up-to-par but it has so far been good enough. Considering this card is marketed toward people who are looking to add a SATA3 SSD to a PC that currently does not support SATA3, it makes more sense to me to just simply get a PCIe SSD and skip SATA altogether.
This is actually very frustrating from my perspective. This product is only a PCI-E to SATA3 chipset with a 2.5" mounting system slapped onto it, with a little voltage regulator to supply power to the SSD. It's no different than your Asmedia add-in cards for JBOD/Fakeraid arrangements. The best part is that they're actually using a chipset from one of their other products and have removed an eSATA port (you can see the differential pairs and power traces going to the edge of the mounting bracket). Total cost? Less than $20 for the parts and assembly (in 1KUs, of course) is what I'll guess. Sidenote: I bet you could solder an eSATA port to the exposed pads and it'd function fine, because I can almost guarantee they aren't putting the effort into producing their own controller IC, and so there'd be no differences in firmware.
