Bootable, easily recognizes all connected hard disks, PCIe backward compatible

Can through the controller almost only positive report, one exception: the boot time is extended by the controller by about 15-20s depending on hard drive.
The Controller Dawicontrol DC-610e provides 2 internal SATA III ports (SATA 6G called) ready, one of which can optionally be externally operated as e-SATA, which one of the internal connection is eliminated. Since this is defined by jumpers, a short-term change is not even just possible.

All connected SATA hard drives have been recognized without difficulty, were in use: Samsung SSDs (830, 840 Pro); oldest SATA I hard drives from Hitachi, Seagate and Samsung; new Hitachi Enterprise Hard Drives. The advantage of the controller's own BIOS, which allows to boot from the connected hard drives, which can not all controllers. The BIOS can be deactivated if required, but I have another post again speak: A DOS tool on CD is not necessary for this purpose. At system startup, at a suitable point (will appear), press the F4 key, here you can configure all settings, start with or without BIOS and also to create RAID arrays.

The controller supports different RAID modes, I tried even just RAID 1. In this case, a hard disk is designated as a source, a second as the target, then the contents of the source disk will be mirrored to the target plate. While this "rebuild" (I did it by using the startup routine F4) can do nothing but wait. Mirroring a hard drive with Windows boot partition was not an issue, then (1-composite that is applied by the RAID) could be booted without objection from the controller.
Furthermore, the controller was as pure expansion card without RAID functionality in action, he is merely 2 additional SATA III ports available, works without any problems.

Negative is the already mentioned by me and also in other reviews boot time extension, with or without controller BIOS enabled likewise not does not matter, whether actual hard disks are connected or not. For me, making the total 15-20s compared to startup without integral controller.

On the positive side is the backward compatibility: The controller also performs on a PCI-E 1.0 Connection uncomplainingly his service, though not at the same speed as the old standard allows a maximum of one half. Whether then hang new or old hard drives, does not matter.

Furthermore, the supplied software (RAID Monitor, also obtainable online) E-mails to the state of the connected hard disks or the state of the RAID or errors. It also works with SSL encryption, so that this also works with popular mail access. Of course, this is not, for example, can not still monitoring software from APC for UPS. The software can also be the state of the plates also inspect Windows.