NitroAV SATASTAR series User manual

‘SATAStar Series’
Macintosh OSX 2-Port SATA CardBus Adapter
Quick Installation Guide
Fueling Your Digital World is the Heart of NitroAV.
Make sure your laptop stays on the edge of technology and speed.
The 2-Port NitroAV ‘SATAStar Series’ 32-Bit CardBus is the most
powerful and flexible solution available to accommodate storage
devices and peripherals with the new Serial-ATA interface. With data
transfer speeds up to 150MBytes/sec (real-world observations: over
3.5X speed of USB 2.0 and much faster then Firewire800), SATA is
quickly becoming the gold standard for high-speed data transfer. This
card instantly adds two Serial ATA ports to your laptop computer,
letting you connect cutting-edge SATA drives. A professional and cost-
effective way to add Serial ATA performance your laptop.

KEY FEATURES:
•Easy installation
•Complaint with Serial ATA 2.0 Phase 1.
•Compliant with PCMCIA R7.1 specification
•Supports RAID 0 and 1
•Supports 256 bytes FIFO per channels.
•Full support to Hot Swappable and Hot Pluggable features
incorporated.
•Max Data Transfer 1.5 Gb/s.
•Add up to 2 external SATA hard drives
•Supports Mac OS 10.2.8 and higher
••• Does not support bootability from CardBus attached device ••
SPECIFICATIONS
Software
Operating System Requirements Supports Mac OS Mac OS 10.2
and higher.
Drive Formatting Supports Apple® Drive Setup Utility (version 1.5
or later) or other third party software
Hardware
Compatible Models Macintosh PowerBooks
Bus Interface PCMCIA
Number of External Drives Supported 2
Removable media devices supported under OS 10.2 and higher
Data Transfer Rate Sustained rate dependent on drive
specifications
Up to 1.5 Gb/s in burst master cycle
Multiple cards can operate simultaneously
CRC error checking ensures data integrity

INTRODUCTION:
CardBus driver is for the NitroAV 2-Port SATA CardBus/PCMCIA
(Type 2). The driver required is called “NitroAVCB3512v1.pkg” and
should be installed before the CardBus is installed. The driver is
downloadable from the NitroAV site <click here>, on the bottom of the
SATA CardBus page.
Driver Installation:
•Run the NitroAVCB3512v1.pkg Installation
•Follow the installation steps throughout the installer.
•Driver must be loaded on internal drive (boot disk).
•Driver will be loaded in the /System/Library/Extension of the boot Drive
•One installed you will need to restart.
•In the future the driver will be loaded at startup.
NOTE: You need be an admin user, if you are a normal user
you will be prompted to enter a admin password to install the driver.
Hardware Installation:
•Just plug-in the card into the PCMCIA slot.
•No Shutdown or Reboot is required after Software is installed.
Driver Function:
The Driver detects the Cardbus when attached to the Machine and loads
itself. The driver is unloaded when the card is removed from the Machine.
Device Connection:

Scenario 1:
Connecting the hard disk when the System is already up and running.
The Serial ATA device which is intended to be connected
to the Machine should be connected in following manner.
•Connect the SATA cable to the Hard Disk, Power UP the Hard Disk.
•Connect the SATA cable to the PC card.
•The driver will automatically mount the Hard Disk.
•No shutdown or restart is needed for this process.
Scenario 2:
Connecting the hard disk before booting up the system.
The Serial ATA device which is intended to be connected to
the Machine should be connected in following manner.
•Connect the SATA cable to the Hard Disk, Power UP the Hard Disk.
•Connect the SATA cable to the PC card.
•Insert the card into the PC slot.
•Start the machine and the hard disk will be mounted automatically.
Scenario 3:
Hot plugging the hard disk when the system is up and running.
To connect some other Hard Disk removing the previous
one follow the instruction.
•Make sure no data transfer is in progress to/from the hard disk.
•Eject the hard drives connected to the card.
For this just right click on the drive and select the eject option.
•Connect the SATA cable to the another Hard Disk,
Power-UP the Hard Disk.
•Connect the SATA cable to the PC card.
•This will mount the Hard Disk on the system.

•No shutdown or restart is needed for this process.
Scenario 4:
Removing SATA Hard Disk while the transfer is in progress:
•In case the transfer is in process between the Boot Drive
and the SATA drive, transfer is terminated with an error
message. System remains in a stable state and user
can continue doing various Drive related operations.
•Incase the transfer is in process between the 2 SATA
Drives connected to the channels, transfer is terminated and
makes the driver to malfunction until the next reboot.
Hence it is strongly recommended that the user should
ensure the completion of transfer operations.
RAID SUPPORT
Software RAID 0/1 is supported.
Refer the help documentation for RAID in Disk Utility to
configure the SATA Drives in RAID configuration.