Akasa Interconnect EX AK-HC-07BK Multi-Functional Internal Card Reader For 5.25-inch Front PC Bay

I was a little apprehensive after reading about the difficulties some people had had. I fitted the box just below the optical disc drive in the front of my tower case and was able to connect all of the cables to my motherboard. Everything worked with no problems. I now have all the functionality in a convenient position to access 4 USB sockets, 2 high current USB charging outlets and slots for SD and other cards. No more searching around for a USB SD card reader or a USB charger. I wish I had bought this or something similar earlier.

This is a replacement for the Akasa AK-HC-05U3BK, I have used since 2015, with a USB 3-socked failing causing damage to the interface. This replacement AK-HC-07BK has the same build quilty, the other differences is eSATA socket gone. Now has four USB3 + two High-speed USB charger Sockets. All card slots remain the same. The USB3 sockets and card slots are within USB3 Spec.

I'm not sure about the previous reviewer complaining about the slow speeds. Maybe he was using one of the 2 usb 2.0 ports instead. Maybe it was his cheapo usb stick. Testing a SanDisk extreme 64gb usb 3.0 stick I get 225+MB/sec as it should be.Card slots also work at usb 3.0 speeds, unlike most of the 5.25 bay card readers.Good quality finish as well. Recommended.

Big incompatibility issues !I've bought this to replace my old Akasa Interconnect Pro AK-HC-05BKV2 front hub which died after just 18 months and except the outstanding Amazon customer service i had only a very bad experience with this Akasa Interconnect EX AK-HC-07BK.The main issue was the very low seq read/write transfer through any of the 4 USB 3.0 ports at max seq read of 30MB/s and max seq write of 16MB/s using a Kingston 64GB USB 3.0 DataTraveler Ultimate G3 DTU30G3/64GB memory stick capable of read speed up to 150MB/s and write speed up to 70 MB/s.I did the following tests without success :- i switched the internal USB 3.0 motherboard connector from Akasa hub to the front case hub and i got the full speed, meaning it was nothing wrong with my motherboard usb 3.0 connector, usb 3.0 driver or the memory stick used to test the speed.- i installed the latest usb 3.0 driver 1.0.10.255 fron Intel- i installed the original chipset driver 9.3.0.1019 from 06.12.2011- then i installed back the latest chipset driver 10.0.20 from 18.06.2014- in uninstalled the Intel(R) 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family USb Enhanced Host Controller 1E2D and 1E26 both from device manager.- i tested my Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate USB 3.0 64 GB Flash Drive,DTU30G3/64GB on a 3.0 port on my Acer laptop and got amazing speeds ( 89MB/s read speed...wow)- i disconnected all connectors from Akasa hub and restart the pc then connect everything back and restart again- my system config:os: Windows 7 Ultimate x64case: Corsair Carbide 500Rcpu: Intel i5-3570k stable OC @ 4.4 Ghzmemory: Corsair 16GB DDR3 1600hard drive: Samsung 840 SSDgraphic: Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 660motherboard: Asus P8Z77-LX V- i have even tried the driver from their website and nothing changed- i test the speed on the rear motherboard USB 3.0 ports and again i got max speedThe only things i haven't done were to test the Akasa hub on another motherboard and to update the BIOS (which is not recommended as long as everything works perfectly ... well except this Akasa hub...plus i would have lost the overclocking setting in the BIOS)And after all this testing work i decided to get a replacement from Amazon that arrived on Sunday ( like i said amazing service from Amazon) and guess what...i got exactly the same problem reason for me to return the second one too for refund.The Akasa customer service is somehow helpful but no too much and it takes days to arrive to a solution if ever.One last thing to say is that Akasa forget to mention on the instruction manual to connect both the sata power cable and moles power cable to your PSU (logically one can think to use one of them depending on your PSU...i mean they could have made both connectors sata or molex to give a hint that both need to be connected). So the molex power connector if for the 4 blue USB 3.0 ports and the sata power connector is for the 2 orange charging usb ports...at least this is what Akasa customer service told me in the email.Anyway i always had concerns about Akasa products quality but now when i actually test them all i can say is: DO NOT BUY AKASA PRODUCTS ! I doubt they are properly testing their products before release on the market.

Bought this to upgrade previous Akasa AK-ICR-16 USB 2.0 / 3.0 card reader as I'm needing more USB 3.0 ports and the extra charging ports are also handy as devices are becoming more power hungry.The device appears well built and made of solid steel that there's no movement or give from the casing. I mention this point because it was very difficult to fit into a standard 5.25" bay. No matter how I tried it just would not fit so I had to slightly deform the aluminium chassis of a Silverstone case for it to fit. As one previous review mentioned - snug.All seemed well at first but then strange things started happening at first but now I think I've fathomed what was happening and a workaround. Whenever I tried to safely remove a USB device using the Windows notification area icon to eject a device the whole Akasa hub would be ejected by Windows (8.1 x64)!!! Not just the one device, the whole hub! Device Manager would show a yellow triangle on the Akasa (known by Windows as a "Generic Superspeed USB Hub" followed by the message:"Windows cannot use this hardware device because it has been prepared for "safe removal" but it has not been removed from the computer. (Code 47). To fix this problem, unplug this device from your computer and then plug it in again."I would have to reboot Windows in order for the Akasa USB hub to be usable again! All well and good if you're just using it on a day to day PC and not on a server or media centre or something running permanently but even then it seems a bit counterproductive to lose a whole hub when you only want to remove a USB stick. If I have other USB devices in use at the same time like USB to SATA dock or anything, it was impossible to eject one without ejecting the whole hub and everything else that was plugged into it!I'm not sure if it's just an issue with Windows 8.1 x64 or whether it's fine with Windows 7 or 10 as I've not tried it in any other OS but if it's simply using a USB 3.0 motherboard header for the hub and it was fine with the previous Akasa AK-ICR-16 I'm not so sure to point the finger at the OS just yet but I am due a reinstall so will see...Have emailed Akasa Customer Support but they've not had the courtesy to reply or simply don't have a clue.USB 3.0 speeds aren't great either as mentioned by other reviewers but I'm not troubled by that, just the fact that I can't eject one device without affecting the others.Thankfully as a workaround, there are USB apps that do the same as Windows safely remove / eject but better. With a third party app I can eject one device without losing the whole hub!I do like the layout of this Interconnect bay and the connectors it needs as well as the card reader otherwise it would have been returned same day. I've got until next month to return so will do some more troubleshooting and see if a fresh Windows reinstall works as I'm due to do it soon so will update review if anything changes. Perhaps too it may be a one off faulty hub. Will know soon enough but would be interested to hear if anyone else has experienced the curse of the missing hub too? There's no mention of it in the reviews so I guess not.