In my quest to keep my 2008 era Mac Pro (MacPro3,1) reasonably well suited to my needs, I recently decided to attempt to add USB 3.0 support.
I recently bought myself one of these babies, Inateck KT4004. I like that it has 4 ports and no external power required.
The Amazon page claimed this card is for the Mac Pro. I wasn’t sure if there would be weird driver issues and bought it with a little hesitation. I installed it in about 2mins and upon booting I could immediately see it available:
I love that the AppleUSBXHCI kext applies. Because of this, this card can be used without modifications to OSX. I’m no stranger to running third-party kexts, but thanks to the improved security of Yosemite, there’s an added risk I’d rather avoid.
Benchmarks
USB 2.0 hdd dock: 23.3MB/s writes
USB 3.0 hdd dock: 53.5MB/s writes
Conclusion
Awesome, this is a great little upgrade. If I end up retiring my Mac Pro anytime soon (unlikely), I’ll make use of this for a osx86 build, it’s nice to use hardware that requires no specials kexts after all. Oh, and working USB 3.0 is pretty damn nice too, especially when the price tag is only about $40.