T wrote:

If I move down to 3.0, I get

http://www.siig.com/it-products/usb/...-3-0-pcie.html

with w7 support and a sata power connector

You would only be moving down from USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) *if* the external
USB-attached drive also supports USB 3.1. Does it? Maybe it's just a
USB 3.0 device, so it'll max out at 5 Gbps (which is theoretical and
never obtainable) even when connected to a USB 3.1 port.

Also, while it mentions a PCI-e slot as a requirement, there's no
mention if it can only use a PCI-e 1x slot (the short one) or what PCI-e
slot type it can use. The PCI-e 1x slot only has 1 lane. If you're
using only one of the card's ports then the 1 lane is okay. If you
attach another USB device to the card, effective bandwidth goes down
since the 2 devices on 1 lane will contend with other. After looking at
the product page and the photo there, the connector on this card is just
PCI-e 1x. Guess you're supposed to know from the pic of the card to see
you are limited to 1 lane connector (as I recall, you can plug a 1x card
into the larger/longer PCI-e slots but you're wasting their lanes).

Know what mobo is in the computer? Does it have a PCI-e 1x slot? And
is that slot unfettered? That is, is that slot currently available? I
have a fat video card that occupies 2 PCI-e slots. This blocks the only
PCI-e 1x slot on my mobo (some Acer model in a pre-built that I salvaged
from a friend that didn't want to fix it as an excuse to get a better
gaming computer). Even if I managed to slide a card into the PCI-e 1x
slot, the back cage slot for it is already used up by the fat video
card. If the customer has no need for decent 3D graphics (they don't
play video games or using drawing programs, like Photoshop or AutoCAD),
and just use the onboard video controller (if the Intel CPU has it) the
the PCI-e 1x slot should be free and usabled (not free but unusable as
my setup).