Innostor Technology IS611 USB 3.0 SATA+IDE Bridge Controller 2013~2019

[Kiriakos GR]

Innostor Technology IS611 (Taiwan), this is a USB 3.0 SATA+IDE Bridge Controller, first release at 2013.

This brand was a chip manufacturer of several USB Bridge Controller, up to the year 2019.
At that year the brand decided to end their activities, due the fact that their profitability shrink, because USB 3.0 products market this started to shrink too.

Innostor IS611 latest revision specifications cannot be found, their website this is not active anymore.
First revision IS611 (2013) this was supporting:
— Support for 2TB drives
— SATA II, 3Gbps and SATA I, 1.5Gbps
— ATA/ATAPI-7 Spec (PATA UDMA-6 133MB/s)
— Firmware update via USB port
— Hot plug support
— Simultaneous use of three drives
— Support for USB 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 (rev 1.0)
 
Nowadays, IS611 chip (remaining stock) this still circulates within several almost identical products of USB 3.0 SATA+IDE Bridge's.
The only difference this is revision of firmware in use, and the issue might be maximum HDD size support.
Old revision supported 2TB, a later revision supported up to 4TB, and in theory the latest revision supports up to 6TB.

While LogiLink AU0028A (product of 2018) this mention.
*Max. SATA HDD Capacity: 10TB
*Max. IDE HDD Capacity: Depending on the IDE HDD

Regarding USB 3.0 bandwidth, while the theoretical maximum, this is 5Gbps, this controller supports SATA II 3Gbps.
SATA II 3Gbps equates to about 300 MB/s theoretical bandwidth.
Real world MB/s for USB 3.0 this is 215 MB/s at USB 3.0, and 42 MB/s at USB 2.0 port (benchmark SSD Kingston SA400S37/240G (240GB)).
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I have an eye to such a modern controller for some time, as I was looking to also buy a USB 3.0 capable controller.
Because my older USB 2.0 to IDE, this was having a great difficulty to support a stable connection with my 2TB WD Gold HDD.
Even so, my older USB 2.0 to IDE, this it did succeed to format both of my new HDD a year ago.

November 2024, I found at sweet price this controller and I did ordered one.
And soon I will be able to perform a detailed analysis.   

Supported hardware:
3.5" IDE Port = HDD , CD-RW, DVD-RW (with molex plug connected too)
2.5" IDE Port = HDD
SATA II port  = HDD, DVD-RW?

Supported software:
Windows format
HDD utilities Low-level format   

Notes:
* Innostor IS611 chip provides S.M.A.R.T. data only for SATA disks.
* IDE drives must be jumpered to "Master"

[Kiriakos GR]

Innostor IS611 USB3/SATA/PATA Controller Firmware Version 09.37

Copyright Innostor Technology Corporation
All Rights Reserved.
Date : 2017/09/11 09:32:43
Innostor Product Name : IS611

File Attached.

Notes: This flasher utility will upgrade products of 2015 or older, up to the year of 09/2017.
Newer IS611 production, it might not need it.
Either way, this is a great tool so to review IS611 internal firmware version.

[Kiriakos GR]

IS611 USB 3.0 single chip SATA/PATA combo bridge controller

IS611 is a highly-integrated single chip USB3.0 to SATA/PATA combo bridge controller.
IS611 fully supports USB1.1/2.0/3.0 host, SATA I/II device and ATA/ATAPI device.
It connects USB host and the external devices such as HDD, ODD or SSDIS611 fully supports.
The USB, SATA and PATA engines comply with Universal Serial Bus specification 3.0, Serial ATA.
IS611 implements the full USB Mass Storage Class specification ver.1.0, Bulk-Only protocol and complies.

Features:
– Quick devices recognition
– Connect three devices at the same time (SATA x 1, PATA x 2)
– Build-in SPI flash
– Build-in 5 to 3.3 LDO
– Compliant with Universal Serial Bus 3.0 Spec Rev 1.0 (SuperSpeed, 5Gbps)
– Backward compatible with Universal Serial Bus Spec Rev 2.0 (High-Speed, 480Mbps)
– Backward compatible with Universal Serial Bus Spec Rev 1.0 (Full-Speed, 12Mbps)
– Compliance with USB Mass Storage Class Spec Rev 1.0, Bulk-Only Transport
– Compliant with Serial ATA Spec Rev 2.6 (SATA II, 3Gbps and SATA I, 1.5Gbps)
– Compliant with ATA/ATAPI-7 Spec (PATA UDMA-6 133MB/s)
– Support Windows 8 / 7 / Vista / XP / 2000 / ME, Mac OS 9 / 10 and Linux Operating System
– Support dynamic HDD motor spin down
– SPI flash for vender specific VID/PID setting
– Support firmware update through USB port
– Single 30MHz clock input
– Support SATA Asynchronous Signal Recovery (Hot Plug)
– Support ATA/ATAPI PACKET command set and Pass-Through command
– Support ATA/ATAPI LBA48 bit addressing mode
– Support ATA/ATAPI Ultra DMA Mode 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
– Support ATA/ATAPI PIO Mode 0, 1, 2, 3, 4
– Support HDD capacity larger than 2TB application
– One Touch Backup solution ready

Free Application Software:
– One Touch Back Utility

[Kiriakos GR]

Every day I do discover something new about Innostor IS611.

Under a user review, I found a photograph, this demonstrating this controller to function also with IDE to memory card converter's = two of them.
Additionally I did a zoomed photograph of the PCB, for comparison purposes, when I will get my own PCB.
 

[Kiriakos GR]

Innostor Free backup utility  (compatibility with your IS611 must be verified).
Download link for AI-OTB V1.3.0.5   (file signature 24/3/2014)
https://assets.tripplite.com/drivers/ai-otb-driver-read-release-notes.zip


Attached Innostor IS611 datasheet.
And by this file, I have now a complete copy, of any resources that Innostor Technology (Taiwan) this shared with the world when was still alive.

[Kiriakos GR]

I am now having my own XT-U33502 (bus reported device description)   

hardware ids
USB\VID_1F75&PID_0611&REV_0006
USB\VID_1F75&PID_0611

First test with WD400 (PATA) WDC WD400JB-00JJA0
First Bug detected = misspelled HDD naming at device manager, =  DWCDW04 J0-B00JJ0A USB Device ??
Second Bug or limitation, with PATA IDE connection, SMART information this is blocked.

I am now alerted so to inspect if the only known firmware this can be of any help?

[Kiriakos GR]

Confirmed 

This XinTop unknown maker preloaded an ancient firmware. Ver 0930
While last known this is Ver 0937

After firmware update .... no more shown any XT-U33502 (bus reported device description)

This device become an 100% Innostor product, with new name: Ext. HDD  
 

Now its time for a bit more testing.   

[Kiriakos GR]

Myth busting time, about this Innostor controller
Innostor IS611, this is not an equivalent to a transparent PATA to SATA converter.
Nor this is an equivalent to a transparent HDD to USB Bridge.

Transparent = working without any sort of PC driver control
And or, Transparent = two interfaces talking together in hardware level only.


Innostor IS611 it must be considered primarily as USB Bridge for HDD communication with a windows PC.
The first major issue, this is data transfer stability.
It appears that generic Microsoft driver, this is not good enough, but it is neither useless.
In some occasions of data transfer (files copy or write operations) it seems to hold all by itself (pause) and restart all by itself.
In other words a file copy this might need longer time duration so to complete, than the expected.
Test performed with 4GB of a movie file.


HDD diagnostics software these do high speed operation, because they do not actually transfer any data.
Innostor IS611 has no issues at constantly performed high speed operations = HDD platters inspection.

If you see at Windows event viewer messages as is below?   
The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk xxx
This is a proof, of Microsoft driver failure, so this to handle intense data activity.

 
Innostor IS611 controller alone, this has a small issue, with HDD auto detection.
In case of PATA and SATA simultaneous connection, first HDD must be jumpered as Master, and the second HDD must be jumpered as Slave.
 
When everything is properly setup, then Innostor IS611 will operate as expected.
PATA/IDE due IS611 to SATA = READ / Write = No problem

PATA/IDE due IS611 to USB = READ = No problem
PATA/IDE due IS611 to USB = Write = stability issues

SATA due IS611 to USB = READ / Write = No problem

Double confirmed, that PATA/IDE channel this does not pass SMART information.
While the SATA channel this pass SMART information.

In conclusion:
It is unfortunate that Microsoft generic driver 21/6/2006, this is not good enough so to handle intense HDD activity due USB 3.0
IS611 it might not act as a fast horse at copy - paste of a 4GB movie file.
IS611 it is more stable at copy paste of MP3 files / small files.
IS611 it is 100% stable at HDD diagnostics
IS611 it will not read HDD name of any HDD this is prepared for a RAID Array (At the Device manager).