Installation of the FastTrak S150 SX4 board is straightforward; it inserts into a 32/64-bit PCI 2.2/2.3 slot. Keep in mind that this is a large PCI board, about ten inches long and four inches tall. Additional space is required for the SATA data cables, which attach to the top of the board, and the optional hard drive LED cable, which comes off the end of the board. For this review, the card was installed into a 32-bit, 33Mhz, PCI 2.2 slot.

Before installation, a memory module must be installed into a slot on the board. The memory module must have the following attributes: unbuffered, 3.3V, DIMM, SDRAM, 64 MB to 256 MB, ECC or non-ECC, PC100 or higher. If registered memory or no memory is installed, the FastTrak BIOS will display an error message to that effect. For this review, a non-ECC, PC133, 256MB DIMM was installed and verified with the memory tester available from the Promise website. Promise strongly recommends testing memory modules before use, and also provides a list of accepted memory modules.

The package comes with four SATA data cables and two SATA Y-power cables that attach to standard power connectors. Serial ATA cabling is a breeze to plug in compared to parallel ATA cabling. The data cables only have two, identical ends, and the connectors can only attach one way. The jumpers on the SATA disk drives do not need to be set, because there is no master-slave distinction. Even with four stacked drives in a case, there is plenty of airflow space behind the drives due to the thinness of the cables. The Vantec case used in this review has two filtered case fans behind the drive stack. The four drives that are installed run very hot, and some forced air cooling over them is a relief.