# USB serial adapter or serial PCIe card?

**URL:** <https://forums.digi.com/t/usb-serial-adapter-or-serial-pcie-card/11942>\
**Category:** Other & Legacy Products\
**Tags:** serial, usb-serial-adapter, pcie, card, rs232\
**Created:** [September 15, 2013, 9:53pm UTC](https://forums.digi.com/t/usb-serial-adapter-or-serial-pcie-card/11942 "2013-09-15T21:53:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![MartinezJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/898d66/32.png) [@MartinezJ](https://forums.digi.com/u/MartinezJ)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2013, 9:53pm UTC](https://forums.digi.com/t/usb-serial-adapter-or-serial-pcie-card/11942/1 "2013-09-15T21:53:32Z")

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Which would be best/most reliable? A USB to serial RS232 adapter or a PCIe serial RS232 card? …and why?

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**Author:** ![MartinezJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/898d66/32.png) [@MartinezJ](https://forums.digi.com/u/MartinezJ)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 6:21pm UTC](https://forums.digi.com/t/usb-serial-adapter-or-serial-pcie-card/11942/2 "2013-10-05T18:21:51Z")

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Ok, to answer my own question, I actually extensively tested both now, a USB serial adapter and a PCIe serial card. The USB serial adapter which had a FTDI based chipset gave me driver problems on a few occasions, so it was not optimal.  
The PCIe card worked well without any problems once the drivers were installed correctly, so I guess that makes the PCIe card the better choice.  
Another option I also tested was using a [serial Ethernet server](http://www.usconverters.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=66&products_id=225) which actually worked pretty well too, however it was harder to get configured correctly.