Enternal SATA Drives

[andy04]

If I use a PCI Card which has External SATA ports and use a external SATA Drive (on a computer whose mobo does not have a SATA port) will it be any faster than using a USB 2.0 Drive ?

Also will it matter is the drive is a SATA ot SATA II ?

 

[Tyhr]

I would say significantly faster. USB 2.0 has a much lower transfer rate than SATA. I have not personally tested this, but that's the answer on paper. Even Apple's Firewire 'b" isn't as fast as SATA.

Same answer for above if your drive is SATA or SATA II.

But SATA II is faster than SATA I. If your PCI eSATA connector works for SATA II, then that's the way to go. If your controller isn't SATA II, then you need to set a jumper on the hard drive to operate as only SATA I.

 

[Burner27]

Originally posted by: andy04
If I use a PCI Card which has External SATA ports and use a external SATA Drive (on a computer whose mobo does not have a SATA port) will it be any faster than using a USB 2.0 Drive ?

Also will it matter is the drive is a SATA ot SATA II ?

i did a test using an IDE 320GB Seagate drive and a SATA 320GB drive with the same specs. I used an IDE to usb 2.0 converter and transferred 80GBs with the IDE drive. it transferred everything in about 2 hours. I did the same transfer with an eSATA port/cable to the sata drive and everything transferred in 28 minutes.

 

[andy04]

Whats the difference between eSATA and SATA ports ? Newegg carries different enclosures for both the interfaces and also different PCI cards with them.

 

[Burner27]

Originally posted by: andy04
Whats the difference between eSATA and SATA ports ? Newegg carries different enclosures for both the interfaces and also different PCI cards with them.

eSata is an External port that requires a special cable. It doesn't have that little"hook" on the end of it that is on SATA drives. If you are buying just a sata drive without an enclosure you will need to get a cable that is eSATA on one side and SATA on the other. If you are going to buy an enclosure then you will need an eSATA to eSATA cable.

 

[corkyg]

This little slide show illustrates quite well some of the differences and possibilities:

eSATA

 

[Paperdoc]

I've seen a couple of tests of actual real-world data transfer rate tests that answer your question. Test used the same actual drive in an external enclosure, and compared data transfer rates for copying a complete drive from internal to external units. The manipulated variable was the type of connection between enclosure and computer - USB2, eSATA, Firewire 400 (the common one, aka IEEE 1394a), or Firewire 800 (new IEEE 1394b). USB 2 was slowest among them, Firewire 400 a bit better because it wastes less overhead time on bus management. Data rate using eSATA varied - at its slowest on a full HDD it matched USB2, but at its fastest on a near-empty HDD it was twice as fast. Firewire 800 (not very common yet) was fastest of the bunch.

Note that the details of the HDD itself in the external enclosure were not a real issue. You can get enclosures for SATA, SATA II, or EIDE HHD's. Virtually all of them have faster data transfer capabilities than the enclosure-to-computer interface, so that detail may not matter. In my own case, though, I chose a SATA II HDD to put into en external enclsure just to preserve future possibilities for how that HDD is used. The enclosure I chose has eSATA (I am using) plus USB2 (for compatability with others) interfaces.

By the way, eSATA is slightly different from SATA - it includes a couple of features that may or may not be included in a SATA controller. And to ensure there is no confusion, eSATA does use a slightly different connector. For that reason it is better to get a real eSATA controller (my mobo has one built in). Some enclosure makers will include an adapter that lets you use a normal SATA II controller connector to hook up to an eSATA cable and I understand they work fine for most requirements; you just may not get all the features of the full eSATA spec that way.