ESATA External Drive with 5400rpm?

LOUISSSSS

Diamond Member
Dec 5, 2005
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which of the above choices would give me better file transfer speeds?
i'm guessing the 7200rpm with the USB
 

Zepper

Elite Member
May 1, 2001
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eSATA will always give best performance but a port isn't available on many computers yet. So if you are using the external with many PCs, USB will do you better. Why not get an enclosure with both types of ports like the new Silverstone MS05. I've got one here and have only inspected the product in detail preparing to review it - still waiting on the drive which I bought on FleaBay. So far all I'd like to see on it is some rubber pads on the drive enclosure itself for a little non-slip when using it as a portable. It's similar to the Vantec EZ Swap kits as it has a bracket to mount in a 3" bay or an adapter bracket - unlike the Vantec, it doesn't come with the 5" bay adapter.

.bh.
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
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eSATA @5400 will run rings around USB @7200. I have both. I have a pair or Vantex NexStar externals which have both eSATA and USB 2 ports. Then I use an eSATA PCMCIA (Cardbus) card as an interface on my laptop and an eSATA port on the backplane of my Desktop. I can move the drives easily back and forth between my computers. Comparing actual data transfer between eSATA and USB is about 4X faster with eSATA - using the same drive.

eSATA_USB
 

LOUISSSSS

Diamond Member
Dec 5, 2005
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damn so transfer times with an ESATA 5400rpm drive will be much faster than a USB 7200rpm drive? wow... did not know that
 

NoelS

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Oct 5, 2007
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Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
damn so transfer times with an ESATA 5400rpm drive will be much faster than a USB 7200rpm drive? wow... did not know that

eSATA is about 4 times faster than USB. The HDDs transfer rate can't make up that kind of difference

Noel