eSata no faster than USB2 on my new external HDD

[Niege]

I just got a Fantom Green 1TB external drive w/USB and eSata connectors. I had trouble getting the eSata bracket installed at first so I did a test on USB2.0 transfer speeds. Then I figured out what I was doing wrong and got the eSata installed then ran the same transfer test and got exactly the same results. What am I doing wrong?

This is on Acer E360 Aspire, which means: Foxconn mobo, Athlon x2 3800 socket 939, 4G (3.2 usable), XPPro SP3 32 bit, all Windows Updates current. Drive transfered from is an internal WD 400G Sata2.

suggestions? Thanks!

 

[armstrda]

Remember that the limiter here is the rotational speed of the drive. Theoretically eSATA can transfer 3Gb/s or ~300MB/s through the cable. USB2.0 can transfer 480Mb/s or ~60MB/s through the cable. A given HDD can usually only withstand transfer rates of 35-70MB/s depending on the model / spindle speed / etc. So as you can see, USB2.0 is plenty fast to handle normal roational drives. Where you will start to see the benefit of SATA / eSATA / FireWire 800 etc is with 15k drives or JBODs where you have multiple drives and SSDs where the transfer rates are above the USB2.0 spec.

 

[yh125d]

Originally posted by: armstrda
Remember that the limiter here is the rotational speed of the drive. Theoretically eSATA can transfer 3Gb/s or ~300MB/s through the cable. USB2.0 can transfer 480Mb/s or ~60MB/s through the cable. A given HDD can usually only withstand transfer rates of 35-70MB/s depending on the model / spindle speed / etc. So as you can see, USB2.0 is plenty fast to handle normal roational drives. Where you will start to see the benefit of SATA / eSATA / FireWire 800 etc is with 15k drives or JBODs where you have multiple drives and SSDs where the transfer rates are above the USB2.0 spec.

Ehh, not really. USB2.0 has a theoretical max of 60MB/s but you'll never see that actually happen. Typical sustained reads off USB2.0 devices are more likely to be 30-40MB/s. Most 1tb drives have read/write speeds ranging from 75-120MB/s, and definitely are limited by USB. I have the same drive as OP and reading a sustained large file (>5gb) I get around 35MB/s on USB, but 70 or so on esata.

 

[0roo0roo]

yea modern drives easy have a transfer rate surpassing usb by a long shot. even 2.5" ones.
go to storagereview.com and look at modern transfer rates.
2007
http://www.storagereview.com/1000.sr?page=0%2C2 2 year old drive slow green type, minimum was 40mb sequential transfer. max 80.
you'd be lucky to get 35mb from usb max.
course copying tiny fragmented files might be a different story.

 

[Niege]

Thanks, guys, but my problem is that I get identical USB and eSata performance. Is there anything I'm missing? I'd be very happy to get twice USB instead of the same.

 

[flexy]

do you have numbers? I was reading on this yesterday...you know that esata max suports 2m (6 ft)? What speeds are you getting?

 

[vailr]

Check for updates for the chipset driver.
For this, I recommend using Driver Max (free registration required):
http://majorgeeks.com/DriverMax_d5260.html

 

[Niege]

Thanks, vailr. Driver Max helped. I'm not sure just what was the problem, but I'm getting the kind of speed I had been expecting. YAY!

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Valir please explain why chipset drivers could cause that? Just curious. I love learning all I can about computers.