eSata vs Firewire external Harddrive

[FreedomGUNDAM]

I have a IcyDock MB559US-1S enclosure. It is extremely well made and works great. The eSATA is mad faster than the USB2.0

 

[Slickone]

Originally posted by: corkyg

Originally posted by: Blain
If you will be using the external drive only on PC's that have an eSATA port... :thumbsup:
If you will use the external drive on PC's that don't have an eSATA port... :thumbsdown:
Firewire & USB 2.0 are widely supported.

And that is why the Vantec Nex-Star 3, with eSATA and USB 2 is so useful. You have speed plus portability.

eSATA+USB2

The reviews there don't seem very positive for that enclosure using eSATA.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: Slickone

Originally posted by: corkyg

Originally posted by: Blain
If you will be using the external drive only on PC's that have an eSATA port... :thumbsup:
If you will use the external drive on PC's that don't have an eSATA port... :thumbsdown:
Firewire & USB 2.0 are widely supported.

And that is why the Vantec Nex-Star 3, with eSATA and USB 2 is so useful. You have speed plus portability.

eSATA+USB2

The reviews there don't seem very positive for that enclosure using eSATA.

Read the reviews.
They are done by morons whining about having no SATA II support & how z0mg, we are being forced to run at SATA I speeds, half as fast as SATA II :roll:

Pure idiocy, as we all know how that HDDs can fully max out their interfaces :roll: Right...

I have that enclosure, & aside from having to set SATA II HDDs to SATA I mode via jumper, it's a superb enclosure.

 

[corkyg]

These are the exact results of a head-to-head bench-off conducted by Maximum PC pitting Firewire 800 vs. USB 2 vs, eSATA: (Page 28 April 2007 issue)
MaxPC

 

[dgsg]

WD My Book will not use its power saving feature if not used with the USB interface, if that matters.

 

[vailr]

Originally posted by: Paperdoc
One small thing to watch for in this. My external enclosure also came with a bracket / connector to allow you to hook an eSATA external enclosure through to a normal internal SATA connector. If you do not have or install a real eSATA controller, these will work for many things. I had an eSATA controller and connector on the mobo so I skipped the adapter plate.

But here are the possible gotcha's. eSATA controllers virtually ALL include support for two important parts of eSATA: hot swapping, and longer data cable length (and maybe a few others I'm not sure of). However, whether or not these are included in an internal SATA controller is at the option of the controller maker, and many do not. So, for example, you may see reports that someone is using the adapter and it all works, except that hot swapping does not. And others may report they have seen no problems at all.

The bios setting must be for "AHCI Enabled" in order to enable hot-swapping.

 

[Slickone]

Originally posted by: n7

Originally posted by: Slickone

Originally posted by: corkyg

Originally posted by: Blain
If you will be using the external drive only on PC's that have an eSATA port... :thumbsup:
If you will use the external drive on PC's that don't have an eSATA port... :thumbsdown:
Firewire & USB 2.0 are widely supported.

And that is why the Vantec Nex-Star 3, with eSATA and USB 2 is so useful. You have speed plus portability.

eSATA+USB2

The reviews there don't seem very positive for that enclosure using eSATA.

Read the reviews.
They are done by morons whining about having no SATA II support & how z0mg, we are being forced to run at SATA I speeds, half as fast as SATA II :roll:

Pure idiocy, as we all know how that HDDs can fully max out their interfaces :roll: Right...

I have that enclosure, & aside from having to set SATA II HDDs to SATA I mode via jumper, it's a superb enclosure.

This product comes with an eSATA dongle so that you can plug in your external enclosure into your computer, and have it xfer at speeds of 3Gbps. Great idea, but this dongle just doesn't work - at least for me.

I was more referring to this that I took one to mean it didn't work at all. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

[KayKay]

Originally posted by: corkyg
These are the exact results of a head-to-head bench-off conducted by Maximum PC pitting Firewire 800 vs. USB 2 vs, eSATA: (Page 28 April 2007 issue)
MaxPC

This is a little more fair Comparison:
eSATA: AVG Read: 77.9 MB/s, Burst 128.8 MB/s
FW800: AVG Read: 78 MB/s, Burst: 88.9

looks like for the AVG Read, the drive itself (Raptor X) is the bottleneck, not the interface

for burst speed, the eSATA flexes its muscles a bit, where as FW800 probably reaches its interface limit