Firewire 800 vs. eSATA

[shuttleboi]

I have a new thinkpad laptop and want a fast external drive. Does anyone have any opinions on Firewire 800 versus eSATA? In either case, I need to buy an adapter PCMCIA or expressCard card.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: shuttleboi
I have a new thinkpad laptop and want a fast external drive. Does anyone have any opinions on Firewire 800 versus eSATA? In either case, I need to buy an adapter PCMCIA or expressCard card.

since the hdds are slower than than the str speeds of both 1394b and esata (100MB/s vs 150MB/s) i wouldn't worry about it. you may want to find out what speed pcmcia is...i am not sure the bandwidth they have.

what external hdd do you currently have?

 

[shuttleboi]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: shuttleboi
I have a new thinkpad laptop and want a fast external drive. Does anyone have any opinions on Firewire 800 versus eSATA? In either case, I need to buy an adapter PCMCIA or expressCard card.

since the hdds are slower than than the str speeds of both 1394b and esata (100MB/s vs 150MB/s) i wouldn't worry about it. you may want to find out what speed pcmcia is...i am not sure the bandwidth they have.

what external hdd do you currently have?

I don't have any external drive now. I want an extremely fast external because I will be using it as a Photoshop scratch disk (as well as for extra storage).

According to Wikipedia, ESATA has a top bandwidth of 2400Mbit/sec (= 300MBytes/sec) and FW800 has a top bandwidth of 768 Mbits/sec (= 96 MBytes/sec). Are you saying that current implementations of ESATA only top out at 150MB/sec?

 

[oynaz]

No, the HDDs do.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: shuttleboi

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: shuttleboi
I have a new thinkpad laptop and want a fast external drive. Does anyone have any opinions on Firewire 800 versus eSATA? In either case, I need to buy an adapter PCMCIA or expressCard card.

since the hdds are slower than than the str speeds of both 1394b and esata (100MB/s vs 150MB/s) i wouldn't worry about it. you may want to find out what speed pcmcia is...i am not sure the bandwidth they have.

what external hdd do you currently have?

I don't have any external drive now. I want an extremely fast external because I will be using it as a Photoshop scratch disk (as well as for extra storage).

According to Wikipedia, ESATA has a top bandwidth of 2400Mbit/sec (= 300MBytes/sec) and FW800 has a top bandwidth of 768 Mbits/sec (= 96 MBytes/sec). Are you saying that current implementations of ESATA only top out at 150MB/sec?

i thought esata was going off of sata 150 specs, but i could definatlely be wrong. either way, current hdds 7200rpm hdd are still going to max out in str @ at most ~75MB/s (seagate 7200.10), probably more like 60-70MB/s regardless of ata100, ata133, sata150 or sataII/sata3.0Gbs. the only single drive that goes over 100MB/s str is the seagate 15k.5 in u320 and sas, so you are safe with either enclosure. i am not sure what type of overhead 1394a/b has, but i believe the esata is basically just a regular port on the backplate are of the m/b so in theory should be just like sata. again, this is how i understand it.

 

[shuttleboi]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: shuttleboi

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: shuttleboi
I have a new thinkpad laptop and want a fast external drive. Does anyone have any opinions on Firewire 800 versus eSATA? In either case, I need to buy an adapter PCMCIA or expressCard card.

since the hdds are slower than than the str speeds of both 1394b and esata (100MB/s vs 150MB/s) i wouldn't worry about it. you may want to find out what speed pcmcia is...i am not sure the bandwidth they have.

what external hdd do you currently have?

I don't have any external drive now. I want an extremely fast external because I will be using it as a Photoshop scratch disk (as well as for extra storage).

According to Wikipedia, ESATA has a top bandwidth of 2400Mbit/sec (= 300MBytes/sec) and FW800 has a top bandwidth of 768 Mbits/sec (= 96 MBytes/sec). Are you saying that current implementations of ESATA only top out at 150MB/sec?

i thought esata was going off of sata 150 specs, but i could definatlely be wrong. either way, current hdds 7200rpm hdd are still going to max out in str @ at most ~75MB/s (seagate 7200.10), probably more like 60-70MB/s regardless of ata100, ata133, sata150 or sataII/sata3.0Gbs. the only single drive that goes over 100MB/s str is the seagate 15k.5 in u320 and sas, so you are safe with either enclosure. i am not sure what type of overhead 1394a/b has, but i believe the esata is basically just a regular port on the backplate are of the m/b so in theory should be just like sata. again, this is how i understand it.

Thanks for clearing that up. Note that I am adding a drive to my laptop, so I have to go through a PCMCIA card or ExpressCard. I don't know how that impacts things. If I were buying a new desktop, I'd definitely go with eSATA connectors on the motherboard.