Hard drives: USB external or SATA3 internal?

[blackangst1]

How much difference would I notice between an external USB drive and an internal SATA3 drive in terms of transfer speed, performance, etc? I know SATA3 provides TONS more bandwidth, but how much difference would be noticeable?

 

[mooseracing]

It's very noticable, not even a close comparo. Buy an enclosure with a SATA drive, and make sure the enclosure has esata and usb. That way you can take advantage of sata speeds on devices that have it or use the old usb on legacy devices.

Copy a 10GB of files across 2 internal drives that are sata, now move that to a USB drive. There is minutes shaved off that time when doing sata to esata or sata to sata.

 

[blackangst1]

Thx moose.

 

[VirtualLarry]

SATA3? Is that even out yet?

 

[blackangst1]

SATA3 meaning the 3GB/s mode. Sorry. Thought it was implied.

 

[n7]

eSATA 🙂

That's what i use.

You get an external with all the benefits of an internal, like speed, SMART, etc.

 

[taltamir]

the eSATA enclosure is NOT going to be much faster then the USB... that is because the problem is NOT the speed of the connection (USB, SATA), the problem is the CONTROLLER.
An enclosure has a controller chip, basically a tiny computer that connects to a drive and then shares it, and it slows you down tremendously. There are eSATA docking stations though, those do NOT have a controller at ALL, just power and an eSATA extension cord (from their plug to the drive's plug). Those give you IDENTICAL speed to internal SATA (since eSATA IS internal SATA only with a different plug, in fact you can get converter brackets.)

 

[taltamir]

PS... all the QUALITY external controllers (which are still not very good) are NOT sold individually, instead you buy an "external drive" from a big manufacturer (like seagate or WD) which seals it so you cannot swap drives (and in fact, opening the external enclosure voids the warranty, even though it contains a regular internal drive inside)

 

[Old Hippie]

the eSATA enclosure is NOT going to be much faster then the USB... that is because the problem is NOT the speed of the connection (USB, SATA), the problem is the CONTROLLER.

That definately does not mirror my experiences.

As an example, check the graphs on these transfer rates of a Kingwin USB/eSATA external case..

The average speed for USB is 27.5 MB/sec while the eSATA interface is 61.9 MB/sec.

I've been using USB externals for years and moved to eSATA @ 3 yrs ago.

The speed increase for me has been dramatic and real, across the board, with many different enclosures.

 

[taltamir]

Then that specific controller has crappy usb speed and better esata speeds. if you snapped open the enclosure and plugged the drive inside directly to your computers SATA ports you would get better speed.
I was generalizing, you can obviously show individual components that don't fit a generalization.

 

[Old Hippie]

Originally posted by: taltamir
Then that specific controller has crappy usb speed and better esata speeds. if you snapped open the enclosure and plugged the drive inside directly to your computers SATA ports you would get better speed.
I was generalizing, you can obviously show individual components that don't fit a generalization.

Why don't you show me one that has equal or lower speeds on USB than eSATA?

Your generalization that USB and eSATA have the same real transfer speed is bunk.

I am standing by my statement.

 

[Arcanedeath]

Originally posted by: Old Hippie

Originally posted by: taltamir
Then that specific controller has crappy usb speed and better esata speeds. if you snapped open the enclosure and plugged the drive inside directly to your computers SATA ports you would get better speed.
I was generalizing, you can obviously show individual components that don't fit a generalization.

Why don't you show me one that has equal or lower speeds on USB than eSATA?

Your generalization that USB and eSATA have the same real transfer speed is bunk.

I am standing by my statement.

I'm goning to have to agree w/ Old Hippie here Using Esata enclosures (quality ones anyways) makes a dramitc difference in Exteranl drive speed and blows away any form of USB connection, USB is for compaitability not performance.