Express card to eSata vs USB

kairosmatt wrote on 8/28/2010, 9:51 AM
This a probably a dumb question, but does anyone here have any experience running an external hard drive through something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003LWN6UA/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B000EM6NO6&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=038DFVKRGX4AB6MHNHJH

I'm assuming this would be faster than the USB connections, but just wondering if there are any gotchas I should know about.

Also, is there any advantage to eSata II and is it backward compable? Like this:
http://www.amazon.com/SIIG-SC-SAE512-S1-Esata-II-Expresscard/dp/B000EM6NO6

thanks
kairosmatt

Comments

John_Cline wrote on 8/28/2010, 11:32 AM
I use eSATA drives with an Express card adapter on my laptop all the time, it works great. eSATA is significantly faster than USB 2.0. The new USB v3.0 is really quite fast and will probably replace eSATA as the preferred external drive interface.

The only "gotcha" with eSATA is that you might not be able to "hot swap" the drives depending on your hardware and operating system.
kairosmatt wrote on 8/28/2010, 11:43 AM
Cheers John!

I have to edit a project from a laptop with external storage (has esata connection) so I'll be pulling the trigger on one of those cards today!

Thanks
Matt
LReavis wrote on 8/30/2010, 9:02 AM
I just bought a USB3-SATA cable-type adapter from China and it's not ready for prime time. The first one arrived with a dead power brick, so the disk wouldn't even spin. The next one worked, but erratically, with Seagate disks (sometimes my computer's USB3 ports would recognize it, sometimes not; same with my computer's USB2 ports), but not at all with WD disks.

For the time being, stick with SATA long cables running directly to the MB (not an option with a laptop), or with eSATA (you can get 6' long eSATA cables, if needed).

Skratch wrote on 8/30/2010, 2:06 PM
I just bought a new drive last month with eSATA and firewire 800. Unfortunatley neither of those work properly on my PC or laptop. The PC has eSATA on the MB, as does the laptop. So I just stick to the USB 2.0 that worls rock solid all the time. It's a LaCie drive and I don't think they are too robust.