• What can i use eSata for?
    47 replies, posted
I have herd of it and i have it on my PC but what can i do on it? Is it like take a normal HDD and use it there like and USB but i need that 4-pin power conector?
It's mainly used as a faster alternative to USB for external hard drives.
so USB HDD will work faster?
your HDD has to support eSata as well... And it's much faster, it makes an external transfer quite as fast as if it were internal...
Buy an eSata external hard drive, backups are quick and snappy because of the speed.
On external hard drives you'll have your standard USB and/or Firewire ports on the back of the box to hook it up to your PC. Most of them also have an eSata port which does the same thing but is faster.
eSata is regular SATA with a connector designed to better withstand numerous insertions/removal cycles as well as plugging it in wrong.
[QUOTE=notgoodatpc;27374614]so USB HDD will work faster?[/QUOTE]Name fits perfectly.
eSATA is ideal for backups.
At this point, you may be better off with eSATA, but USB3 hard drives are becoming more popular and they'll run just as well.
This eSata yous speak of, does it use some proprietary jack?
[QUOTE=toaster468;27380684]This eSata yous speak of, does it use some proprietary jack?[/QUOTE] Yeah
Unfortunately, yes, but now there's eSATA that carries power over the data cable, so there's no longer a need to carry a power brick with you anymore.
Some external hard drives use them pretty fast too, too bad no one really cares to use it though
[QUOTE=Dr Nick;27380666]At this point, you may be better off with eSATA, but USB3 hard drives are becoming more popular and they'll run just as well.[/QUOTE] No such thing as a USB hard drive. The external drives just have a cheap SATA controller on a USB bridge. I have one of these: [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153112&cm_re=blacx-_-17-153-112-_-Product[/url] Way better than an enclosed external storage drive. You can have multiple hard drives and just hotplug them as needed.
[QUOTE=bohb;27381340]No such thing as a USB hard drive. The external drives just have a cheap SATA controller on a USB bridge. I have one of these: [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153112&cm_re=blacx-_-17-153-112-_-Product[/url] Way better than an enclosed external storage drive. You can have multiple hard drives and just hotplug them as needed.[/QUOTE] Clearly, that's what I meant.
[QUOTE=Pixel Heart;27380606]eSATA is ideal for backups.[/QUOTE] Whys that? I do my backups over Firewire 400. I just have a cron job that runs rsync in the background; I really don't care so much about how long it takes. Since it's rsync it only takes 30-60 minutes once a week.
[QUOTE=Pixel Heart;27380803]Unfortunately, yes, but now there's eSATA that carries power over the data cable, so there's no longer a need to carry a power brick with you anymore.[/QUOTE] Ah eSATAp AFAIK newer HP and Asus laptops have such ports, probably more. My HP DV7 does. It also doubles as a USB port, when not being used as eSata/eSATAp port.
USB2 is fast enough for all but the fastest hard drives right now.. a faster interface isn't going to magically speed up your storage medium.
[QUOTE=Van-man;27384601]Ah eSATAp AFAIK newer HP and Asus laptops have such ports, probably more. My HP DV7 does. It also doubles as a USB port, when not being used as eSata/eSATAp port.[/QUOTE] My 1.5 year old Dell has one too. Nifty little port, nice design getting USB in there.
[QUOTE=Tezzanator92;27386260]My 1.5 year old Dell has one too. Nifty little port, nice design getting USB in there.[/QUOTE] Yeah, if it wasn't because it's probably 20% wider and 5% taller than normal USB ports, it would've been nice if all the USB ports in a laptop were like that.
[QUOTE=Xera;27386093]USB2 is fast enough for all but the fastest hard drives right now.. a faster interface isn't going to magically speed up your storage medium.[/QUOTE] uh USB 2 maxes out at 60MB/s a spinpoint F3 will do more than that
[QUOTE=reapaninja;27388505]uh USB 2 maxes out at 60MB/s a spinpoint F3 will do more than that[/QUOTE] I have never owned a hard drive that performed in real world terms anywhere near the speed of artificial benchmarks.
I've never had a USB (2.0) interface work at the maximum 60MBps. Straight from the horses mouth: [quote=http://www.pcworld.com/article/82005/news_and_trends_usb_20s_real_deal.html]according to Jason Ziller, chairman of the USB-IF and an Intel technology initiatives manager, at least 10 to 15 percent of the stated 60 MBps (480 mbps) of Hi-Speed USB goes to overhead--the communication protocol between the card and the peripheral. Overhead is a component of all connectivity standards. [/quote] Not saying this is concrete but this seems like a viable explanation. In any case, I find eSATA much, MUCH quicker and my drive is only a 7200RPM 400GB Spinpoint F3 in a cheap ICY Box enclosure.
[QUOTE=notgoodatpc;27374614]so USB HDD will work faster?[/QUOTE] no, you use and eSATA port when connection a SATA External HDD to you computer, and instead of transferring files at 20-40 mb/s you transfer at 80-99 mb/s
Too bad my mobo is old enough to not have eSata ports... [editline]13th January 2011[/editline] BTW, how much for an add-on card for eSata?
If you have spare SATA ports you can get pass-through plates that cost like £2.50
[QUOTE=Tezzanator92;27390862]If you have SATA ports you can get pass-through plates that cost like £1.50[/QUOTE] I am not sure, but I think there's none left that's not being used. I'll check in a minute... [editline]13th January 2011[/editline] There's two left, imma buy this... Thanks!
[QUOTE=Xera;27386093]USB2 is fast enough for all but the fastest hard drives right now.. a faster interface isn't going to magically speed up your storage medium.[/QUOTE] If I connect my 1TB WD Mybook to USB 2.0, I get about 30 MB/s. If I connect it to eSATA, I get 60 to 80 MB/s.
[QUOTE=benjgvps;27394640]If I connect my 1TB WD Mybook to USB 2.0, I get about 30 MB/s. If I connect it to eSATA, I get 60 to 80 MB/s.[/QUOTE] I got a 500GB WD MyBook, which has gone too slow the last couple of months for some reason. It transfers really slow, and it's not caused by fucked up cables or anything, I've checked. And that's pretty much why I want to take advantage of the eSata connection... [editline]13th January 2011[/editline] [img]http://gyazo.com/42feff254cc0130171a22c83ccb8ca3e.png[/img] Screenshot of transfer rate graph... Pretty fucked, huh? PS: whoever has something to recommend, please go ahead.
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