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eSata expresscard/34 experiences

P

Primusz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 13, 2008
19
0
searching on the forums wasn't very helpful so far, so I'd like to ask everybody with an eSata adapter in their expresscard/34 slot to share their experiences.

I've noticed there are several brands out there with a big price difference ( 20-90€/$)

I've been looking at the one made by Griffin which is offered on Amazon.com for 50$.

looking forward to your thoughts
 
I'd recommend a JMicron esata card -- they're bootable

and they're cheaper than the other cards. The other cards all use the Silicon Image 3132 chipset. The 1 benefit to those cards is that some of them are port multiplier aware.
 
what do you mean by port multiplier aware? Like if I hook up a esata hub to esata express card?
 
Are you sure you searched?
google: esata expresscard site:forums.macrumors.com

harry454 said:
what do you mean by port multiplier aware? Like if I hook up a esata hub to esata express card?
Click to expand...

Barefeat.com has more info on those type of things.
 
I've heard I should look for one with jMicron chipset, but have only found eSATA expresscards with jMicron chipset in the single-port variety. Are there any jMicron-based eSATA expresscards with 2 ports?
 
There is a 2 port Jmicron

I have it at home, so I 'll get the name for you (right now, I sue the Sonnet Tempo Sata Pro that has a Marvell chipset b/c its thru-put is 200 whereas the JMicron and Silicon Image chipsets are limited to 140).
 
Forgot: yes JMicron is bootable -- Silicon Image is not

its a long story, but the JMicron drivers are recognized during the boot process as one of the boot options (just like USB and your DVD drive are bootable).
 
Primusz said:
searching on the forums wasn't very helpful so far, so I'd like to ask everybody with an eSata adapter in their expresscard/34 slot to share their experiences.

I've noticed there are several brands out there with a big price difference ( 20-90€/$)

I've been looking at the one made by Griffin which is offered on Amazon.com for 50$.

looking forward to your thoughts
Click to expand...

i bought this one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Built-in-Type-P...5|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318|301:1|293:1|294:50

cheap, nothing sticking out and I wont be needing 2 or more ports. I have not received it yet though so I dont know how it performs of the quality. I got mine for $11.50 could not find another for that price to give you the link but if you do research you can get one for less than $15.
 
Hey, I really like the looks of that one. Would be nice to have it appear "built-in," with nothing sticking out. Please report back on how well it works, and whether you can boot through it, once you get it.
 
pleuriticus said:
Hey, I really like the looks of that one. Would be nice to have it appear "built-in," with nothing sticking out. Please report back on how well it works, and whether you can boot through it, once you get it.
Click to expand...

I'd tell you as soon as I get it (should be tomorrow or the day after,) however I dont know what you mean as "bootable" you want me to install MAC OS X on it???
 
PA international has an expresscard 34 card with 2 eSATA ports and they use jMicron chipset. You can find it at newegg for 30 bucks. That is what I am using right now. Works fine out of the box, did not try booting but I don't think I will ever do that since it has an annoying issue.

It tends to drop to 0kbps for a short bit of time if it get overheated which is often enough. eSATA support on Macs are horrible, simple as that. There are no good expresscard/34 cards for MBP that works out of the box with no issues.
 
pleuriticus said:
Hey, I really like the looks of that one. Would be nice to have it appear "built-in," with nothing sticking out. Please report back on how well it works, and whether you can boot through it, once you get it.
Click to expand...

I already got the card, I posted a comparison between eSATA and USB using the internal MBP HDD (200GB @ 5400rpm hitachi noisy piece of **** :D and the rocketfish enclosure which I also bought for ~$15 used but great conditions) and got unexpected results (well at least I was not expecting those results anyway.)
I will be doing a test to see whether i can boot off it or not this night and I will be post the results there also so make sure you check it.

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=7286619#post7286619

It tends to drop to 0kbps for a short bit of time if it get overheated which is often enough. eSATA support on Macs are horrible, simple as that. There are no good expresscard/34 cards for MBP that works out of the box with no issues.
Click to expand...
I do not know what facts you have to support that theory but so far I have tried 2 different express card (one flash card reader and the eSATA) and they have performed quite well, I'd rather say they have performed excellent. The express card recognizes the SD card perfectly and the transfer speed (using a SD ULTRA II) are great (at least 15 or 20MB/s constant which is a lot for flash memory) and the eSATA well I just got it, but doing test I have used it to copy more than 300GB in total today and I got amazing results (see the link) and both cards are cheap card (nothing from a fancy manufacturer (chinesse cr@p) so maybe you are unlucky (or I am lucky :D.)
 
That's not a vary good comparison if you used your 200gb 5400rpm Hitachi drive. I tested mine (same drive) on USB and eSATA and got almost exactly the same speed for each test, around 33mb/s. My 1Tb external drive, on the other hand, it MUCH faster with eSATA than USB. I get average speeds of around 110mb/s and peaks over 130mb/s with eSATA, while USB would be limited to 30-something mb/s (I haven't tested it, though. I will when I get a chance). That's also faster than Firewire 800 with a theoretical limit of 100mb/s (though I am too lazy to swap enclosures to test it).
 
m85476585 said:
That's not a vary good comparison if you used your 200gb 5400rpm Hitachi drive. I tested mine (same drive) on USB and eSATA and got almost exactly the same speed for each test, around 33mb/s. My 1Tb external drive, on the other hand, it MUCH faster with eSATA than USB. I get average speeds of around 110mb/s and peaks over 130mb/s with eSATA, while USB would be limited to 30-something mb/s (I haven't tested it, though. I will when I get a chance). That's also faster than Firewire 800 with a theoretical limit of 100mb/s (though I am too lazy to swap enclosures to test it).
Click to expand...

My comparison was oriented to test exclusively the internal HDD that was left from my HDD->SSD upgrade, obviously a 3.5" HDD would be much faster (and I said it already in my post) the goal was to give an idea to whether or not it is worth using eSATA over USB when having an extra (internal) HDD after the upgrade. What surprizes me though, is that USB tops at 40% of its theoretical speed :eek: I feel scammed, but yeah that always happen, manufacturers always overstimating their products, just as the prius gets 45mpg :cool: !
 
True , but ViciousShadow21 asked if an eSATA port would let you take advantage of the full 3gbps speed, not whether or not you would notice a difference on a particular drive.

To answer the question better, first of all there is no eSATA port on the unibody MBP--you need to buy an expresscard. Second, you will not get the full 3gbps speed because expresscard uses a 1x PCIe lane which is limited to 2gbps. You will probably never notice the difference, though, because most hard drives top out at speeds much lower than 2gbps (250mbps).
 
No eSata plugs into a PCIe 1x slot (= 250 Gb/s) and, w/ the exception of the

exception of the Sonnet Tempo Sata Pro, the esata Expresscard/34(s) are limited to 140MB/s transfer rates. But unless you're using a superfast SSD or something like a 7200 RPM 4 disk array in RAID 0 -- it doesn't matter at all.

ViciousShadow21 said:
does the eSATA port on the uni MBP allow one to take advantage of the 3gb/s of the external eSATA HD?
Click to expand...
 
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