NVMD--
Matt has been very helpful in answering this question in another thread I started here
ORIGINAL QUESTION:
I can't possible spell this out any clearer. I hope I'm not bugging those who've seen my other posts (too late) but I'm very surprised that with all those who have taken time to respond none have bothered to address my question. I've been looking into this for weeks and have yet to find an answer though it must be simple for someone with experience.
The MBP has only 1 Express Card slot. I'm assuming it means that it only has that single data channel. Which means even if you have a dual eSATA card for it, each port would share that single channel. I'm hoping someone won't chime in an say "just use FW800" or "FW800 is just as fast" or else my head will explode. You can't argue the fact that eSATA is faster.
But to get the most performance from eSATA, that's another story. I've read all the benchmarks on Barefeats. With eSATA in order to gain performance benefits using RAID you need 2 or more data channels. Same with FW800. But why then do people bother with eSATA RAID 0 for MBP? Sure a single eSATA is faster than single FW800, but why do people stripe if there's no performance gained??? (i.e. Is there in fact a performance gained that nobody seems to tell me about in all the threads I've started asking this!!!!?)
But I got to thinking about this. Why not get an ExpressCard to FW800 adapter. Wouldn't you then have 2 FW800 data channels!!? So with 2 FW800 channels you actually could get benefits from RAID 0 using a 2 drive or 4 drive array.
I've waited far too long trying to get these questions answered. I've been to the Apple Genius's (who know nothing... literally... "What's RAID 5?", they say....). I've scoured the internet. I'm EXTREMELY surprised this hasn't come up before.
Does anyone with ACTUAL experience have any helpful input here. I think I'm on to something that everyone with an ExpressCard slot can benefit from.
Matt has been very helpful in answering this question in another thread I started here
ORIGINAL QUESTION:
I can't possible spell this out any clearer. I hope I'm not bugging those who've seen my other posts (too late) but I'm very surprised that with all those who have taken time to respond none have bothered to address my question. I've been looking into this for weeks and have yet to find an answer though it must be simple for someone with experience.
The MBP has only 1 Express Card slot. I'm assuming it means that it only has that single data channel. Which means even if you have a dual eSATA card for it, each port would share that single channel. I'm hoping someone won't chime in an say "just use FW800" or "FW800 is just as fast" or else my head will explode. You can't argue the fact that eSATA is faster.
But to get the most performance from eSATA, that's another story. I've read all the benchmarks on Barefeats. With eSATA in order to gain performance benefits using RAID you need 2 or more data channels. Same with FW800. But why then do people bother with eSATA RAID 0 for MBP? Sure a single eSATA is faster than single FW800, but why do people stripe if there's no performance gained??? (i.e. Is there in fact a performance gained that nobody seems to tell me about in all the threads I've started asking this!!!!?)
But I got to thinking about this. Why not get an ExpressCard to FW800 adapter. Wouldn't you then have 2 FW800 data channels!!? So with 2 FW800 channels you actually could get benefits from RAID 0 using a 2 drive or 4 drive array.
I've waited far too long trying to get these questions answered. I've been to the Apple Genius's (who know nothing... literally... "What's RAID 5?", they say....). I've scoured the internet. I'm EXTREMELY surprised this hasn't come up before.
Does anyone with ACTUAL experience have any helpful input here. I think I'm on to something that everyone with an ExpressCard slot can benefit from.