BF testing USB3 against eSATA/SSD

[tibbyme]

I saw this today from Barefeats:

http://www.barefeats.com/hard136.html

They tested the Lacie and CalDigit USB 3.0 Expresscards with both Lacie and CalDigit externals AND with other third party drives. They also did a comparison with eSATA and SSD, as I know a lot of forum members have been looking for.

Thoughts?

 

[mulo]

usb speeds are as usual a theoretical hoax that can never be achieved. e/sata is the way to go, and has been for a long time.

 

[firestarter]

usb speeds are as usual a theoretical hoax that can never be achieved. e/sata is the way to go, and has been for a long time.

Helps to read the question... This is USB 3.0, not USB 2.0. It's a lot faster than eSATA.


OP - yes, I read that and it's impressive. Only problem for Mac users is that you need a 17inch MBP or a MacPro - no other Mac is expandable to add USB 3.0.

I really hope Apple does something soon to address the fact that 90% of their machines are limited to slow external disk technology (and yes, FW800 is slow too - even compared to quite low cost modern harddrives it just can't keep up).

 

[NickZac]

I thought you could get an adapter for USB3 on the MBP? Obviously it won't be as fast but I am pretty sure it allows you to use USB devices.

We think we've seen fast, but we ain't seen nuffin yet. Wait till SATA3 becomes a standard; you won't be able to get the full potential of USB3/FW800 until SATA3. I'm confident it will come soon as 3 things all accent each other and make the idea of 'faster' justifiable despite costs.

-SATA3
-USB3
-SSDs, especially ones that will use the coming SF2000 controller

Also, quad core processing is getting popular too. All of the above is gonna change the market. It may also kill FireWire tho

 

[firestarter]

I thought you could get an adapter for USB3 on the MBP? Obviously it won't be as fast but I am pretty sure it allows you to use USB devices.

Only the 17inch has an expresscard slot now. The 15inch used to have it - but Apple swapped out for an SD card slot.

We think we've seen fast, but we ain't seen nuffin yet. Wait till SATA3 becomes a standard; you won't be able to get the full potential of USB3/FW800 until SATA3. I'm confident it will come soon as 3 things all accent each other and make the idea of 'faster' justifiable despite costs.

SATA 1 is already faster than FW800.

Also, quad core processing is getting popular too. All of the above is gonna change the market. It may also kill FireWire tho

Or maybe Apple will just ignore developments and keep shipping the same ports for the next year.

 

[NickZac]

I thought FW800/800T could go as high as 800MB/s? I haven't used FireWire much at all though, but if Apple brings out FW 3200 w/ SATA3 and high speed SSDs, then I may just have to buy something just to feel special when it runs really fast.

 

[firestarter]

I thought FW800/800T could go as high as 800MB/s? I haven't used FireWire much at all though, but if Apple brings out FW 3200 w/ SATA3 and high speed SSDs, then I may just have to buy something just to feel special when it runs really fast.

No. Firewire 800 is 800 mega bits per second. 8 bits per byte (effectively 2 bits of overhead per byte too).

So max for firewire is 80MB/s - realistically you never see more than about 65MB/s in real life. Most decent large hard drives these days can sustain double that throughput... FW800 is really looking quite poor.

USB3 is theoretically 4800 mega bits / sec. Lots of overhead, but still a lot faster than FW800.

I seriously doubt we'll see FW3200. Apple's slowness at developing firewire, plus the fact that they've eliminated it from their low end machines has effectively killed it as far as I can see.

 

[NickZac]

My apologies, I thought FW ran faster than the 150MB/s +/- of SATA1.0. I should have researched it more.

 

[mark28]

usb speeds are as usual a theoretical hoax that can never be achieved. e/sata is the way to go, and has been for a long time.

Hahaha.

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3...ance_versus_usb_2_0_esata_and_more/index.html

1. USB 3.0 is new and new chipsets will come which will give better performance of USB 3.0
2. USB 3.0 is really close to eSata in performance ( despite using new chipsets that probably don't get the maximum out of USB 3.0 yet )
3. USB 3.0 is 100 x more flexible then eSata, eSata can't be compared to USB 3.0
4. Firewire 800 is a complete joke in comparison to USB 3.0

 

[NickZac]

USB3 will become dominant not just due to the huge speed increase but because the people who make computers and accessories will adopt it over other developing technologies. You can already buy USB3 hard drives at Best Buy. It's gonna spread like USB2 has and become a standard.