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E-sata Express card , which one actually works.

Yang2 Gui3zi said:
Dafke, I'm glad to hear the OWC eSata ExpressCard/34 works great for you. It certainly was priced reasonably at US$19.

However, you just bought this card and so far it is working great. I am skeptical, because I have an eSata ExpressCard/34 that worked well for about two months, then stopped working. It returned to working for a period of about a week, then stopped working completely. :confused:

Would you, therefore, do me a favor? Write a note in your calendar or tickler file to remind you to post an update on this forum on July 23rd. In the update, please inform us how heavily you have been using the card over the two months from the date of your earlier post and whether it has performed flawlessly.

Thanks,
Click to expand...


Hmm, it's not even June yet... it allready stopped working!
Since yesterday after booting everything freezes after I touch my mouse, so I'm back to FW800 (which isn't bad but I really liked the eSata and the idea that I use every port available on my mac).
 
I just did a full clone of my SSD (about 42GB copied) with SuperDuper to my 1TB external drive in an eSATA enclosure with no KP and I didn't reboot after installing the eSATA card. But this configuration has caused KPs in the past, so I wouldn't call it reliable.

I'll try cloning my data disk and my other external disk later.
 
The problem with SuperDuper is that is sorts files by last date modified. This can considerably slow down the whole cloning process which in turn will slow down throughput. My experience is that bandwidth plays a role with the data corruption/KP problem.

Better use OS X own Disk Utility for cloning (which sorts alphabetically) and if you want to be sure, clone the fresh clone again (that way the files are even better pre-sorted).

CCC clones even faster (uses multiple threads) and sorts alphabetically too (but places the mach kernel first, which makes alot of sense).
 
I noticed it seemed slow. Can I clone the boot disk with Disk Utility (I thought it always unmounts the disk before cloning)?

Why does it matter how the files are sorted?
 
CCC was slower, and took about an hour instead of just 40 minutes for SuperDuper. But still no KP.
 
m85476585 said:
I noticed it seemed slow. Can I clone the boot disk with Disk Utility (I thought it always unmounts the disk before cloning)?
Click to expand...

Yes, you can clone the disk you booted from using Disk Utility using the Restore function. I prefer Disk Utility to CCC and SD because it doesn't leave out any files. Both CCC and SD leave a few things uncloned. Disk Tulity, however, is a bit slower, which is a fair trade off.
 
Dafke said:
Hmm, it's not even June yet... it allready stopped working!
Click to expand...

On advice of the reseller I installed the 1.1.4 version of the driver and everything seems fine now!
But, we will see how long it will last...
 
m85476585 said:
I noticed it seemed slow. Can I clone the boot disk with Disk Utility (I thought it always unmounts the disk before cloning)?
Click to expand...
Disk Utility does a file-by-file clone for any unmountable disk (like the boot disk). If you start it from the installation CD or clone another unmountable disk it will use sector-by-sector copying (which can even clone non HFS discs like NTFS volumes).

Why does it matter how the files are sorted?
Click to expand...
Copying many small files already is a slow process. When files are installed both OS X and most application installers copy them to disk in alphabetical order. But SuperDuper *changes* that order which means that it has to read the files all over the places (lots of physical r/w-head movement) before it can write them.

Personally I also don't like how the files are sorted by SD, because it kind of turns the sorting upside down for some of OS X folders. CCC really has the best sorting algorithm and the files being left out are completely useless on the clone (Spotlight index is rebuild by OS X on the new drive anyway, Suspend-to-RAM file just wastes space/time etc).

Disk Utility is fine and the "official" way of cloning. Should you ever be asked by an Apple service rep then tell him you used DU. I wonder a bit that it took longer with CCC, because it uses the same terminal command for copying and does the same sorting (apart from the mach kernel and copying everything), but unlike SD and DU it uses at least two copying threads, which means that it makes better use of your CPU (at least the last time I checked). You could try to hide the "progess" window of CCC while cloning though, because for some reason that progess bar can cause some considerable CPU load.

I do have to admit though that I lack experience with the combination of CCC and Snow Leopard because I mostly didn't touch OS X while Apple keeps failing to service the broken ExpressCard slot. It's simply no use to setup the whole system just to have it exchanged with new hardware again.

Now a new Apple service guy took over and starts from zero again. Maybe he will find something useful for us, maybe not. My hopes ain't too high, because he started by finding out why the exchange-department didn't respond to any of my mails anymore. Seems like they are more concerned with getting their internals straight than getting me a working Macbook Pro. :apple:
 
My 1TB eSATA drive keeps "disappearing" when I try to back up my internal 320gb drive to it with CCC. I guess it's better than a KP.
 
Deal on the fastest SATA ExpressCard

Sonnet Technology Online Store is offering 15% off on the 200MB/s Tempo SATA Pro ExpressCard/34 that is compatible all MacBook Pros with ExpressCard slot. It's twice as fast as any other SATA ExpressCard for the MBP.

When you get to the page where you enter your credit card, there is a place to enter the "Specials/Promotion Codes" -- which is "BareFeats" in this case -- good until July 1st, 2010.

Start here:
http://store1.sonnettech.com/product_info.php?cPath=24_39&products_id=264
 
Sonnet's eSata ExpressCards won't boot OS X.

barefeats said:
Sonnet ...Tempo SATA Pro ExpressCard/34 ... is compatible all MacBook Pros with ExpressCard slot....
Click to expand...

Hi, BareFeats and m85476585,

You cannot boot OS X from an external hard drive connected to a Mac through any of Sonnet's ExpressCard/34 eSata adapters. Sonnet admits this here.

According to this Mac Performance Guide article, the OWC Slim ExpressCard/34 eSata Adapter will boot OS X from some external hard drives. The article cites only one port multiplier enclosure from which the author booted OS X -- and it's a prohibitively expensive PM enclosure -- but I am hopeful that OS X will boot from the single-drive external cases that I have. So I today bought both the OWC Slim ExpressCard/34 eSata Adapter and the OWC ExpressCard/34 eSATA SATA I/II ExpressCard/34 Adapter. The latter is the one that Dafke bought a while back. Both are based on the JMicron JMB360 chipset.

I will let this forum know how they work out for me. I'm not so much concerned with speed, just with reliability and bootability.

BTW, BareFeats, are you Robert, the Mad Scientist at www.BareFeats.com?
 
Dafke, how's the OWC ExpressCard working out?

Dafke said:
On advice of the reseller I installed the 1.1.4 version of the driver and everything seems fine now!
But, we will see how long it will last...
Click to expand...

Hi, Dafke,

As you can read in my last post, I just bought two OWC ExpressCard/34 eSata adapters. So I am wondering what your experience has been with your OWC adapter since you installed the new driver about 16 days ago. Have there been any kernel panics or other signs of unreliability?

Would you tell me from what URL you downloaded the 1.1.4 driver?

Oh, and the OWC Website says no driver is needed on the Mac :rolleyes: , so it would seem that statement is untrue.
 
Yang2 Gui3zi said:
Hi, Dafke,

As you can read in my last post, I just bought two OWC ExpressCard/34 eSata adapters. So I am wondering what your experience has been with your OWC adapter since you installed the new driver about 16 days ago. Have there been any kernel panics or other signs of unreliability?

Would you tell me from what URL you downloaded the 1.1.4 driver?

Oh, and the OWC Website says no driver is needed on the Mac :rolleyes: , so it would seem that statement is untrue.
Click to expand...

Hi Yang2, I'm working with my third driver right now :)
I'll try to summarize what happend:
First I just plugged in the express card and it seemed to work fine. I use the card to boot from an external hdd. After a few days my MB Pro would freeze after starting up. On advice of the reseller I installed version 1.1.4 of the JMicron driver. According to the reseller version 1.0 is installed in OSX.
After a few days the same problems occurred so I e-mailed the reseller, he advised me to install another driver, called JMicronATADriver.dmg
I can ask him where he downloaded it from. Since installation on June 16 it is working fine but I'll have to see if it's going to last...

here you can download both drivers: ftp://driver.jmicron.com.tw/jmb36x/MAC OS X 10.x/
 
JMicron JMB360 drivers for the OWC eSata ExpressCard/34 adapters

Hi, Dafke,

Thanks for the link to the JMicron ftp download site, and for your notes.

I downloaded both of those drivers. The ftp site shows the date when each of those drivers was last updated. Based on those dates, it seems the retailer told you first to use the newest driver (v. 1.1.4, last updated Mar/16/2010) and is now telling you to use an older one (last updated Mar/02/2009). I find this interesting.

The retailer MacSales (aka OWC Other World Computing) told me it shipped the adapters on June 18th. I expect they will take up to two weeks to reach me in New Zealand.

I will post on this forum info about my experience working with the adapters and hope you will, too, Dafke.
 
okay, it stopped working again

Well not okay but the expresscard stopped working again. I booted up this morning and it freezed seconds after logging in.
Too bad, I'm sending the card back to the vendor.
Good luck to you Yang2, maybe it will work with your setup.
 
1.5 years since my first contact with Apple about the ExpressCard issues, their latest *serious* questions (among other useless ones): "Did you use your harddrive's PSU?" :confused:

So Apple did not find out yet that eSATA drives cannot be used without a PSU anyway? It's like a mechanic asking if I had turned on my car's engine while driving on the high-way/autobahn. :apple:
 
Driver-less eSATA express card

There is a bit of good news for MacBook Pro

DAToptic just release a eSATA 3 (6.0Gb) express card that use MAC OS native AHCI mode, It improves the transfer rate even with PCI express version 1.0

eSATA 3 (6.0Gb)
 
may be worth it just because it'll work native but don't get it based on speed since we don't know if the new macbooks have the expresscard 2 specifications.
 
I just got the Datoptic expresscard linked to above (Thanks btw) and I plugged it in, and it works! So far so good, and I'll keep reporting back if I see any problems. I have the latest 17" MBP i5 model. I didn't buy it for speed purposes, but I'm transferring a portable hard drive's contents to an external HD, and it seems it's about as fast as a FW800 connection, if not slightly faster.
 
I just encountered a situation on the 2009 17" MBP similiar to my former 2008 15" MBP.

First every Time-Machine/Clone broke the partition structure of the destination volume beyond repair reproducible. Then suddenly after half a dozen tries the errors vanished and could not be reproduced anymore.

I attributed that to the somewhat random nature of the issues, send a couple of screenshot with errors to my current Apple Support contact and went back to Windows 7.

Then one of the USB ports suddenly stopped working. I didn't care, just used another port and some time later it worked again, probably after a restart. Today the MBP halted to a freeze (bootcamped) when I simply plugged in an USB hub into the same port that did not work for some time.

That was when I remembered how I had a similiar situation a year ago. On the 2008 15" one of the USB stopped working, too, but I could not get it back to working with anything I tried. But while the USB port didn't work the eSATA connection stopped corrupting the destination partition of cloning.

When I went to an Apple service contractor to demonstrate the issues he plugged it into an external display and then the USB suddenly worked again (I didn't use an external display myself back then, now I do). After the USB started working again the eSATA corruption/errors returned.

And it's just the same right now. Again I can reproduce writing corruption via eSATA 100% again. So I am very convinced that this is not just a Mac OS AHCI/ExpressCard driver problem, but something electrical in hardware or at least something in EFI. :apple:
 
mikeheenan said:
I just got the Datoptic expresscard linked to above (Thanks btw) and I plugged it in, and it works! So far so good, and I'll keep reporting back if I see any problems. I have the latest 17" MBP i5 model. I didn't buy it for speed purposes, but I'm transferring a portable hard drive's contents to an external HD, and it seems it's about as fast as a FW800 connection, if not slightly faster.
Click to expand...

I think the speed issue you have is your portable HDD.

My set up 2x external eSATA (7200rpm drive) I can copy 125MB/sec. Not too shabby. cut the transfer time of my BD.iSO to half

I'm thinking of getting DATOptic eBOX-R5

It has a decent review from users

http://www.datoptic.com/review/product/list/id/206/category/37/

It seems paint-less, another driver-less raid

Any input?

TIA
 
Apple told me that they will stop giving any support for my ESATA/ExpressCard issues. Even if I try 10 different cards from 10 different manufacturers they don't care.

Of course they only told me by phone and reject to give me *anything* in written form (not even e-mail).

Well, I *did* buy 10 different cards now and will still try to at least hold the selling shop responsible (they claim that an "incompatibility" is not a defect, let's see how they explain 10 incompatibilities away).
 
Timur said:
Apple told me that they will stop giving any support for my ESATA/ExpressCard issues. Even if I try 10 different cards from 10 different manufacturers they don't care.

Of course they only told me by phone and reject to give me *anything* in written form (not even e-mail).

Well, I *did* buy 10 different cards now and will still try to at least hold the selling shop responsible (they claim that an "incompatibility" is not a defect, let's see how they explain 10 incompatibilities away).
Click to expand...

wow that sounds pretty jacked up. Mind listing the cards you tried? I'm interested in hearing whether or not you used the Sonnet Temp Pro card that costs over $100 bucks.
 
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