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E-sata Express card , which one actually works.
- Thread starter Guy Mancuso
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Hello,
I have a mid 2009 17 inch. It has the 2.66 c2d cpu.
I would like to buy an expresscard 34 esata adaptor, but I've read on this thread that there are know problems with the mid 2009 macbook pro and the expresscard slot.
My macbook was purchased in Portugal and I'm thinking about going with the SOnnet tempo Edge.
My question is if the problem affects all units or if it is kind of a random problem.
So, does anyone with a mid 2009 2.66 macbook pro 17, has an expresscard 34 esata adaptor working correctly and problem free?
Look forward to hear from you.
Best regards.
I have a mid 2009 17 inch. It has the 2.66 c2d cpu.
I would like to buy an expresscard 34 esata adaptor, but I've read on this thread that there are know problems with the mid 2009 macbook pro and the expresscard slot.
My macbook was purchased in Portugal and I'm thinking about going with the SOnnet tempo Edge.
My question is if the problem affects all units or if it is kind of a random problem.
So, does anyone with a mid 2009 2.66 macbook pro 17, has an expresscard 34 esata adaptor working correctly and problem free?
Look forward to hear from you.
Best regards.
After 9 weeks of waiting I got the replacement 2010 Macbook Pro.
As far as I can tell the current situation is as follows:
1) Testing with JMicron based eSATA card the sporadic and unmotivated errors and dropouts do not seem to happen anymore. I assume that is because of the chipset change from Intel G35 PCI Express 1.1 (2008/09) to Intel HM55 PCI Express 2.0 (2010).
Yay, that only took two years, and they didn't even try to fix it, but just coincidentally used another chipset.
2) Touching the Mac with the cable/plug of a powered external device (powered USB hub, Fireface UC, display) still causes dropouts/error/Kernel Panics while the eSATA card is transferring data! Still way to go, Apple...
But: It does *not* cause the RME HDSPe to output pops/cracks on some to all of its channels anymore! Totalmix doesn't move a bit.
You will still get very audible crackling on headphone outputs, but only very quiet to non-existent crackling on symmetric line outputs (regardless of output gain or gain on your amp). This can easily be worked around by watching the correct connection order of your grounding connections.
Far more problematic is the performance when working with small audio buffers. Compared to the 2008/09 Macs it's less than stellar. On OS X I cannot say yet if it's the i7's Speedstep + Core Parking, but I suspect it's rather a mixure of the Nvidia 330M, bad coding of Ableton Live and OS X' general inability to deal with low audio buffers. I will do some test with Logic and Reaper later.
On Windows it's definitively the driver of the 330M GT and my current workaround is both awkward and not fully effective (see corresponding thread on RME or Gearslutz forum).
3) The displayport still does not work properly with Dual-Link DVI adapters (the ones that costs 100 Euro). Still loss of colors/banding, still flickering colors and still dropouts (every few hours with the Accell adapter, every few minutes with the original Apple adapter).
1) and 3) means that Apple will have to do another exchange once a new Macbook Pro with new graphic-adapter comes out. I will keep an eye on 2).
As far as I can tell the current situation is as follows:
1) Testing with JMicron based eSATA card the sporadic and unmotivated errors and dropouts do not seem to happen anymore. I assume that is because of the chipset change from Intel G35 PCI Express 1.1 (2008/09) to Intel HM55 PCI Express 2.0 (2010).
Yay, that only took two years, and they didn't even try to fix it, but just coincidentally used another chipset.
2) Touching the Mac with the cable/plug of a powered external device (powered USB hub, Fireface UC, display) still causes dropouts/error/Kernel Panics while the eSATA card is transferring data! Still way to go, Apple...
But: It does *not* cause the RME HDSPe to output pops/cracks on some to all of its channels anymore! Totalmix doesn't move a bit.
You will still get very audible crackling on headphone outputs, but only very quiet to non-existent crackling on symmetric line outputs (regardless of output gain or gain on your amp). This can easily be worked around by watching the correct connection order of your grounding connections.
Far more problematic is the performance when working with small audio buffers. Compared to the 2008/09 Macs it's less than stellar. On OS X I cannot say yet if it's the i7's Speedstep + Core Parking, but I suspect it's rather a mixure of the Nvidia 330M, bad coding of Ableton Live and OS X' general inability to deal with low audio buffers. I will do some test with Logic and Reaper later.
On Windows it's definitively the driver of the 330M GT and my current workaround is both awkward and not fully effective (see corresponding thread on RME or Gearslutz forum).
3) The displayport still does not work properly with Dual-Link DVI adapters (the ones that costs 100 Euro). Still loss of colors/banding, still flickering colors and still dropouts (every few hours with the Accell adapter, every few minutes with the original Apple adapter).
1) and 3) means that Apple will have to do another exchange once a new Macbook Pro with new graphic-adapter comes out. I will keep an eye on 2).
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Dear Timur!
- I admire your perseverance! I once also had a long repair issue with Apple because the fans still were unacceptable audible even after a 3rd replacement. After my experience in 2010 and now witnessing en detail how improperly they dealt with you, I will think very carefully whether my next computer will be an Mac, and I used Macs since 1993
- As I posted ~ 1.5 years ago, I had tested a AKE BC338 with my MacBook Pro Late 2006, and because of the experienced kernel panics, I put the card aside since then. Now I updated to Snow Leopard (currently 10.6.7) and wanted to ask: Is eSATA support better now? (Or is it eventually a confirmed hardware / circuit flaw?)
Thanks for the flowers! The effort stands in somewhat bad relation to the outcome. Yeah, I got three MBP models + 17" for the price of one 15", but heck did it take time to deal with Apple support. The most important reason I went through with this (and still am) is because of the experience and information gained (I can use it well for my consulting work). Another reason is that I really got p*ss*d by how Apple support fails to deal with epidemic failures.
Currently I'm waiting for a 2011 replacement to my current 2010 MBP, because the NVidia based Displayport still cannot drive 30" Dual-Link DVI displays properly (another epidemic issues). I already tested the ATI based 2011 in the Apple Store and it seems to work.
Since my AKE BC338 is definitively broken (likely on arrival and it also didn't work properly in a HP laptop) I cannot tell much about that, but the flush OWC works well enough on the 2010 MBP (as long as I don't touch it with grounded plugs, see my last detailed post about that). I tried the AKE once and got Kernel Panics quickly, not so with any of my other Jmicron based eSATA card (2x single-port, 1x dual-port).
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The new FirmTek 6G eSATA ExpressCard is listed to offer "Boot Support" on 2011 Macbook Pros (not on 2010/09).
It's also listed as "compatible" with 2009 MBP (why no 2008?), but I somewhat doubt the latter.
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-6g/spec/
It's also listed as "compatible" with 2009 MBP (why no 2008?), but I somewhat doubt the latter.
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-6g/spec/
e-SATA cards under Lion
Of course, the soup has been stirred again ...
I have a Quad Core Mac Pro tower - and I got a 4 drive mediasonics proBox a few months back for external storage, for time machine, for all of that! http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-3-5-Inch-eSATA-Enclosure-HF2-SU2S2/dp/B002UUPWP6/
It took a while to find an interface card with FBS port multiplier support - and I wound up with the DOIESATAPCIE21B (DAT Optic DatOptic PCI Expresss to 2 port eSATA host adapter W/ Port Multiplier Technology) from Other World Computers.
It worked fine, until I installed Lion this week ... suddenly, none of the drives in that enclosure can be found!
The unit can be set to use the much slower USB interface instead of eSATA, but the eSATA speed is the whole point of going external.
Anyone have any success with this now that Lion is here?
Of course, the soup has been stirred again ...
I have a Quad Core Mac Pro tower - and I got a 4 drive mediasonics proBox a few months back for external storage, for time machine, for all of that! http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-3-5-Inch-eSATA-Enclosure-HF2-SU2S2/dp/B002UUPWP6/
It took a while to find an interface card with FBS port multiplier support - and I wound up with the DOIESATAPCIE21B (DAT Optic DatOptic PCI Expresss to 2 port eSATA host adapter W/ Port Multiplier Technology) from Other World Computers.
It worked fine, until I installed Lion this week ... suddenly, none of the drives in that enclosure can be found!
The unit can be set to use the much slower USB interface instead of eSATA, but the eSATA speed is the whole point of going external.
Anyone have any success with this now that Lion is here?
10.7 Express card
There is NO Express card base on Silicon Image chipset works with Lion 10.7.x
Not yet, anyhow
But If you are not looking to support port multiplier ware, then get this express card eSATA (6Gb) driver-less for MAC Pro 17" - 100% work
BTW do not get the bracket, MBP does not need it
There is work around for 10.7 (lion) to support PM ware.
Connect the eSATA of PM or non PM enclosure to USB3.0 to eSATA adapter U3eSATA and use USB3.0 or USB2.0 port MBP or MP will see ALL the HDD
There is NO Express card base on Silicon Image chipset works with Lion 10.7.x
Not yet, anyhow
But If you are not looking to support port multiplier ware, then get this express card eSATA (6Gb) driver-less for MAC Pro 17" - 100% work
BTW do not get the bracket, MBP does not need it
There is work around for 10.7 (lion) to support PM ware.
Connect the eSATA of PM or non PM enclosure to USB3.0 to eSATA adapter U3eSATA and use USB3.0 or USB2.0 port MBP or MP will see ALL the HDD
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LaCie SATA II Express Card - will it work?
Anyone know if one of these will work on my '08-ish 15" Unibody MBP (5,1)? I ordered one to use with a RAID archiving drive, and just stumbled onto this thread having no idea that there were so many issues with express port cards on these machines.
So if anyone has any input on whether I goofed I'd love to know!
Edit - here is the product page link: http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10548
Anyone know if one of these will work on my '08-ish 15" Unibody MBP (5,1)? I ordered one to use with a RAID archiving drive, and just stumbled onto this thread having no idea that there were so many issues with express port cards on these machines.
So if anyone has any input on whether I goofed I'd love to know!
Edit - here is the product page link: http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10548
I believe it is a different chipset, but the Sonnet Tempo SATA Pro Expresscard works just fine under Lion in my late 07 Macbook pro 15".
The catches (which by the way are identical under SL):
You do need to power the SATA device before plugging in the expresscard to have port-multiplier support work.
Hotplugging SATA devices causes random KPs when the express card is both plugged in and powered.
Unplugging the expresscard without unpowering it will KP every time.
My SATA enclosure does not support HD spindown under OSX, however it also does not support it under Windows.
DATOptic eSATA host - UPDATE
Just talk to Silicon image.
It appears LION (10.7) move SiI-31xx to a folder call Incompatible Software.
DATOptic and OEM cards
eSATA_PCIe8, eSATA_PCIe21 , eSATA Express card
You can find this card in MACSALE, MACMAll and other re-sellers
If you re-install the drivers, it should work again.
That is a good news
Just talk to Silicon image.
It appears LION (10.7) move SiI-31xx to a folder call Incompatible Software.
DATOptic and OEM cards
eSATA_PCIe8, eSATA_PCIe21 , eSATA Express card
You can find this card in MACSALE, MACMAll and other re-sellers
If you re-install the drivers, it should work again.
That is a good news
Was there ever an answer to this? I'm eager to try an esata card on my 5,1 to connect a Blu Ray burner hoping for faster burns. Also for external hard drives (though nothing specific at the moment).
Thanks.
Thanks.
Anyone know if one of these will work on my '08-ish 15" Unibody MBP (5,1)? I ordered one to use with a RAID archiving drive, and just stumbled onto this thread having no idea that there were so many issues with express port cards on these machines.
So if anyone has any input on whether I goofed I'd love to know!
Edit - here is the product page link: http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10548
The card works fine for my on 5,1 MBP. Only thing is that you have to shut down, install the card and restart to use it. If you try to hot swap the card it causes a kernal panic. Other than that it was moving data to my drive faster than anything I've ever seen.
I installed a Startech express card today and it works perfectly. Downloaded the latest OSX driver and my 2TB drive showed up straightaway.
http://www.ebuyer.com/173391-starte...4mm-esata-ii-controller-adapter-card-ecesata1
http://www.ebuyer.com/173391-starte...4mm-esata-ii-controller-adapter-card-ecesata1
FYI: Thunderbolt suffers from similar electrical ground discharge/disconnection issues as ExpressCard before. Tested via Sonnet TB-EC adapter and WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo (ASmedia chipset). The whole TB bus gets disconnected (DP keeps running), or rather all PCI-bridges get disconnected.
With the WD it only happens once in dozens of tries, but when it happens it can leads to anything between kernel panics and simple disconnection, or nothing happening at all and then a kernel panic some time later.
With the WD it only happens once in dozens of tries, but when it happens it can leads to anything between kernel panics and simple disconnection, or nothing happening at all and then a kernel panic some time later.
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eSATA card works reliable in MacBook Pro if used with Mac OS X 10.6+
Devices
Computer: Apple MacBookPro, 15 inch, Late 2006, MA609LL
Boot-ROM: MBP22.00A5.B07 (EFI 1.4)
SMC-Version: 1.12f5
ExpressCard: AKE eSATA ExpressCard BC338
Store: http://stores.ebay.at/New-tech-G-four-Store-338
Dealer: http://myworld.ebay.at/nelson-338/
Price: Product 12.99 + International Shipping 0.99 = 13.98 USD (December 2009)
Good news
I had posted on 2010-01-17 in #214 about quickly occuring data corruption & kernel panics under Mac OS X 10.5.7.
Meanwhile I use Mac OS X 10.6.8 and a series of long lasting and data intensive tests showed that the eSATA card now works flawlessly! All my issues experienced must have been addressed with the OS update, since the host machine and eSATA card stayed the same!
Details of the conducted tests
Devices
Computer: Apple MacBookPro, 15 inch, Late 2006, MA609LL
Boot-ROM: MBP22.00A5.B07 (EFI 1.4)
SMC-Version: 1.12f5
ExpressCard: AKE eSATA ExpressCard BC338
Store: http://stores.ebay.at/New-tech-G-four-Store-338
Dealer: http://myworld.ebay.at/nelson-338/
Price: Product 12.99 + International Shipping 0.99 = 13.98 USD (December 2009)
Good news
I had posted on 2010-01-17 in #214 about quickly occuring data corruption & kernel panics under Mac OS X 10.5.7.
Meanwhile I use Mac OS X 10.6.8 and a series of long lasting and data intensive tests showed that the eSATA card now works flawlessly! All my issues experienced must have been addressed with the OS update, since the host machine and eSATA card stayed the same!
Details of the conducted tests
Code:
# Plug in your SATA card into your active system, no reboot necessary
# Monitor system.log during all read/write tests,
# either with GUI "Console.app" or within Terminal
tail -n 10 -f /var/log/system.log
# to check wether the following tests trigger any I/O errors.
## Test 1:
# Create a 10GB random data file on your internal disk
sudo dd if=/dev/random of=/Volumes/InternalDisk/testfile seek=0 count=10k bs=1m
# Copy the file from the internal to the external SATA disk
cp /Volumes/InternalDisk/testfile /Volumes/eSATAdisk/testfilecopy
# Compare original and copy
diff /Volumes/InternalDisk/testfile /Volumes/eSATAdisk/testfilecopy
# No differences found! :-)
## Test 2:
# Mirroring a large directory (60GB, thousands of folders and files)
rsync -avi --delete /Volumes/InternalDisk/some/directory/ /Volumes/eSATAdisk/some/directory/
# Then recursively compare for differences
diff -r /Volumes/InternalDisk/some/directory/ /Volumes/eSATAdisk/some/directory/
# No differences! :-)
## Test 3:
# Mirrored my entire internal drive (400GB in use, took about 5 hours) with SuperDuper.
# Compared a directory (30GB in ~15k file & folders) on internal and external disk:
# No differences! :-)^ I want to dampen the joy a little bit.
It seems to depend on the connected drives' type/brand or connection type.
My successful tests have been with 2 naked Toshiba drives, connected through a SATA to eSATA cable.
Whereas today I tried connecting a My Book Home Edition WD10000H1Q-00 (2x FW800, 1x USB 2.0, 1x eSATA) via and eSATA to eSATA cable. The drive mounts fine, but as I tried copying a folder from the WD MyBook to my MacBookPro 15" Late 2006 (MA609LL), Finder aborted with error -36 (ioErr, according to Classic Mac OS error table), which seems to still have the same meaning for OSX as checking Console.app showed the according kernel error message "disk1s2: I/O error", matching exactly the MyBook disk number 1, and partition (=Volume) nr 2, from which I attempted to copy.
The kernel had also thrown "SATA WARNING: IDENTIFY DEVICE checksum not implemented." right after I had plugged in the WD MyBook, before I attempted the copy operation. This warning was always reproducible with the eSATA connected WD MyBook, and never occurred with the SATA —> eSATA connected Toshiba drives!
Querying the WD MyBook through eSATA with smartctl also works only partially, only showing the section "General SMART Values", but not the full info, and the output ends with: "Warning: device does not support Error Logging", which certainly is not true, because through USB, which technically uses SCSI passthrough, the full SMART query works fine!
The reason for this particular SATA failure may be:
I try to rule out some causes:
Ad 1) Maybe. But I can neither do tests with more eSATA drives to verify that others work nor more naked SATA drives to falsify that all SATA drives work fine as I don't have those at hand. Experiences anyone?
Ad 3) Wikipedia concerning eSATA
Ad 2)
But the knowledge base of WDC suggests that certain PCI cards are incompatible with certain enclosures (respectively their firmware):
And more generic SATA with OS X issues, as we discussed them here:
The question is wether the enclosure just passes through the "SATA data stream" (sorry if this is a technically incorrect term), or does in transcode/repackage some things? For USB and Firewire the enclosure obviously has to alter the data stream into the according protocol stream, but what in the case of SATA?
So against Timur's statement, enclosure chipset incompatibility is an officially documented reason. (See sources above).
UPDATE: I updated one of my 2 WD MyBook's firmware from 10.28 to 10.34. Did not help. SMART queries still only pass partially. Writing to the WD MyBook works quite well, wrote ~10GB to it at about 40-50 MB/s, but as sonn as I try to read from it I only get a data rate of 2 MB/s or less, and soon after that a kernel I/O error. Seems to be an unfixable incompatibility, at least under the driver in Mac OS X 10.6. Will only connect that enclosure through USB2 (25-30 MB/s) or FW800 (30-35 MB/s). They are slower but reliable.
UPDATE 2: CONCLUSION: The eSATA ExpressCard AKE BC338 should work fine with all naked SATA disks, and better not be used with certain eSATA enclosures (chipset: Oxford Semiconductor OXU931DS).
It seems to depend on the connected drives' type/brand or connection type.
My successful tests have been with 2 naked Toshiba drives, connected through a SATA to eSATA cable.
Whereas today I tried connecting a My Book Home Edition WD10000H1Q-00 (2x FW800, 1x USB 2.0, 1x eSATA) via and eSATA to eSATA cable. The drive mounts fine, but as I tried copying a folder from the WD MyBook to my MacBookPro 15" Late 2006 (MA609LL), Finder aborted with error -36 (ioErr, according to Classic Mac OS error table), which seems to still have the same meaning for OSX as checking Console.app showed the according kernel error message "disk1s2: I/O error", matching exactly the MyBook disk number 1, and partition (=Volume) nr 2, from which I attempted to copy.
The kernel had also thrown "SATA WARNING: IDENTIFY DEVICE checksum not implemented." right after I had plugged in the WD MyBook, before I attempted the copy operation. This warning was always reproducible with the eSATA connected WD MyBook, and never occurred with the SATA —> eSATA connected Toshiba drives!
Querying the WD MyBook through eSATA with smartctl also works only partially, only showing the section "General SMART Values", but not the full info, and the output ends with: "Warning: device does not support Error Logging", which certainly is not true, because through USB, which technically uses SCSI passthrough, the full SMART query works fine!
The reason for this particular SATA failure may be:
- the drive type/brand (WD10EACS-00ZJB0),
- the enclosure (MyBook Studio WD10000H1Q-00) 's firmware (?)
- the connection — eSATA vs SATA cable, or my only eSATA cable being faulty
I try to rule out some causes:
Ad 1) Maybe. But I can neither do tests with more eSATA drives to verify that others work nor more naked SATA drives to falsify that all SATA drives work fine as I don't have those at hand. Experiences anyone?
Ad 3) Wikipedia concerning eSATA
Most likely not the reason, except it's the unlikely case of a "backward compatibility" issue, or more probably, maybe the used eSATA cable is faulty, but I cannot test that as I have no other one at hand currently.
Ad 2)
But the knowledge base of WDC suggests that certain PCI cards are incompatible with certain enclosures (respectively their firmware):
- WD My Book External hard drive compatibility with Sonnet eSATA PCI controller cards on Mac computers
- The Western Digital help article is not very verbose, whereas the linked Sonnet SATA FAQ 404 gives more details:
. - List of eSATA controllers tested with WD My Book eSATA compatible hard drives
And more generic SATA with OS X issues, as we discussed them here:
- WD My Book Premium ES or WD My Book Studio drive freezes when connected to a system with a Marvell eSATA controller
- WD Anywhere Backup does not recognize an eSATA drive as a valid drive on Mac OS 10.4.11
The question is wether the enclosure just passes through the "SATA data stream" (sorry if this is a technically incorrect term), or does in transcode/repackage some things? For USB and Firewire the enclosure obviously has to alter the data stream into the according protocol stream, but what in the case of SATA?
So against Timur's statement, enclosure chipset incompatibility is an officially documented reason. (See sources above).
UPDATE: I updated one of my 2 WD MyBook's firmware from 10.28 to 10.34. Did not help. SMART queries still only pass partially. Writing to the WD MyBook works quite well, wrote ~10GB to it at about 40-50 MB/s, but as sonn as I try to read from it I only get a data rate of 2 MB/s or less, and soon after that a kernel I/O error. Seems to be an unfixable incompatibility, at least under the driver in Mac OS X 10.6. Will only connect that enclosure through USB2 (25-30 MB/s) or FW800 (30-35 MB/s). They are slower but reliable.
UPDATE 2: CONCLUSION: The eSATA ExpressCard AKE BC338 should work fine with all naked SATA disks, and better not be used with certain eSATA enclosures (chipset: Oxford Semiconductor OXU931DS).
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Real usage
Problem:
When I came back on a morning I expected my 400GB overnight disk clone to have finished.
Instead it had been aborted unexpectedly!
Inspecting system.log revealed these corresponding events:
The disk did unexpectedly turn itself off (spin down).
Once I even witnessed this happening while working on the machine.
I thought it's a problem of the specific WDC disk I used, but later it also happened with a Toshiba.
So it could not have been a disk specific failure.
Workaround:
Run the MacBookPro with power settings set to no sleep and no spindown.
Then no unexpected spindowns happened during many hours of usage over many different days.
Surely this sucks, as you expect it to work correctly with a power-savvy machine too, but I created different power profiles, and while using eSATA I switch to the insomnia profile, and later back to my normal power-saving profile.
Problem:
When I came back on a morning I expected my 400GB overnight disk clone to have finished.
Instead it had been aborted unexpectedly!
Inspecting system.log revealed these corresponding events:
Code:
kernel AppleAHCIPort::HandleInterruptRequest - Port 0 - HBA has trouble accessing main memory. Going to restart port. intStatus 0x20000000
kernel Failed to issue COM RESET successfully after 3 attempts. Failing...
kernel disk2s2: no such device.The disk did unexpectedly turn itself off (spin down).
Once I even witnessed this happening while working on the machine.
I thought it's a problem of the specific WDC disk I used, but later it also happened with a Toshiba.
So it could not have been a disk specific failure.
Workaround:
Run the MacBookPro with power settings set to no sleep and no spindown.
Then no unexpected spindowns happened during many hours of usage over many different days.
Surely this sucks, as you expect it to work correctly with a power-savvy machine too, but I created different power profiles, and while using eSATA I switch to the insomnia profile, and later back to my normal power-saving profile.