Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
E-sata Express card , which one actually works.
- Thread starter Guy Mancuso
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
wow!
Wow, I picked up the 338 card from the ebay seller. Trying to use on my 15" MBP pre-unibody. Everything seemed okay, setup an external esata drive, plugged in the usb for power to the drive, was about to start some copying when BOOM, total kernal panic (I guess, never really seen the SHADES come down like that on the screen and say YOU MUST reboot, there is NO alternative)
What to do? I did load any other driver, the disk that came with the card is a tiny one, that I am afraid to stick in the superdrive.
Is there a driver to download that will make it better, or is there just some issue with these cards?
Wow, I picked up the 338 card from the ebay seller. Trying to use on my 15" MBP pre-unibody. Everything seemed okay, setup an external esata drive, plugged in the usb for power to the drive, was about to start some copying when BOOM, total kernal panic (I guess, never really seen the SHADES come down like that on the screen and say YOU MUST reboot, there is NO alternative)
What to do? I did load any other driver, the disk that came with the card is a tiny one, that I am afraid to stick in the superdrive.
Is there a driver to download that will make it better, or is there just some issue with these cards?
My thoughts are as follows and bare in mind that I don't trust my 338.
That said, 338 is a eSata card so why are you using USB for you drive? I don't think you can plug both USB and eSata just to get power from USB.
Secondly, the small disk is only compatible with tray optical drives of which the Apple ones aren't. It would need a special adapter to work. You put that in your slot loaded drive and you'll never get it out.
That said, 338 is a eSata card so why are you using USB for you drive? I don't think you can plug both USB and eSata just to get power from USB.
Secondly, the small disk is only compatible with tray optical drives of which the Apple ones aren't. It would need a special adapter to work. You put that in your slot loaded drive and you'll never get it out.
Please share the specifications of your machine, otherwise we can't help or discuss. I have a pre-unibody and everything's working fine.
Does anyone know which eSATA cards that are powered? I'm trying to use an eSATA flash drive:
http://www.kanguru.com/eflash.html
I realize that Kanguru sells a powered eSATA card, but I hoping to find one that was better known and reviewed...
there are USB to DC kind of cables. i got it too with my drive. so you dont need to power it from an outlet.. or if one USB slot doesnt have sufficient power
thanks
Well, the maching is a mbp, 15" 2.5ghz CD2 bought last november, so this is just prior to uni-body release.
running 10.5.7
I had the esata card in there, and was using the USB to power an external esata/sata drive. So, the drive was hooked up with esata and usb. I THOUGHT the usb was powering the drive only, but it could have been creating some confusion.
I had to reboot HARD and then started to try it again, it seemed to work, but I came back about 10 minutes later and it was frozen again and the screen was out. So, not sure what is going on. How to trouble shoot,
Well, the maching is a mbp, 15" 2.5ghz CD2 bought last november, so this is just prior to uni-body release.
running 10.5.7
I had the esata card in there, and was using the USB to power an external esata/sata drive. So, the drive was hooked up with esata and usb. I THOUGHT the usb was powering the drive only, but it could have been creating some confusion.
I had to reboot HARD and then started to try it again, it seemed to work, but I came back about 10 minutes later and it was frozen again and the screen was out. So, not sure what is going on. How to trouble shoot,
well
Well, it SEEMS that it might have been the USB powering and the esata cable connected at the same time.
When I run the external drive with EXTERNAL power, so NOT using the usb cable to power it from the laptop, and just use the esata cable to connect the drive, it connects fine and doesn't throw any errors and I can copy GIGABYTES of date in a short amount of time.
I wonder, IS there a usb cable that JUST does power?
Well, it SEEMS that it might have been the USB powering and the esata cable connected at the same time.
When I run the external drive with EXTERNAL power, so NOT using the usb cable to power it from the laptop, and just use the esata cable to connect the drive, it connects fine and doesn't throw any errors and I can copy GIGABYTES of date in a short amount of time.
I wonder, IS there a usb cable that JUST does power?
update
Here is a quick update, still seems to be a bit flakey
I managed to get it to work a couple times, but what seems to be a REAL problem is, one cannot simply INSERT the card, let it be recognized and then connect an esata device, like the external drive I have and use it.
I AM using the external drive with EXTERNAL power, since powering the drive with USB power, and connecting via esata does NOT work at all.
But, if I connect the drive with esata, and use the card without a complete reboot to lay the land straight, I end up with a hard stop, the window blinds come down and I have to reboot anyways.
If I put in the card, reboot, connect the drive and start either a transfer, backup, whatever, it seems to work FINE.
Is this because I haven't installed any ADDITIONAL drivers? Is there a link to this DRIVER, since the one that comes on the baby disk is pretty useless since one cannot use that disk in this DRIVE?
thanks
Here is a quick update, still seems to be a bit flakey
I managed to get it to work a couple times, but what seems to be a REAL problem is, one cannot simply INSERT the card, let it be recognized and then connect an esata device, like the external drive I have and use it.
I AM using the external drive with EXTERNAL power, since powering the drive with USB power, and connecting via esata does NOT work at all.
But, if I connect the drive with esata, and use the card without a complete reboot to lay the land straight, I end up with a hard stop, the window blinds come down and I have to reboot anyways.
If I put in the card, reboot, connect the drive and start either a transfer, backup, whatever, it seems to work FINE.
Is this because I haven't installed any ADDITIONAL drivers? Is there a link to this DRIVER, since the one that comes on the baby disk is pretty useless since one cannot use that disk in this DRIVE?
thanks
I tried that and still got corruption. Try doing a clone of your OS X system drive and do a Verify via Disk Utility afterwards.
There are some downloadable Firmware upgrades on JMicron's FTP server. But you need to use Windows for these and since the Unibodies don't support using the ExpressCard slot with Windows Vista I first have to install some XP in order to try the Firmware route.
i meant this kind of cable for USB power...
anyway, i have the EKO card on my way (JMicron), ill post my results when i get it! thanks for links
Attachments
Does anybody trust this card with Time Machine yet? My experience was consistent machine lockups that resulted in HFS corruption when using this card with Time Machine. I'd be tempted to try just Retrospect to see how that works since I suspect only Time Machine results in corruption.
Not yet. I've had kernal panics but not while copying. Heck, you don't really need this for time machine. I only use eSATA for large transfers.
just got one. BC338.
transaction sending and everything went without a hitch!
so far it looks like its working with no trouble at all..
its even hot pluggable!
who said eSata is not hotplug? the manual i think...
i normally eject it and disconnect it and connect it back..
no kernel panics (some xbench tests) etc etc.
its way better than usb2.0.
but its a slow disk anyway (old 5k4 hitachi)
anyway, im pleased. i hate the thought of having to swap the card in and out everytime i put the laptop in the sleeve...
i power the disk enclosure via usb cable i posted two posts up.
will post if any problems occur..
how do i test if any errors are made during disk activity?
i mean, with no data lost.
transaction sending and everything went without a hitch!
so far it looks like its working with no trouble at all..
its even hot pluggable!
who said eSata is not hotplug? the manual i think...
i normally eject it and disconnect it and connect it back..
no kernel panics (some xbench tests) etc etc.
its way better than usb2.0.
but its a slow disk anyway (old 5k4 hitachi)
anyway, im pleased. i hate the thought of having to swap the card in and out everytime i put the laptop in the sleeve...
i power the disk enclosure via usb cable i posted two posts up.
will post if any problems occur..
how do i test if any errors are made during disk activity?
i mean, with no data lost.
boom, i got corrupted data when recording to it via logic......
thats about as valuable as ****.
im not trusting this **** to do defragging... or anything for that matter!
also its fast on paper, but it sucks in real life :S
hey, did you check anything on that HP lately.. ?
btw, when i tried to uninstall the driver, it said "this will uninstall driver for JMB368", but we would actually need 360. i know its a universal driver, but perhaps it just doesnt install the right one..cheers
thats about as valuable as ****.
im not trusting this **** to do defragging... or anything for that matter!
also its fast on paper, but it sucks in real life :S
hey, did you check anything on that HP lately.. ?
btw, when i tried to uninstall the driver, it said "this will uninstall driver for JMB368", but we would actually need 360. i know its a universal driver, but perhaps it just doesnt install the right one..cheers
BC338 Express/34 Card off of Ebay
I think I found something. I ordered this same card, tried it and had the same kernel panic, and after a reboot with the card in the machine, no more kernel panics but still had the data corruption.
I spoke with Applecare and we came up with an interesting answer. If you have a 5400 rpm internal hard drive and an external 7200 rpm esata connected hard drive, the data will corrupt (on the esata drive) due to the huge difference in speeds and data transfer rates - buffer overflows. That is, if you boot from the internal 5400 rpm drive.
I then booted from the external esata 7200 rpm drive (instead of the internal HD) and the data corruption went away and the card and external hard drive both seem to work fine. Can anyone else test this theory?
I have a Macbook Pro Unibody 15" purchased 4 weeks ago.
Thanks,
Steven
I think I found something. I ordered this same card, tried it and had the same kernel panic, and after a reboot with the card in the machine, no more kernel panics but still had the data corruption.
I spoke with Applecare and we came up with an interesting answer. If you have a 5400 rpm internal hard drive and an external 7200 rpm esata connected hard drive, the data will corrupt (on the esata drive) due to the huge difference in speeds and data transfer rates - buffer overflows. That is, if you boot from the internal 5400 rpm drive.
I then booted from the external esata 7200 rpm drive (instead of the internal HD) and the data corruption went away and the card and external hard drive both seem to work fine. Can anyone else test this theory?
I have a Macbook Pro Unibody 15" purchased 4 weeks ago.
Thanks,
Steven
With the BC338 the same data-corruption is happening as with my other JMicron based ExpressCard. OS X 10.6.7 doesn't help neither.
I'll test both cards in a HP PC Laptop next week, since I still suspect the Macbook Pro to be the culprit.
BC338 Express/34 Card off of Ebay
Precisely, mirror your internal hard drive and boot from the external. Do not use the internal drive. Create a new directory on the external and copy a bunch of files to it from the external (ones that are in the root directory).
You will find no errors on the drive because there is no buffering problems. It will work.
Precisely, mirror your internal hard drive and boot from the external. Do not use the internal drive. Create a new directory on the external and copy a bunch of files to it from the external (ones that are in the root directory).
You will find no errors on the drive because there is no buffering problems. It will work.
by the way, i have internal 7200 and external 5400 and still got write errors.
BC338 Express/34 Card off of Ebay
Well, yes, I am saying use the external drive as a test to see if there is a buffer overrun problem between the external and internal drives. See if the Express Card crashed or throws out read/write errors.
I bet it doesn't.
This is a real problem and Apple needs to fix it.
Well, yes, I am saying use the external drive as a test to see if there is a buffer overrun problem between the external and internal drives. See if the Express Card crashed or throws out read/write errors.
I bet it doesn't.
This is a real problem and Apple needs to fix it.
huh?
you are actually saying that i should clone my internal to the 5400rpm (my EX system disk) and boot from the SLOWER disk in order to use eSata
(and have two systems installed just for that)
come on , has to be an easier way