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E-sata Express card , which one actually works.

Hi, so I've just read through the entire thread and i'm pretty confused. I wanted to take two 320 GB 7200 drives out of an old desktop, throw them in an esata raid enclosure and use them as a scratch disk. Which card should I get? I have a new 17" MBP on the way. This is for home use, not professional so i'd like to keep the costs down. IF I go with one of the cheap $19 OWC cards

1) Is it compatible?
2) what kind of speed can i expect?
3) is that $280 card the only safe bet?

Thanks,

Ryan
 
I have a BC338, and I don't have any errors on my 1tb external drive. I'm copying a bunch of data to my portable 200gb drive (since I don't have anything important on it) to really test the card out. Maybe I got lucky, or maybe it is just more compatible with the old non unibody MBPs.

As a bonus, the drive is copying 36% faster than on USB. I usually don't use this drive on eSATA since it needs a special USB to power cable, an eSATA cable, and an eSATA card. With USB I can just connect it to the mini-USB cable that I can always find and almost always have connected to my computer.
 
I bought the Apiotek eSATA II : EC-ES03S / EC-0003S card a while back

EC-0003S_150x150.jpg


for my Santa Rosa 2.4Ghz MBP. The card was sort of recognised in Tiger, but I could not mount a disk with it. It worked in Leopard without any drivers, even booting, but was slower than even USB giving miserable readings in Xbench, so I put it aside until recently. Having a look at this thread encouraged me to give it another try. It flies now. I suspect that it has the same Jmicron chipset as the flush fitting card in this thread.
 
As long as the card has a Jmicron chipset like the one above itll be fine... all the others have software issues.
 
I just got a kernel panic. In the crash report, it said it was caused by AHCI, which is the name for the SATA driver. I think I bumped it plugging in headphones, but moving it around gently does not seem to cause kernel panics again. Pulling the SATA cable out of the card just gives me a device removal warning. I'll try pulling the card out of the slot, but I'm going to submit this first.

The BC338 has a Jmicron chipset.
 
Unplugging the card just caused a device removal warning, but when I plugged it back in, I got a kernel panic 20 seconds later. It looks like my first KP was caused by the expresscard being loose in the slot, which is probably due to either a crappy expresscard slot specification or Apple using crappy expresscard slots in their computers. I don't know if all expresscard slots are push to eject, or if some have a button, but I blame that mechanism. It makes it hard to press the card back in if it comes loose (like after unlugging an eSATA cable) without risking ejecting the card.
 
turn off

I gotta say, I am having no problems if I turn off the computer, plug in the card, reboot use, turn off the computer, unplug card, reboot use.

I know that isn't the way PNP is suppossed to work, and it is a bit of a hassle, but it does work
 
My Digitus JMicron based card seems to work quite properly now. I did at least a dozend copies of my OS X partition and all but one were error free. The one still worries me a bit.

Futhermore I copied several hundred thousand files to OS X, FAT32 and NTFS volumes. Only the NTFS copies gave me problems, but only when using Paragon's NTFS driver which obviously still cannot handle a high number of files over eSATA (size doesn't matter).

There was not a single kernel panic, crash or anything.

Since I know for sure that the Digitus card did not work as good as now I suspect that 10.5.7 included some AHCI driver fixes.
 
2 ExpressCards that work under Snow Leopard

I have two eSata ExpressCards. Both of them work under Snow Leopard. However, I haven't run any speed tests.

One of them is an iogear GPS702e3. It needs a special driver from Silicon Image, which is not a fact that iogear displays openly on their Website. Here's a message by bobbyco57 that I found at this URL
One 3rd party issue to share with a solution that might help others:
Early 08 MB Pro, I use an Iogear eSATA (GPS702e3) ExpressCard 34 controller. The controller didn't work in SL 10.6 until I downloaded this, based on Iogear Support advise:
"You can use the driver on the Silicon Image website. Follow the link below and download the driver dated, 8/14/2007."
http://www.siliconimage.com/support/searchresults.aspx?pid=32&cat=3&os=3
Once installed, this driver required Rosetta.
But it is working great with my 1Tb external HD with Final Cut Express.
Click to expand...
The other ExpressCard is an AKE BC338, which I bought from vendor nelson338 on eBay. Others on eBay sell it less expensively, but the shipping cost from nelson338 in Hong Kong to where I live in New Zealand was under US$2, so the total cost was cheaper to buy from him than from others. The AKE BC338 just arrived today, but seems to be working well.

Strangely, when I use the iogear GPS702e3 ExpressCard, my external eSata hard drive is shown as a Parallel SCSI drive in OS X's System Profiler; but when I use the AKE BC338 ExpressCard, the same external hard drive shows up as Serial-ATA drive. Can anyone explain that to me (without BSing)?

The two apps with which I use the eSata ExpressCard and the external hard drive are:
  • VMware Fusion: I have a Windows XP/SP3 virtual machine stored on the external HD.
  • Time Machine.

Here's my config:
  • Ancient MacBook Pro, Core 2 Duo at 2.33 GHz, 17" screen, 3 Gb ram.
  • OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard build 10A432.
  • External hard drive enclosure: DataStorage (or MacPower) Pleiades model PD-S800+. DataStorage has changed the model #, but the enclosure is still sold. It has the following interfaces: 1 X eSata, 2 X Firewire 800, 1 X Firewire 400, 1 X USB 2.0.
 
I haven't tested by BC338 with SL yet, but in Leopard it caused several kernel panics when I used it without rebooting.

I am guessing your other card is showing up as parallel SCSI because that's just what the driver tells OS X it is. It might be easier to write a SCSI driver than a SATA driver.
 
BC338 ExpressCard & kernel panics under Snow Leopard

m85476585 said:
I haven't tested by BC338 with SL yet, but in Leopard it caused several kernel panics when I used it without rebooting...
Click to expand...
I've never actually seen a kernel panic, so I decided to try to provoke one.

Here's what I did, step by step:
  • I started with the BC338 ExpressCard and eSata external HD functioning on the MacBook Pro (MBP) running Snow Leopard.
  • Shut down the apps that were using the external HD.
  • Right-clicked -- yes, I'm using a two-button USB mouse -- on the external HD icon on the Desktop and chose Eject from the context menu. The icon disappeared.
  • Powered off the external HD.
  • Clicked the BC338's icon on the menu bar and chose Power Off Card from the context menu. The icon disappeared.
  • Pressed the sides of the BC338 into the MBP's chassis -- I wouldn't want to press on the eSata cable connector, for fear of damaging the connection. Then released the pressure and the BC338 popped part way out of the chassis. I assumed this was enough to disconnect it from the ExpressCard socket in the MBP.
  • Pushed the BC338 back into the MBP.
  • Turned the power back on to the external HD.
  • Neither icon reappeared: neither the BC338's icon on the menu bar, nor the external HD's icon on the Desktop.
  • System Profiler did not show either component.
From this I concluded that (1) ejecting the BC338 and the external HD does not provoke a kernel panic in Snow Leopard, at least not with my config; and (2) re-inserting them does not cause a kernel panic, but it also does not get them running again in Snow Leopard.

Next, I did the following:
  • Clicked the :apple: Apple icon on the menu bar and chose Restart.
  • Note that the BC338 remained inserted and the external HD continued with its power on.
  • When OS X had rebooted, neither icon was showing and System Profiler also did not display those two components.
From this I concluded that a soft reboot (that is, using the software Restart to re-initialize OS X) is not sufficient to cause Snow Leopard to recognize the two components.

Next, I tried the following.
  • Shut down OS X on the MBP.
  • For good measure, I removed the physical power cord from the MBP: it has no battery in it.
  • Note that the BC338 remained inserted and the external HD continued with its power on.
  • Replugged the power cord into the MBP.
  • Pressed the power button on the MBP. It booted into Snow Leopard.
  • The icons for both components now displayed on the menu bar and Desktop, respectively.
  • Ran the apps that used the external HD to make sure it was working.
From this I concluded that after powering off and removing those two components from the MBP, to get them running again under Snow Leopard, it is necessary to do a hard power down of the MBP, power those two components up, and then turn the power on to the MBP.

So I wasn't able to see a kernel panic. I assume that a kernel panic displays some error message on the Desktop. Of course, one thing I hadn't tried was removing the BC338 from the MBP without first turning the BC338's power off via its icon. Perhaps that would provoke a kernel panic. But I would never do that, because removing a component while it has power on to it can damage the component.

Cheers,
洋鬼子

Here's my config:
  • Ancient MacBook Pro, Core 2 Duo at 2.33 GHz, 17" screen, 3 Gb ram.
  • OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard build 10A432.
  • External hard drive enclosure: DataStorage (or MacPower) Pleiades model PD-S800+. DataStorage has changed the model #, but the enclosure is still sold. It has the following interfaces: 1 X eSata, 2 X Firewire 800, 1 X Firewire 400, 1 X USB 2.0.
 
You will know a kernel panic when you see one. It's the Mac equivalent of a bluescreen, but a lot friendlier.

Under Leopard I would get KPs just using the drive for a few hours. Basically, insert the card, connect a drive, power it up, do something like a backup from a USB drive that takes hours, and wait. It didn't always do it, and I couldn't figure out what caused it, except that rebooting after inserting the card before powering up the drive seemed to prevent it.
 
Timur said:
My Digitus JMicron based card seems to work quite properly now. I did at least a dozend copies of my OS X partition and all but one were error free. The one still worries me a bit.

Futhermore I copied several hundred thousand files to OS X, FAT32 and NTFS volumes. Only the NTFS copies gave me problems, but only when using Paragon's NTFS driver which obviously still cannot handle a high number of files over eSATA (size doesn't matter).

There was not a single kernel panic, crash or anything.

Since I know for sure that the Digitus card did not work as good as now I suspect that 10.5.7 included some AHCI driver fixes.
Click to expand...
Interestingly the card only worked as long as the USB port adjectend to it was broken. After pluggin in an Apple display into the USB port worked again and guess what?

The eSATA card produces data corruption and kernel panics again!

According to an Apple tech the ExpressCard slot, the adjectend USB port and the DisplayPort share one electrical circuit. That may hint to the source of the problem. I will give my MBP to an Apple tech again to have a look at this.
 
haven't either

m85476585 said:
I haven't tested by BC338 with SL yet, but in Leopard it caused several kernel panics when I used it without rebooting.

I am guessing your other card is showing up as parallel SCSI because that's just what the driver tells OS X it is. It might be easier to write a SCSI driver than a SATA driver.
Click to expand...

yes, I had the same kernel panics with this card, but NONE if I rebooted. I would REALLY like it to work under SL, but haven't done the upgrade yet. Anyone done this, with this card who can test it out?
 
my kernel panics

would come when I simply inserted the card into a LIVE MBP, and then connected the external drive. Then, I tried to use it. After about 10 minutes of backup or copying, kernel panic. this was the only way I would get it, sometimes faster, sometimes slower.
 
xoggyux said:
Does it have special features?? :confused: why is it worth $130???
Click to expand...

Whoa. I paid about $14 for the 2-port eSATA in my Lenovo.. and I get speeds of ~100 MBps (125 ish burst)... which is about 3.5x faster than normal USB peak speeds. (~28-30 MBps)
 
Flaky behavior of OS X's interface to ExpressCards.

In the title of this post, I use the word flaky in the sense of unstable, unreliable, inconsistent.

In two previous posts on this forum, I wrote about successfully using the AKE BC338 eSata ExpressCard in a MacBookPro under Snow Leopard to interface with an external hard drive. Well, it appears I wrote too soon.

Since then, the BC338 has stopped working twice. The first time, it was not recognized by the computer after a reboot. The only way I was able to get it recognized was to substitute IOGear GPS-702e3 eSata ExpressCard for the BC338; reboot with the GPS-702e3; shut down the MBP; turn off the power to all devices; replace the GPS-702e3 with the BC338; power on the external HD; and then reboot.

The second time the BC338 simply stopped working after I had been using it for hours, right in the middle of running an application that was resident on the external HD. I have not been able to get the BC338 to work since then.

Firefly2002 said:
Whoa. I paid about $14 for the 2-port eSATA in my Lenovo.. and I get speeds of ~100 MBps (125 ish burst)... which is about 3.5x faster than normal USB peak speeds. (~28-30 MBps)
Click to expand...

Yeah, Firefly2002, but I assume the Lenovo runs Window$, not OS X. Perhaps Window$ has an interface to eSata cards that is more mature and more stable than that of OS X. Frankly, given the large number of bad experiences of OS X users in this forum with OS X's eSata ExpressCard interface, I now suspect that the problem lies more with OS X or Mac hardware, rather than with the BC338 and its driver.

I've written to the retailer of my BC338 -- who has the eBay ID nelson-338 -- asking that he get from the distributor the name, URL, and e-mail address of the manufacturer of the BC338. The manufacturer's name is shown as AKE on the packaging, but there is no other indication of how to contact the manufacturer. I suggest any other users of the BC338 also require their retailers to supply means to contact the manufacturer.

Meanwhile, has anyone had success in downloading newer drivers for the BC338 from the chip maker JMicron?
______________________________________

Here's my config:

* Ancient MacBook Pro, Core 2 Duo at 2.33 GHz, 17" screen, 3 Gb ram.
* OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard build 10A432.
* External hard drive enclosure: DataStorage (or MacPower) Pleiades model PD-S800+. DataStorage has changed the model #, but the enclosure is still sold. It has the following interfaces: 1 X eSata, 2 X Firewire 800, 1 X Firewire 400, 1 X USB 2.0.
 
My AKE BC338 has probably been in my Unibody's macbook pro slot for the the last time. I think in the space of about 1 hour after plugging it in I saw 3 kernel panics from it. So it's firewire 800 for me from now on.

Yang2 Gui3zi said:
In the title of this post, I use the word flaky in the sense of unstable, unreliable, inconsistent.

In two previous posts on this forum, I wrote about successfully using the AKE BC338 eSata ExpressCard in a MacBookPro under Snow Leopard to interface with an external hard drive. Well, it appears I wrote too soon.

Since then, the BC338 has stopped working twice. The first time, it was not recognized by the computer after a reboot. The only way I was able to get it recognized was to substitute IOGear GPS-702e3 eSata ExpressCard for the BC338; reboot with the GPS-702e3; shut down the MBP; turn off the power to all devices; replace the GPS-702e3 with the BC338; power on the external HD; and then reboot.

The second time the BC338 simply stopped working after I had been using it for hours, right in the middle of running an application that was resident on the external HD. I have not been able to get the BC338 to work since then.



Yeah, Firefly2002, but I assume the Lenovo runs Window$, not OS X. Perhaps Window$ has an interface to eSata cards that is more mature and more stable than that of OS X. Frankly, given the large number of bad experiences of OS X users in this forum with OS X's eSata ExpressCard interface, I now suspect that the problem lies more with OS X or Mac hardware, rather than with the BC338 and its driver.

I've written to the retailer of my BC338 -- who has the eBay ID nelson-338 -- asking that he get from the distributor the name, URL, and e-mail address of the manufacturer of the BC338. The manufacturer's name is shown as AKE on the packaging, but there is no other indication of how to contact the manufacturer. I suggest any other users of the BC338 also require their retailers to supply means to contact the manufacturer.

Meanwhile, has anyone had success in downloading newer drivers for the BC338 from the chip maker JMicron?
______________________________________

Here's my config:

* Ancient MacBook Pro, Core 2 Duo at 2.33 GHz, 17" screen, 3 Gb ram.
* OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard build 10A432.
* External hard drive enclosure: DataStorage (or MacPower) Pleiades model PD-S800+. DataStorage has changed the model #, but the enclosure is still sold. It has the following interfaces: 1 X eSata, 2 X Firewire 800, 1 X Firewire 400, 1 X USB 2.0.
Click to expand...
 
I know it's not that cheap, but if eSATA is of interest, folks could always pop in Sonnet's Tempo SATA Pro ExpressCard/34. $200 but at least it works reliably and no hours of head-banging or teeth-gnashing or dealing with impact of kernel panics or interruption in work and risk of filesystem damage from unclean shutdown (due to the kpanic).

Other than that... I'm reading the thread with interest to see if any of the other cards can reliably work in SL or if vendors plan on updating their drivers anytime soon for SL.
 
Or Apple could just add an eSATA port in the next refresh. It would cost them very little, and it could be an eSATA/USB combo port so it wouldn't increase the total number of ports (since we all know Steve wouldn't want that). Then the Macbook Pros really would be pro machines in my opinion. USB3 or Firewire 3200 would be acceptable substitutes for eSATA. Firewire 800 just isn't fast enough.

I'm not even a pro user, just a college student, but every time Apple takes out "pro" features, it just gives me another reason to go back to Windows. Now that I have a nice Windows workstation set up, I see no reason to buy anything but a low-end 13" MBP should I ever need to replace this one (15" Multibody).
/rant
 
AKE BC338 Tech Support

steffi said:
My AKE BC338 has probably been in my Unibody's macbook pro slot for the the last time. I think in the space of about 1 hour after plugging it in I saw 3 kernel panics from it. So it's firewire 800 for me from now on.
Click to expand...

Hi, Steffi,

The retailer in Hong Kong sent me an e-mail address for AKE Technology Ltd., the manufacturer of the BC338: ghouhua@akelink.com.cn

Given the domain name, I found a different e-mail address for AKE: lingzhe800@gmail.com . I found that e-mail address at this English-language URL.

Perhaps, rather than tossing your BC338 into the dark and dust at the back of some drawer, you might write to both those e-mail addresses and see if they send you any useful info about new drivers for SL or anything else. If so, please share the info with this forum.

I will do likewise.

Cheers (mach's gut),
洋鬼子
 
m85476585 said:
Or Apple could just add an eSATA port in the next refresh. It would cost them very little, and it could be an eSATA/USB combo port so it wouldn't increase the total number of ports (since we all know Steve wouldn't want that). Then the Macbook Pros really would be pro machines in my opinion. USB3 or Firewire 3200 would be acceptable substitutes for eSATA. Firewire 800 just isn't fast enough.

I'm not even a pro user, just a college student, but every time Apple takes out "pro" features, it just gives me another reason to go back to Windows. Now that I have a nice Windows workstation set up, I see no reason to buy anything but a low-end 13" MBP should I ever need to replace this one (15" Multibody).
/rant
Click to expand...

Quite understand, believe me. I was pretty annoyed when I heard they dropped the ExpressCard/34 port from all but the current 17" MBPs. :(
 
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