eSata expresscard/34 experiences

[panzer06]

The addonics card in your link uses Silicon chipset. Have heard Leopard can only boot from eSATA drives if they are connected using an expresscard with jMicron Chipset. Hopefully someone who has experience can confirm.

That is true. I have both types and the jMicron will boot Leopard.

my question is, can I set up and boot from a boot camp partition on my drive using that controller.

However, Windows will not boot from either! So much for getting bootcamp off my system drive.

Cheers,

 

[ViciousShadow21]

True , but ViciousShadow21 asked if an eSATA port would let you take advantage of the full 3gbps speed, not whether or not you would notice a difference on a particular drive.

To answer the question better, first of all there is no eSATA port on the unibody MBP--you need to buy an expresscard. Second, you will not get the full 3gbps speed because expresscard uses a 1x PCIe lane which is limited to 2gbps. You will probably never notice the difference, though, because most hard drives top out at speeds much lower than 2gbps (250mbps).

thanks for all the help. i asked this question on the other thread, but its a good place for it here to.

would a firewire 800 external hd be the best choice out of the 3? im going to be using it to save my protool's files and music.

 

[m85476585]

In my opinion, eSATA is better than Firewire 800 because the enclosures are cheaper, about $30 instead of $70, and it is a bit faster. My external drive tops out at around 130mb/s, while Firewire 800 has a theoretical limit of 100mb/s, and a real limit that is probably even slower. I have seen speeds up to 90mb/s on my Firewire 800 disk, but I don not know if it is capable of higher speeds (and I probably won't test it since it is a pain to swap drives in the enclosures I have).

Bottom line: if you want the fastest possible speed, go with eSATA; if you want simplicity (no expresscard to worry about), go with Firewire 800; and if you want really cheap, go with USB.

 

[ViciousShadow21]

In my opinion, eSATA is better than Firewire 800 because the enclosures are cheaper, about $30 instead of $70, and it is a bit faster. My external drive tops out at around 130mb/s, while Firewire 800 has a theoretical limit of 100mb/s, and a real limit that is probably even slower. I have seen speeds up to 90mb/s on my Firewire 800 disk, but I don not know if it is capable of higher speeds (and I probably won't test it since it is a pain to swap drives in the enclosures I have).

Bottom line: if you want the fastest possible speed, go with eSATA; if you want simplicity (no expresscard to worry about), go with Firewire 800; and if you want really cheap, go with USB.

ok. im going to get the 2TB western digital my book edition II. it comes with all three. good choice you think?

 

[James Cole]

can anyone explain to me what do you use this for???

 

[ViciousShadow21]

can anyone explain to me what do you use this for???

use what for? the slot? the external hd? which part?

 

[xoggyux]

thanks for all the help. i asked this question on the other thread, but its a good place for it here to.

would a firewire 800 external hd be the best choice out of the 3? im going to be using it to save my protool's files and music.

It depends, because if your drive is a 5400rpm (like the one I tested) there will probably be no difference between eSATA and FireWire (the drive I tested tops at 40MB/s which is 40% of FW's theoretical speed (I guess that at least 40% of its speed is achievable) however if the drive is 7200rpm it will probably be faster (again depending on the particular model, how much cache the drive has, and how big it is) in eSATA (however there should not be a big difference unless the drive is really fast (e.g. WD raptor or 1.5 seagate or any kind of RAID 0 config, or well offcourse SSD drives.)

But all that speed thing is pointless, what really matter is how the comfort of using either interface. Let me explain... USB for 2.5" drives will power the drive, which means 1 cable thats all, FW should also do the same (it is supposed to provide 45W of power and up to 30V so in theory it should also power 3.5" drives without external adaptor, though I have never owned a FW drive so I cannot say) eSATA in the other side it is much faster indeed than USB and for most HDD is slightly faster or faster than FW however eSATA does need external power adaptor regardless of the HDD (both 2.5 and 3.5 needs power adaptor) also the eSATA cable is not very flexible and so far the shorter I have seen is 3FT which means it will put considerable ammount of stress on your laptop and drive (enough to move lightweight enclosures) furthermore while eSATA and HDDs are cheaper than FW's you have to take into account you will need also the adapter (expresscard) which can be $15+ (sometimes even in the $20s and $30s depending on model)

So its all up to your needs, if your HDD is 5400rpm and you do not need to save USB ports (e.g. for another peripheral) then just stick to USB, otherwise consider FW or eSATA.

 

[ViciousShadow21]

It depends, because if your drive is a 5400rpm (like the one I tested) there will probably be no difference between eSATA and FireWire (the drive I tested tops at 40MB/s which is 40% of FW's theoretical speed (I guess that at least 40% of its speed is achievable) however if the drive is 7200rpm it will probably be faster (again depending on the particular model, how much cache the drive has, and how big it is) in eSATA (however there should not be a big difference unless the drive is really fast (e.g. WD raptor or 1.5 seagate or any kind of RAID 0 config, or well offcourse SSD drives.)

But all that speed thing is pointless, what really matter is how the comfort of using either interface. Let me explain... USB for 2.5" drives will power the drive, which means 1 cable thats all, FW should also do the same (it is supposed to provide 45W of power and up to 30V so in theory it should also power 3.5" drives without external adaptor, though I have never owned a FW drive so I cannot say) eSATA in the other side it is much faster indeed than USB and for most HDD is slightly faster or faster than FW however eSATA does need external power adaptor regardless of the HDD (both 2.5 and 3.5 needs power adaptor) also the eSATA cable is not very flexible and so far the shorter I have seen is 3FT which means it will put considerable ammount of stress on your laptop and drive (enough to move lightweight enclosures) furthermore while eSATA and HDDs are cheaper than FW's you have to take into account you will need also the adapter (expresscard) which can be $15+ (sometimes even in the $20s and $30s depending on model)

So its all up to your needs, if your HDD is 5400rpm and you do not need to save USB ports (e.g. for another peripheral) then just stick to USB, otherwise consider FW or eSATA.

wow thanks man. i am really leaning towards the Western Digital My Book Edition II. like i said its got all 3 and i will see which one of them works the best and stick with that i guess. again thanks for all the insight.