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Expresscard/34 esata controller available from Addonics

Deslock said:
Interesting thread.

I too would like to see these benchmarks. I'm considering getting a RAID 0/1 enclosure (to run in mirrored mode) to use with a new MBP. I have to decide whether to go with an eSATA or FW800 setup like http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEFW924AL2K/ or http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8387284&type=product&id=1179876288679 or http://www.amazon.com/Maxtor-Touch-Turbo-External-C01W010/dp/B000BW32IY (the reviews aren't so good for this one).

Thanks!
Click to expand...
BTW, some other benchmarks for FW800 vs eSATA:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEAQ7750GB16/
http://www.barefeats.com/hard91.html
http://macapper.com/2007/08/04/review-benchmarks-esata2-macbook-pro/ (though the methodology used is flawed in this one)
 
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Deslock said:
BTW, some other benchmarks for FW800 vs eSATA:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEAQ7750GB16/
http://www.barefeats.com/hard91.html
http://macapper.com/2007/08/04/review-benchmarks-esata2-macbook-pro/ (though the methodology used is flawed in this one)
Click to expand...

The first two links are to MacPro benchmarks which are not relevant to MacBook Pros, since you're using the ExpressCard (equivalent to a 1-lane PCI Express slot) on a MBP vs onboard SATA or a SATA card in a PCI Express multi-lane slot. In spite of flawed methodologies, the third link does not directly compare eSATA and FW800, only FW400.

I don't have detailed benchmarks handy since my MBP is at the office, but according to what notes I have here, I got a rough average of 45 MB/sec read and writes on a 3.5 SATA drive connected to the APIOTEK eSATA ExpressCard. I got a rough average of 55 MB/sec read and writes on a 3.5 FW800 (ATA) drive. (Benchmarked using Quickbench with 10 iterations of each test, if I recall correctly)

Granted, those drives were different models and interfaces (Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 7200 rpm 8MB cache SATA vs Western Digital WD2500JB 7200 rpm 8MB cache ATA in FW800 case), so I might be wrong all along, but this is what I saw and decided it wasn't worth the hassle at the time. I was expecting an order of magnitude increase with eSATA, which I didn't see.

True benchmarks need to be done with an SATA to FW800 enclosure and a eSATA enclosure, which I don't have. Maybe check with Bare Feats?? They did some MBP eSATA benchmarks (but no FW800). and said they'd do a FW800 vs eSATA comparision on the new MBPs but I can't find if they ever did.

Someone else did some MBP eSATA vs FW800 benchmarks that are different ( from what I got. He used XBench, which is notorious for getting different values each time it's run.

Hope this helps.
 
flashing raid bios onto non-raid 3132

For what it's worth, today, I flashed r7405.bin (the RAID 7.4.05 BIOS) onto a Bytecc Sil3132 based expresscard. My card is one of the _base_ 3132s, it did not come from the factory as a raid card.

I then installed the new(ish) universal raid5 drivers on my 1.1 (not Santa Rosa) MacBook Pro running 10.5.0.

The new drivers show the card as a raid5 card (Sil 3132 SATARAID Controller as opposed to a Sil 3132 SATALINK controller).

The raid5 card, when booting under BIOS legacy mode (into FreeDOS) did not go into the raid menu when I tried ^S.

The RAID 5 manager application under MacOS says it can't find any raid5 controllers.

However, the new drivers treated the card as a SATALINK controller and mounted my two drives (which were already a software raid).

I just copied about 15gb of data onto the drives with no problem, unlike other people running Leopard in another thread... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/378576/
 
Purchasing a new esata express card

By the way, great discussion on esata.
I have a 2nd edition MBP running Leopard and I recently purchased a 500GB FreeAgent Pro external HD. I am planning to connect the external HD through esata and work on booting Ubuntu and Windows XP using the external HD. Can anyone recommend an expresscard that is Leopard compatible and works well with booting?
 
Is there any place I could find a summary of details regarding getting esata to work with a macbook pro (1.1)? I'd like to be able to boot from it (any flavor of OS), have the potential to do raid, and be hotpluggable. I'm running leopard, but this discussion is extremely technical and I don't want to screw up and buy the wrong card. I was looking at the rosewill express 34 card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16839200006
the SIIG card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16839150022
and a Bytecc one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16839229001

Which I think run the similar hardware and some people have gotten them to work it seems, but I'm not always clear what version of a macbook pro they have and since I have an older one it seems more likely that I could be out of luck. Thanks so much for your help!
-Stephen

PST- Are you able to boot from your setup?
 
Unclear How to Install Vista

I'm sorry, I'm new at these forums, and I've been reading these pages, about people installing Vista on external enclosures using eSATA. Well, recently I bought a Griffin 34 express card eSATA card. I have put together a 7200 RPM Seagate HD 3.5" in a MacAlly enclosure that has an eSATA connection. I have successfully initialized the drive. From reading all this posts I have become curious of how to install Windows Vista onto this external hard drive. Could it be possible for someone to clearly state the steps on how to do this properly. I have read what some people have posted, but for me it is too hard to follow. Can anyone tell me how to do it in steps, and put it all in to simple terms? Thanks in advance.
 
Some tips:
I was unable to install Vista with the external drive attached to my MacBook Pro. It might have something to do with the attached drive not being the first attached hard drive.
I got it working by attaching the drive to another pc, install Vista, then install the esata drivers and the vista drivers for the macbook on the Leopard DVD.
This all still on the PC. Finished? Attach the drive to your macbook and boot from it. Not sure which key to hold on bootup. I use rEFIt to select between available OS installs.

The first time Vista boots might take a while due to all the new hardware it detects, it might even hang so you may have to boot multiple times.

Good Luck
 
Interesting...

I see, well thank you for the reply. I had no idea it took so much effort. Would it work if I first installed Vista on my internal HDD on my MBP or would I have to go and find a separate PC computer? Also, I can't remember where but on these forums I have also read about people installing Windows XP without using Boot Camp. Apparently Boot Camp is just an interface, as all the magic is in the Firmware update that contains BIOS (all gobble dee gook to me). Anyway, all you have to do is boot from the install disc holding the C key, and then you are able to select an external drive or anyone in particular that you have with you. After installation all you have to do is hold down the option + command + shift + Delete keys to bypass the main startup disk. It sounds to easy but I guess people have confirmed it works. Getting to the point I attempted this with my Windows Vista Home premium install DVD, and I got to a point where it seemed to have taken me to a boot directory, though because I had no Windows drive, I would just boot Windows and would get to the point with the scrolling bar, and then a blank screen would appear. At this point I could not get anywhere. Is there a reason why this doesn't work or am I doing something wrong? I guess the only reason why I'm trying to get Windows on an external drive is so it doesn't take up any space on my internal drive, and I would also just like to use it to install games on like Crysis, and Call of Duty 4. I like Vista only because it has Direct X 10 and XP doesn't but I suppose if this method only works with XP then it sounds like something I might try instead.
 
Just had an idea!!!

I know no one has replied yet but this will be quick. I just had a thought. On Leopard you can use Carbon Copy Cloner, to make a copy of your computers hard drive and install it on an external drive. Now here's the kicker, can you install Windows Vista on the internal drive, and find and install something like Carbon Copy Cloner on Vista and copy it to an external drive. Erase the internal partition and then just boot off the external. Is this possible, or does it just sound good on paper? Thanks in advance.
 
This should be possible, and I believe has already been done. After the cloning process you might have to restore Vista on the external drive to get it to boot properly.
 
Very informing

Really?! Hmmmm. Well I like the sound of that as soon as I'm done Cloning my Leopard drive I'll be sure to get started on that. I'll post my results and hopefully all goes well.
 
My Results

Okay well it took me most of my afternoon to install Vista onto my internal HD. On Vista the eSATA drive is visible which was a good sign. Then I shut down my machine and booted back into Leopard. I opened up my Carbon Copy Cloner and selected the Vista partition. However I could not select my eSATA hard drive. I have it partitioned into two pieces. One side has a copy of Leopard which I can boot from, and the other I formatted into FAT 32. Though CCC would not let me select this formatted partition to clone my Vista drive to. So I messed around and formatted it back to a Mac Journal format. Now I was able to clone the drive however, CCC alerted me that this partition would not be able to be bootable. Though I continued anyway, now I'm at the point where the partition has disappeared from finder. Though it does show in disk utility, and it does seem to be properly formatted in FAT 32. Another downside is that I cannot boot from my eSATA at all. I have downloaded and installed rEFIT. Though I am not sure if I did it right because I'm not sure how to use it. Is there a different key shortcut while booting? The other thing is how should I go upon making my Vista eSATA partition bootable. I still have the Vista partition on my internal HD as well. Looks like I need some help.:eek:
 
Hello -Cyman-,

It doesn't mount, but does it show up in Disk Utility ?
If the filesystem is unknown it will not show up.
Did you download drivers from the card's vendor/manufacturer website ?
 
Hey Lucidmyth,

it doesn't show up in DiskUtility, I already checked this before. The file system shouldn't be unknown, since the hard disk is not new, it's already formatted in HFS+ and NTFS and I also got Paragon NTFS installed.
I only have the icon in the menu bar that shows that the ExpressCard is connected, but it says unknown card, although I downloaded drivers from jMicron. Unfortunately the jMicron website is not really well organized in terms of drivers information. Maybe someone could give me a link to the right drivers, so I can make sure that I downloaded the correct ones?

These are the drivers I downloaded. Actually I think the product descriptions on the jMicron website are really poor.
I was really relying on the post of this other guy who said he could boot off eSATA with the jMicron card, that is why I bought it, but now the persons who seem to got it working don't want to explain how they managed to, how sad!
 
The driver provided by jmicron seems to be ok.
Did you try another cable, and perhaps another drive ?

You could also watch the log while inserting the card and later the drive.
One way to do this is opening a terminal and type: tail -f /var/log/system.log
The guy in question might be on vacation, or perhaps isn't notified of new messages ?
 
Actually I just ordered a new set of eSATA cables on the internet, I think they should arrive next week. Then I will see if it is the cable. I also ordered a HDD docking station so I can easily swap my hard drives. This will make analysis easier why it doesn't work now - hopefully!
Thx for the hint with the sys log though, could be very useful, I will try that!
 
So I got my new HDD Docking station and I connected it to the jMicron eSATA ExpressCard with my old eSATA cable: without success. So I changed the eSATA cable (the docking station came with one) and still, nothing!
So I tried it with my old SiliconImage eSATA ExpressCard and there the same: the menubar item says unknown card, but I think this could be due to the driver issues with the Sil3132 chipset and Leopard, right?
I concluded that the issues could be due to the ExpressCard slot itself, but then it shouldn't show any connected card in my opinion.
I am really curious why it doesn't work for me!
 
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