Will any eSATA ExpressCard/34 card work?

best buy has one on clearance for 15 bucks

 

From my experience it's hard to say. I have gotten some card readers and PCI cards that say "works with XP/VISTA" that haven't worked with Mac OS X. But then again, they might not have worked at all.

 

linky?

 

it's only an in-store deal. Call before you drive!

 

I have this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16839229001

Works on my MBP.

 

FYI: I was going to go the eSATA route with an external drive (myBook Studio). Then I found out that you can't connect/disconnect the drive while the MBP is powered on. You'd have to power down the laptop to connect or disconnect (not sleep). Since I want to be able to grab and go, I am trying out the FW800 approach first (great since the cables were included with the drive). If I see the need for extra speed (incremental at this point) I can always go the eSATA route. So far, FW800 is doing it for me.

 

what? you can disconnect/eject/reconnect the external esata drive just like any other. Ejecting the controller card, however, is different. You have to "power down" the card before removing it or you risk getting a kernel panic. But for the drives, the card is "hot-swappable".

also due to its drivers, you have a chance of kernel panics when you insert the card with the computer on.

 

In the hundreds of times I've plugged and unplugged the card and cables while the computer is on, I've never had any issues.

 

Sorry guys, was just going by what I'd read. I should have known better. . .

This is good info and another reason to switch to eSATA over FW.

Thanks.

 

YMMV. I suppose it really depends on what card / drivers you are using!

 

Well I'm using the first driver listed:
http://www.siliconimage.com/support/supportsearchresults.aspx?pid=32&cid=3&ctid=2&osid=3&
"* SiI 3132 32-bit universal Mac OS X 10.4.9, 10.4.10, & 10.5.1 BASE Driver"

 

I'm using that driver as well on a PC esata card.

I have two drives, one in a fairly cheap/cheerful USB/esata enclosure which works fine, and a myBook Studio. I find the myBook Studio tends to hang after a while (half an hour or so of inactivity) and so I've gone back to using that one over Firewire for now.

 

Do you mean when it goes to sleep? I believe that is power saving feature and plus it extends the life of the drive. I like the feature...