External SATA drives vs firewire

[Scott P]

Does anyone have any experience good or bad with external sata? It looks to be faster and I like the mechanical connection better, it seems more secure. Also fewer compatibility issues than firewire and I can run my FF800 off of the FW port.

Anyone?

Thanks! :D :D
Scott

[John Hernandez]

Does anyone have any experience good or bad with external sata? It looks to be faster and I like the mechanical connection better, it seems more secure. Also fewer compatibility issues than firewire and I can run my FF800 off of the FW port.

Anyone?

Thanks! :D :D
Scott
I was running ext sata from my Macbook Pro pretty successfully for several weeks until for whatever reason it pooped out on me. I thought it was the drive, but when I switched the same drive to usb, it worked fine. Could be my express card sata port is going bad...no time to troubleshoot.

When it worked, it felt robust, like an internal drive. I was quite pleased. (And I was running my FF800 off the FW port as well.)

Blessings,
John

[DBenkert]

I am guessing it is something I am not doing correctly, but I have tried 2 E-SATA drives (Seagate FreeAgent and WD MyBook) and both of them cause my machine to "feeze" for a few seconds about every 15 seconds or so.

When I use the MyBook with Firewire it is fine and USB on both is fine. It could be my motherboard (ASUS DH5 Deluxe), but I just updated the drivers and nothing changed.

Sorry I can't be any help.

[DominicPerry]

eSATA should be way faster than fw for hard drives butI'm afraid I can't recommend a good eSATA card. I think Perry uses eSATA, maybe he'll chime in.

Dominic

[Perry]

Chiming in! :)

I've done some recordings using External Sata and it essentially was the same as an internal drive performance-wise and very convenient. FWIW, I don't particularly like Firewire or USB except as a necessity at times. Firewire B (FW800) is fast but I prefer external SATA for hard drives.

Oddly.. after reading peoples problems here.. I have to say that one of my e-sata external drive enclosure died on me... or at least the power unit for it did. The drive though still works when I swap out the power supply with another e-sata enclosure.

I contribute this to start up wrinkles as these products came on line and personally feel that e-sata is a very good thing. I like that you get the same performance as an internal drive and I LOVE that you can also connect/disconnect without powering down the computer.

So, you get the advantages of an internal drive (performance) AND the advantages of Firewire or USB (hot swapping). What's not to like? :)

Just be sure to get a good enclosure. As far as a card I have no experience there.. using on-board e-sata here.

Perry

[Sean McCoy]

Firewire B (FW800) is fast but I prefer external SATA for hard drives.
Even SATA I is nearly twice as fast as FW800, and SATA II is nearly four times as fast. eSATA is definitely the thing now for external drives (at least until the next thing gets here!), and many new computers are shipping with built-in eSATA ports. I only wish I had a spare PCI slot in my current PC so I could dump my external USB & FW drives.

OWC is worth checking out for eSATA cards and drives. They're a Mac-leaning company, but most of their stuff is PC compatible, and they're very knowledgeable and helpful.

http://www.macsales.com/

[MMP]

I couldn't get esata working correctly with a Western Digital drive. I am wondering if most of these failures point to them?


Regards,

MM

[Perry]

I couldn't get esata working correctly with a Western Digital drive. I am wondering if most of these failures point to them?


Regards,

MM

I use Western Digital drives mostly... unless there's some specific model problem I'm not aware of then I don't think that's the issue... at least afaik. :)

For me hooking up e-sata was very straightforward and worked right away... I don't really understand the problems being reported but, I'm sure there must be a reason. For anyone using on-board e-sata be sure your mobo is configured right in the BIOS.

Best,

Perry

[Ed Snape]

Presently testing WD MyBook 1TB.
HD Write 24 tracks = 52 MByte /sec
HD Read 24 tracks 27 MByte/sec
These speeds are a little better than my two internal SATA drives. Should they be faster?

Seems that the eSATA will not connect without a reboot of the host computer. So much for hot swapping.

Ed

[Naturally Digital]

Seems that the eSATA will not connect without a reboot of the host computer. So much for hot swapping.Hmm... It's really starting to sound like there's some bugs to iron out on the E-Sata front. Not unlike picky FW chipsets perhaps.

I've been thinking of getting one of these enclosures (http://www.circotech.com/bp-esata232suesr-external-usb-2-0-esata-2-sata-ii-hard-drive-enclosure-with-raid.html). Does anyone have experience with them? Seems to cover all the interfaces and would make a great backup drive.

My problem with buying this stuff online is I can't stand cheaply built external HD enclosures. They look great in the photos and then you take them out of the box and they're flimsey pieces of junk.

I've looked at the OWC stuff a while back. (Mark recommended them also) Do their enclosures have a solid feel? They certainly look good.

[Scott P]

Thanks everyone.

I am hoping to use eSata with a laptop and then directly to eSATA on my desktop saving me transfer time. I have one laptop that's USB I, so it's extremely slow.

Right now I have a PNY card. I've just been using it for transfers, but it seems a lot faster than USB II. I was glad to get some confirmation of that.

My concern is with dependability. I've heard a number of horror stories about losing USB II and FW drives during recording and I'm hoping that eSATA doesn't have the same problem.

Scott :D

[Sean McCoy]

I've looked at the OWC stuff a while back. (Mark recommended them also) Do their enclosures have a solid feel? They certainly look good.
Extremely solid. I've never opened one up to look at the guts, but I can tell you that I've never had one go down or even act up. Their reputation is impeccable.

[DominicPerry]

These speeds are a little better than my two internal SATA drives. Should they be faster?


No, eSATA is external SATA so it should be the same as your internal SATA drives unless your eSATA disks are faster than your internal disks.

Dominic