USB vs Esata

[Deptacon]

The problem I have with eSATA is that I cannot seem (in Win7 anyway) to plug a drive in and have it pop up in the my computer window. USB works that way and I can "eject" it and unplug it on the fly. I wish eSATA worked that way on Win7 and I've tried everything. It's either plugged in all the time, or I use USB instead.

I don't know what your playing with it.... But I have an external 5 bay enclosure....running eSATA.... with 3 2TB drives in it...I can un plug and plug and plug and play all day....WIN& sees it...then it doesnt....then it does...instantly....

 

[Deptacon]

I just wish I could plug a drive in to eSATA and have it show up and eject it when I'm done.

I must have a magical computer.... works fine for me. Plug and play all day. Running Win7

 

[owensdj]

USB can provide enough power for some external drives, but eSATA requires a power adapter.

 

[Voo]

USB can provide enough power for some external drives, but eSATA requires a power adapter.

What happened with Power Over eSATA?

 

[taltamir]

I must have a magical computer.... works fine for me. Plug and play all day. Running Win7

not magical, just up to date. Vista or newer windows + AHCI supporting mobo mean that it works just like that.

 

[DarkRogue]

eSATA's hotswap works fine for me as well; no issues whatsoever.

XP SP3 with AHCI drivers slipstreamed into the install disc, and everything is set to AHCI mode. My internal drives stay internal, and my 2 external drives show up properly in the safely remove dialogue and eject properly.

I'm not sure about power over eSATA, but USB does provide some power, although as far as I can remember, it only provided enough power for the 2.5" drives; the 3.5" drives wouldn't start off pure USB power.

 

[Niku]

Jeeze. I started a flurry. The hot swappability thing was some thing i never knew about. That will save me HOURS of frustration. The AHCI thing i mean. I see that option when i build computers, and i usually use that, or the plainest sounding sata settings (AKA, not raid) that i can find. What exactly does AHCI mean, and do?

 

[hclarkjr]

Jeeze. I started a flurry. The hot swappability thing was some thing i never knew about. That will save me HOURS of frustration. The AHCI thing i mean. I see that option when i build computers, and i usually use that, or the plainest sounding sata settings (AKA, not raid) that i can find. What exactly does AHCI mean, and do?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface

 

[fire400]

SATA HD on USB external enclosure, you will be limited to the USB connection of the computer, generally speaking.

 

[Blain]

Think of the USB connection between the HD and the PC as a pipe. You can only shove as much data throught as the size of the pipe will allow.

If you're going to connect to a USB 2.0 port, you won't need a fast HD.
If you are connecting to a USB 3.0, get a 7200rpm HD.

 

[tweakboy]

BIG DIFFERENCE.

I have a external LaCie black Neil Poulton design and it uses a samsung drive.

I use eSATA to make image of my drive using W7 , create system image.

It takes 35 minutes for 189GB.

Once I tried the system image using USB cable, it took 3 and half to about 4 hours

While eSATA takes 35 to 40min.

BIG DIFFERENCE!

 

[alaricljs]

Dude seriously? Necro-thread ftw.

 

[zokudu]

I can understand necros when your looking to ask a question and don't want to start a new thread but I find these necros where a solution is given mystifying

 

[corkyg]

I have eSATA externals on three machines, one of which is a laptop. The data transfer rate of the entire HDD (cloning) takes 5 times longer on USB. I do a 320GB drive via eSATA in 10 minutes.

And, . . . they are, . . . all hot pluggable. (They stay connected, but I turn the power on and off.) If your eSATA is not hot pluggable, you may have the eSATA external connected to a regular internal SATA port on your mobo. That will not result it eSATA.

 

[Blain]

Nobody is using USB 3.0?

 

[CurseTheSky]

USB 3.0 isn't widespread enough. For me, eSATAp is where it's at (power-over-eSATA). It's fairly scarce, though.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

I can understand necros when your looking to ask a question and don't want to start a new thread but I find these necros where a solution is given mystifying

LOL yeah, really the best part about necroed threads are they help to identity pepole who just add their opinions without really reading the thread.

Not only have most all the answers been covered, they were done so essentially a year ago.

At least now there's the greater relevance of USB 3.0 and its potential to offer greater performance than eSATA I, but we might as well start a new thread for that given that this is a necro and likely is no longer relavant to the OP, that is if the OP will even see these new responses.

 

[falk09]

eSATA (and to a point also USB 3.0) have much better duplex-speeds that USB 2.0.
Theis will improve speed and response when having a combination and read- and write-operations.

 

[falk09]

Nobody is using USB 3.0?

I use it, and like it a lot My Book 3.0 2TB (with WD Caviar Black) connected through a Asus U3S6 PCIe-4x-board. This a combined NEC USB 3.0- and Marvell SATA 6Gbps-board. Good bandwidth for USB 3.0 with this board - got over 200 MB/sec with a SSD to the USB 3.0. Some of the PCIe 1x-boards for USB 3.0 only gives about 120-130 MB/sec (thus, not a practical problem for standard harddrives).

I belive we will se less and less of eSATA and that USB 3.0 will take more and more over.

 

[falk09]

And, . . . they are, . . . all hot pluggable. (They stay connected, but I turn the power on and off.) If your eSATA is not hot pluggable, you may have the eSATA external connected to a regular internal SATA port on your mobo. That will not result it eSATA.

I guess you need AHCI enabled for the controller to have hot-plug-support.

 

[corkyg]

Maybe so with the mobo controller. Mine is not - it is on a separate PCI card, and AHCI is not used at all in my XP machine, but it hot plugs perfectly. The key is what shows in Device Manager/Policies. Performce and Write-Caching are greyed out. IOW, the drive is seen as external.