Anyone here tested eSATA? Is it slow?

[M A V I C]

I've got a fairly decent eSATA enclosure and I was just looking to see if it was good enough to work off of. For some reason, the max transfer rate seems to be about 34MB/s. When I run a test using the internal drive (which is identical) I get 50MB/s.

[OWC Larry]

Performance will be affected by the controller card... that being said - today's SATA drives are doing 100MB/s and higher - 34 and even 50mB/s pretty low. is it the same controller card with an internal port with 50MB/s?

Also - if it's an eSATA + USB2 enclosure... WILD variations in performance there as dependent on the chipset. We use the higher end Jmicron sets for our own such solutions as they offer a substantial benefit over Sunplus and other less costly options.

If it is an eSATA straight through enclosure, you should get the identical performance from the drive in that enclosure or connected direct internal.

[M A V I C]

Thanks Larry. Yeah, I'm using two Seagate 7200.10 320GB drives. One is connected internally. The external drive I've connected to an eSATA bracket which goes straight to a SATA header.

It is an eSATA+USB2 enclosure http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=NzA0MjIx

I'd go for one of these and replace my ATA version of the enclosure http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/enclosure..._RAID_Quad but I like how quiet the Antec is. Of course, if the Antec is going to be slow...

[C(-)ris]

You need to find an enclosure that is just an eSata port with power to get the best speed.

[M A V I C]

Yeah, just finding a quiet one seems like a trick. I was all excited when I got this one because it's so quiet. Haven't used eSATA on it until now.

[jdc]

eSATA can be 2X as fast as FW800 no problem

is your antec case a single bay case? (your link doesnt work)

comparing a dual bay case (which all have fans) to a single bay case isnt a true comparison

you want something like this: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20W...FW924AL1K/

heres a test with OWCs 4 bay case, using USB 2, FW800 and eSATA

http://barefeats.com/hard126.html

[M A V I C]

I'm not comparing the throughput of the enclosures. I'm comparing the esata connection on the antec enclosure to the identical drive directly connected to the mobo.

When you click on the link I posted, choose US and you will then be redirected to the right page.

Right now I just have a single bay antec case and an OWC ATA dual bay enclosure. But I've been thinking about replacing the OWC enclosure to a SATA version and would likely solve the other issue here as well.

[M A V I C]

And I just confirmed that the Antec enclosure does use a a Sunplus chip.

[jdc]

the OWC case i linked will be even quieter since it doenst even have a fan...

if speed is really your goal: realize that a dual bay enclosure that uses 1 eSATA port is using a "port multiplier" and can be slower than a single drive

[M A V I C]

jdc wrote:
the OWC case i linked will be even quieter since it doenst even have a fan...

if speed is really your goal: realize that a dual bay enclosure that uses 1 eSATA port is using a "port multiplier" and can be slower than a single drive

When I use the enclosure in the office, I'll pretty much just be using one drive. So if it's dual bay, I understand the speed gets divided between the drives but that wont be much of an issue.

On the road, it's a different story. I batch a lot of images so I put them on one drive, the write to the other. Right now I use a FW800 enclosure for that. It's much faster to have one drive reading and one writing, even if they're in the same enclosure.

The antec enclosure is a composite material and the drive sits on a silicone bed. So even compared to an aluminum enclosure with no fan, it's still quieter.