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| Thread ID: 113804 | 2010-11-04 13:28:00 | eSATA or USB3 Hard Drive? | lostsoul62 (16011) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 1150348 | 2010-11-04 13:28:00 | eSATA or USB3 Hard Drive? I'm building a new computer so which is better for and external Hard Drive. The motherboard for a eSATA will cost me about $50 more so is it worth it? | lostsoul62 (16011) | ||
| 1150349 | 2010-11-04 18:32:00 | Do you want intel or AMD? last I heard intel are not going to support USB3 so if you want a USB3 connection then it will have to be an AMD board, not sure if that is still the case though eSATA does not have to translate data between the interface and the computer. This enhances data transfer speeds, while saving computer processor resources and eliminating the need for an extra off-load chip. I think is has a max transfer of 3gb/s I'd go for e-SATA if its an external HDD but if you'll be using with lots of other computers then maybe not such a good idea as it is not as compatible, not every PC has e-SATA. |
The Error Guy (14052) | ||
| 1150350 | 2010-11-04 19:59:00 | I'm finding eSata (SATA-II) about 15% faster for sustained transfer over USB3 (different enclosures, with the same Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB drive). HDTach has been giving me avg read/write speeds through ESATA of about 120/90 MB/Sec and through USB3 105/80 MB/Sec. I have another F3 1TB on the internal SATA-III interface that gets about 125/95 MB/Sec speeds. On a USB2 port, it seems that about 30MB/Sec read or write is the limit. Ouch. Not sure if that's an issue with the USB2 controller on this board, or the enclosure, or what, I would've expected USB2 to handle about 50MB/sec. So there's been very little practical difference for me, so far. I don't have any other USB3 enclosures to test how simultaneous use of USB3 drives affects performance, I know with USB2 depending on how many actual controllers the motherboard has it can make a tremendous difference. For reference, I'm using an Asus M4A87TD Evo board for this testing with Vantec NexStar3 enclosures, with Win7 x64 Home Premium, 4GB DDR3 and a Phenom II x4 955BE. |
inphinity (7274) | ||
| 1150351 | 2010-11-04 20:07:00 | I haven't had a chance to try usb 3 as yet but for me eSATA has been very dissappointing . Although transfer speeds are very nice neither of my pc's supports hot swapping on eSATA so to add or remove an external drive with this connection requires a reboot or shutdown, not ideal . Speaking to friends this seems like a common issue, although SATA was designed as a hot swappable interface few Motherboard BIOS's seem to have implemented this . my 2c |
dugimodo (138) | ||
| 1150352 | 2010-11-04 20:19:00 | USB3 all the way, hotswap is a deal breaker. And you can get USB3 cards for like $50 so intel not supporting it is a non issue. |
Deimos (5715) | ||
| 1150353 | 2010-11-04 20:39:00 | There are still Intel-based mobos with onboard USB3 tho | Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 1150354 | 2010-11-04 20:53:00 | There are still Intel mobos with onboard USB3 tho As far as I'm aware neither Intel nor AMD have native USB3 support in any of their current Southbridge chipsets. Most manufacturers are using an NEC USB3 controller at the moment, though it's more widely available in boards using AMD SB850 - they seem to work more happily together than with some of Intels current chipsets. |
inphinity (7274) | ||
| 1150355 | 2010-11-04 22:12:00 | I dont think people care whether its NEC or Intel. As long as it works | Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 1150356 | 2010-11-04 22:20:00 | I dont think people care whether its NEC or Intel. As long as it works Exactly. Much of my point was, that MOST of the boards out there atm - be they for Intel or AMD CPUs - are using the NEC controller, so it's kind of irrelevant saying Intel don't support USB3 yet. |
inphinity (7274) | ||
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