Esata via Expresscard

Hi folks,

I just bought a relatively inexpensive esata expresscard for use with my Dell Inspy 1520.

Here's a link:
DealExtreme: $17.99 E-SATA + USB 2.0 ExpressCard Laptop Extension Card

I was a bit cash strapped and hence didn't go for something more expensive. I'm running a 7200 rpm SATA II hdd in an esata enclosure.

Now according to benchmarks, the interface appears to be the dog's bollocks! Awesome speeds. However, this does not translate to any perceivable real world advantage. I tried copying files from my internal 5400rpm HDD to the external port, and I get a transfer rate of approx 30MBps. Is the esata card a total POS? If so, how come the benchmark showed a higher throughput? Also, is my 5400rpm internal crappy drive the actual bottleneck?

Here's a screenie of the benchmark:



Edit: System specs:

Dell Inspiron 1520
T7300 Core 2 Duo
2GB RAM
160GB 5400rpm HDD
8600m gt
Running Windows 7 Ultimate x86

 

How many and what kind of files are you transferring and how are you measuring the transfer speeds?

 

It could be your internal drive. Try benchmarking it (the internal 5400 RPM), and if the maximum transfer rate for your internal drive tops out at 30 MBps, you have your answer.

 

I was transferring around 5-6 files of sizes ranging between 700-1.4GB. I was monitoring the transfer speed by clicking "More Details" on the file copy dialog on Windows 7.

Internal Benchmarked:

 

Well, that benchmark of your Toshiba (the internal drive, I assume) would seem to be your answer. Your file transfer was limited by the fact that it could only pull data off your internal drive at about that rate.

 

Well, there's your problem...

 

Wow, so this piece of crap is slower than my external HDD-setup. Hats off to Dell I guess.

Is this abysmal performance normal for a notebook HDD? Also, I'm running the system pagefile off the external because of the faster access/write speeds.

When I transfer/copy items within the external HDD,the speed starts off at ~70ishMBps and then quickly drops to below 20MBps (used a single 5.6GB file; copied it and pasted it within the same folder). What gives?

My apologies for so many questions, but I am really curious about what's going on.

Thanks guys.

 

Your speeds don't look far off from other benches I can find for this drive:



I'd say the performance is normal for this drive; it's just old.

The short burst of fast transfer is the drive's cache doing it's job.

 

Nothing gives. Looks completely normal to me given the drive's bench speeds. You do realize that the disk has to both read and write at the same time to copy a file within itself, right?

 

ur hard drive is limiting u... u might want to upgrade it as it's quite cheap to do so nowadays.

 

I was also surpised at my first attempts of using an express esata card to make backups... it initially had a "slow" 40MBps transfer rate and it went slower as it continued backing up data closer to the center of the spindle of the target drive. It was because the external drive was a slow and low density drive. I then tested with a WD Caviar Black 2GB external (with an hitachi 500GB 7200rpm internal) and the transfer rate skyrocketed. Upgrade the drives, but 30MBps is still way better than just using a USB2.0 connection

 

Thanks a lot people. From what I gather, as both of them are ancient drives, the transfer rates are not what I expected.

Looks like an upgrade is in order. However, I'm guessing that I'd have to upgrade BOTH drives for any perceivable difference. Is that right?