PCMCIA to eSATA Card - Worth it?

More specifically... this one.

As most of the time I'm plugged in anyway, I was thinking of getting this. If it outperforms my USB connection I'd seriously consider this for the price...but I wanted to see if someone actually has this and could provide some HD Tune benchmarks as well as their personal thoughts.

 

I dont have any experience with one of those, but at its peak, PCMCIA throughput speeds peak at around 130 Mb/s, and eSATA speeds are around 2400 Mb/s.

And USB 2.0 throughput is 480 Mb/s at its peak, so using PCMCIA for any device is restrict the speed at 130Mb/s. So USB 2.0 would be faster than using the adapter.

I'm pretty sure what I said is right, but am I missing something? Is what i said wrong?

 

I would say though that while USB has a max output of 480 mb/s, it never comes even remotely close to managing this, while I suspect the connection through the PCMCIA is less variable and would have a higher sustained trasnfer rate based on the type of hardware in use.

But also, can't you use a PCMCIA firewire adapter card and attain full firewire transfer rates?

 

PCMCIA in most laptops support 32bit cardbus which has a theorectical max of ~1Gbits/s.

USB2 in theory is ok 480Mbits/s (60MBytes/s) but in reality the speeds can't be reached and the best throughput I have seen is around 35MBytes/s.

http://www.pcmcia.org/pccard.htm#rhis

I wish they start implementing firewire800 (i know mbp) or eSATA into notebooks because USB2/firewire400 doesn't provide enough bandwidth for high performance peripheries such as harddrives without bottlenecking its performance.

 

Well, that part is incorrect; USB 2.0 is 480 Mbit/s - that's megabits per second, not megabytes. 480Mbit/s is 60MB/s.

@night: Do you really need this device? If you are transferring large amounts of data back and forth between your notebook and the hard drive on a daily basis, then yes, it may be worth the $27. Otherwise, I'd say skip it. It's another device you have to worry about and another $27 you could stash.

It will outperform your USB 2.0 connection for the record. If your notebook has a Firewire port you may consider connecting through that. IEEE 1394 mini-Firewire ports are limited to 400Mbit/s, but its data transfer rates are much more stable than that of USB. Remember that USBN 2.0's 480Mbit/s rate is a peak speed and isn't what you will be getting most of the time. Burst maybe, but not constant. Other devices also need USB bandwidth, and notebooks only have one USB controller as far as I know. Mouse, keyboard, etc. also need bandwidth.

 

I've got that Vantec USB & eSATA hard drive enclosure for backups...most of the time I'm backing up either my 10GB of documents or 50-80GB of programs and Window's installs. That takes time as my backups take quite a lot of time to do (Acronis Differential Backups), and I'm basically wondering how much time I can save by going with a faster connection. No FW is possible...my laptop has the port but the enclosure does not.

The backups basically scan both my local drive and the archive, find the differences, and then transfer/backup the changes.

I just wonder if the time saved with backups is worth the $27...if it breaks I can always go back to USB.

 

Alternatively, you could do the backups when you don't need your computer; overnight. You would save time with the PCMCIA card for sure, but why spend money if you don't have to.

 

Very true...hmmm, all nighters for the PC...yum.

For some reason, I'm only getting about 8MB/sec on all my external drives. I used to be able to pull about 15MB/sec so I need to go back and see what's wrong now...

 

Bottom line - this device with an eSATA enclosure will give the same speeds as an internal drive. It will be considerably faster than USB 2.0.

For $27, you'll never look back.

 

Here is a review on a similar card at THG http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/11/17/addonics_cardbus_adapter/
eSATA should be faster then USB but the PCMCIA cards are pretty crapy. I suspect that there are better and worse chips for this same as USB. Some are fast and some suck. Also it depends on the harddisk chip too and how well it communicates with the PCMCIA side.

 

I'd agree with what Chaz says about the necessity of it, but it is a cool geek item to own. In fact, I am thinking about getting one now.

(Of course, I'd need to get an eSATA enclosure for my external hard drive(s) )

 

Well, I've got the enclosure, the drive, and a current USB hook up that works at about 8MB/sec...ouch. Try backing up 50GB of data on that...one pass for a comparison and another for the actual backup.

 

That doesn't sound right. You should easily get twice that with a 4200 rpm drive and an old enclosure. I get around 20 mb/sec with my 4200 drive, and about 30 mb/sec with a 7200 external and USB. Sounds like the drive is functioning in a lower transfer mode than it ought to, or the USB is not functioning right.

 

I used to pull 15MB/sec on all my drives...something changed and I'm not going to get a chance to look at this until Spring Break. I think I have too many USB things...

 

Silly me, I should read more carefully Thanks Chaz.

Night, maybe power supply to the USB devices and the hub would increase the speed?

 

Oh...I did disconnect the PSU to two of my hubs...I'll try it!

 

You got to love the way that companies push the advertisement of USB with 480 Mbits/s instead of saying 60 mb/s just to make it sound much faster.

 

I considered awhile back, I believe Rogue Monk uses this setup, it's really fast and will basically afford you another internal HDD (or two) via the ExpressCard slot.

 

Well, in my case PCMCIA...but yes I'm still thinking about it.

First, I'm trying to solve why my USB drives are running too slowly. Is it possible to hook up so many USB devices that the computer itself becomes the bottleneck? BTW, I'm run tests in both XP and Vista and I'm getting similar speeds.

 

They are probably not running too slow. There are so many variables that contribute to USB throughput speeds. Much is dependent on the particular USB chipset in both your computer and your external drive. Also, USB can slow down on larger files.

Your speeds seem consistent with what I have seen for large file transfers. Don't worry about it.

 

Greg - Looking further into the eSATA port deal, you can also get USB -> eSATA hubs. Once again, it's using up your USB port, and I don't know how much of a speed increase you are going to get.

Yeah, I'd guess so. Remember Chaz was saying all USB devices need bandwidth? Well, you can string up to what...128 devices...on a single port, I believe, if you own enough USB hubs. It's gonna be super slow.

 

won't that defy the point of using eSATA? USB only runs at 60 MB/s. You may as well just use USB instead of buying a USB -> eSATA hub.

 

I *THINK* the bottleneck is the IDE->USB chipset within the external HDD itself and not the hubs. eSATA out is the way to go think, even if it does eventually translate to USB.

 

I totally agree.

Hmm..that's interesting...so what you are saying then is that it's important at the external hard drive end of things to have an eSATA out...quite possibly...

 

I've got this card and a Seagate eSATA 500GB drive. I'll run HD Tune and post the data.

 

Well, I've got an HDTV Tuner here that runs at 19.2Mbps when I view 1080i HD broadcasts...if I can ever find them. I've got memory sticks that run at a decent speed as well. But the hard drive...nope. I'll get 7-10Mbps, but I know my hubs can do better as I do have that HDTV tuner and an external DVD+/-RW that's actually faster than my internal drive (at least it feels like it).

It can't hurt to try...and I've been wanting to migrate to eSATA anyway. If I can get the Advanced Docking Station for my notebook, I'd have a desktop-bound ExpressCard slot (which since my drives are only desktop bound anyway...). Or I could get the PCMCIA card, but have to plug my laptop into my dock, and then the PCMCIA card into my laptop. We'll see...

 

O.K. Here it is.

HD Tune: ST3500641AS Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 29.1 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 57.8 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 47.5 MB/sec
Access Time : 27.4 ms
Burst Rate : 55.9 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 12.0%

That's on AC power with everything running. That drive is also FAT32.

 

Is that an external drive? Those transfer rates look like an internal drive.

 

@night_2004, obsolete -

It looks like you are still crippled by the 60MB/sec that Chaz was talking about. Even though that was for USB 2.0, I think even eSATA isn't going to get much more improvement. Unless you can have a more direct way to access the drive, it's going to max out at around 60MB/sec. That CPU utilisation looks kind of big, though. I've seen Firewire and USB tests where you get 2-5% or less.

 

Well, even "crippled" at 60MB/sec...I'm getting 10MB/sec right now. Improvement is welcome!

 

Yes it's an external HD. Here for comparison is the G1s internal HD.

HD Tune: Hitachi HTS541616J9S Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 1.1 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 47.2 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 34.2 MB/sec
Access Time : 17.8 ms
Burst Rate : 86.1 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 11.9%

This is a Hitachi 5400rpm 160GB internal. No significant difference with the CPU utilization.

 

Okay...you need to tell me exactly what laptop (I see that in your sig), how many USB devices you own, how you've hooked them together...everything.

Also, what enclosure do you have? Now my paltry 8-10MB/sec is starting to tick me off.

 

Yeah, seriously. I'm getting excited enough to get this eSATA card now...

 

If you're talking to me it's the Asus G1. I've got nothing hooked up to it except the external eSATA drive listed in my second post. I'm not using USB. I got the Seagate eSATA for the speed and because it was originally for my desktop. But the desktop was obsolete so I sent it to my cousin and got the G1 lappy.

 

Ah...that's eSATA. K...

BTW, to those of you who are wondering...I hooked the drive up without any other USB stuffs...I'm now getting 17.5MB/sec average transfers...what the heck...

 

I became curious. Very curious. I have done some benchmarks on my own, just to see how my firewire 4200RPM hard drive stacks up against my internal 4200RPM hard drive.

Firewire

Code:

/dev/sdb:
 Timing buffered disk reads:   62 MB in  3.05 seconds =  20.33 MB/sec
root@gautam-laptop:~# hdparm -t /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 Timing buffered disk reads:   68 MB in  3.07 seconds =  22.16 MB/sec
root@gautam-laptop:~# hdparm -t /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 Timing buffered disk reads:   64 MB in  3.02 seconds =  21.20 MB/sec
root@gautam-laptop:~# hdparm -t /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 Timing buffered disk reads:   64 MB in  3.03 seconds =  21.14 MB/sec
root@gautam-laptop:~# hdparm -t /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 Timing buffered disk reads:   68 MB in  3.03 seconds =  22.47 MB/sec
root@gautam-laptop:~# hdparm -t /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 Timing buffered disk reads:   64 MB in  3.03 seconds =  21.09 MB/sec
root@gautam-laptop:~# hdparm -t /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 Timing buffered disk reads:   64 MB in  3.08 seconds =  20.79 MB/sec

&

Internal

Code:

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:   92 MB in  3.06 seconds =  30.08 MB/sec
root@gautam-laptop:~# hdparm -t /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:   96 MB in  3.01 seconds =  31.92 MB/sec
root@gautam-laptop:~# hdparm -t /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:   98 MB in  3.00 seconds =  32.64 MB/sec
root@gautam-laptop:~# hdparm -t /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:   98 MB in  3.03 seconds =  32.33 MB/sec
root@gautam-laptop:~# hdparm -t /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:   94 MB in  3.05 seconds =  30.78 MB/sec
root@gautam-laptop:~# hdparm -t /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:   82 MB in  3.02 seconds =  27.11 MB/sec

As you can see, the external and internal drives only differ a bit...although it probably stacks up . Obviously, even against Firewire400, the eSATA is superior.

 

I'm back to 8MB/sec after I plugged in all my stuff again. I think I need to check and see what's going on here...

Well, on the bright side my access times are still low...one external is pulling a 13.1ms access time. I've never seen a laptop drive beat that!

 

i'm about to order this PCMCIA card. I ordered an ExpressCard one the other day thinking that my notebook accepted it, but no. was angry.

anyway, i normally hook my external enclosure'd drive by USB (slow). I used eSATA on my desktop and it was running 68.5 MB/s. So anyway, if this Vantec card gives off 47.5, I'll be satisfied for now.

(The ExpressCard was SATA 3.0 Gb/s, this Vantec is regular PCMCIA and SATA 1.5Gb/s)

 

17.6MB average is not that slow... If you are transferring 1000's of small files then the transfer rate will substantially decrease, as a lot of time is wasted seeking for files. Transferring large single files obtains the highest sustained transfers rate.

Also not all enclosures are the same even if the interface is. I bought a cheap USB2 enclosure from eBay a long time ago and its kept in the bottom draw because it sucks bad transferring only about 10MB/s. The PCMCIA -> eSATA card may help but then again if the chipset is poor then transfer may not improve. The best thing to do for people interested in future external hard drives and enclosure is to look for reviews and praises for such devices before purchase.

I plan to get an external Western Digital MyBook which has great performance especially over firewire800 and eSATA.

 

What I meant by what the heck was that by themselves, the drives were fast (17-25MB/sec). When all my stuff is plugged in I'm lucky to pull 10MB/sec.

My external hard drive that contains my old notebook hard drive is pulling 25-30MB/sec when plugged in by itself. I get 7.5 when all my other things are plugged in. I'm still trying to ID the problem.

 

It sounds like a bandwidth issue. If you plug in all your devices, each of them needs a slice of the bandwidth so the hard drives share gets cut.

 

What gets me is that it shouldn't be equally allocated. C'mon...how much bandwidth does a wireless mouse take? Most of my stuff is either low bandwidth that is always used (keyboard, mouse, printer) and the rest is high bandwidth but not used as much (usb DVD+/-RW, scanner, HDTV tuner, HDDs).

I would think that the computer could allocate things as bw is demanded...but that seems to not be the case... Even my USB hubs advertise to allow for full bandwidth delivered on demand...

 

I never did get around to this...crap. If I do, would NBR want a small review article?