eSATA or USB 3.0 Dock..Which is Faster?

I'm looking to buy a dock or an enclosure to use my notebook's 7200 RPM Platter drive as external storage once my Samsung 830 arrives....given the choice...which should I go with...eSATA or USB 3.0 ?

 

esata is faster, however I dont think that the HDD would be limited by USB3

 

Esata is faster, by quite a bit, but also think about the computers you will be using, do they all have esata ports? You are not able to exchange/transfer files to the computers that don't have esata ports, USB3.0 is more much versatile, it will have no problem with almost any kind of modern computers as they all have usb ports, 3.0 or 2.0.

However if you only use the external as a storage for your laptop, then esata is the way to go.

 

What's the real world maximum transfer rate of USB 3 anyway?

 

Here is a real world performance comparison between usb2.0, usb3.0 and esata:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqlqCoQMLsQ

 

The lesson learned here, don't get Firewire.

Interesting how USB 3.0 keeps up with eSATA, but my R2 doesn't support USB 3.0 and it is hardly faster than eSATA and I already have an eSATA dual docking station.

 

of course usb 3.0 is best right now
I have enclosure and speed NOT going below 65MB/s

 

The e-sata on the Jmicron controller on my desktop is slightly slower than USB3, however i have not tested the e-sata i have hooked directly to one of the Intel SATA ports on my motherboard, i could always run a benchmark on it to see if it is faster or not.

Both the Jmicron e-sata and USB3 are very close together that only sequential reads are affected by the speed difference. You can't go wrong with either as your drive will most likely be the bottleneck in almost every scenario.

@GalaxySII, e-sata has more theoritical bandwidth IIRC and less overhead too so e-sata on fast controller should be faster than USB3.

 

The video is kind of inconclusive. For one, they're using two last-gen SATA 3.0 Gbps SSDs. That's nowhere near enough to guarantee that both eSATA and USB 3 are fully saturated, and the sequential transfer test shows that. At the very least, I was hoping for several SSDs in RAID 0, preferably connected to a high end PCIe RAID card.

What was shown is probably a good reflection of the situation today, but things may be different in a year or two, when every SSD can fully saturate SATA 6.0 Gbps. I expect eSATA's lead to grow, but the question of how much remains unanswered.

 

Esata = 6gbps, assuming its a 6gbps version and not 3gbps

USB3 = 5gbps.

But no HDD will reach either maximum, except for some really high end SSD's

 

Esata will be faster... but decworld you sure USB3.0 is 5gbps??? I thought I found it a 3 or 4 on a website

 

I have both usb 3.0 and esata for 2.5" and 3.5" enclosures.

My esata/usb port can power a 2.5" hard drive (can not recall rpm) enclosure using only one port, but the cable is very thick. Approximately, take 2 regular usb cables and move them together to get an idea how thick it is.

I also have a esata 3.5" hard drive underneath my bed (10 feet esata cable) I can switch it at ease.

If your computer has a esata/usb combo, I say go for esata. If not, go for usb 3.0

I feel that when I use esata, the speed FEELS consistent, while USB 3.0, the speed would vary for me.

 

Yes, I am sure.

USB 3 is "Super Speed", thats 5gbps officially.

see

USB 3.0 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

of course if you are getting very technical then the "SuperSpeed" bus provides a transfer mode at 5.0 Gbit/s additionally to the 3 existing transfer modes. The raw throughput is 4 Gbit/s, and the specification considers it reasonable to achieve 3.2 Gbit/s (0.4 GB/s or 400 MB/s) or more.

 

Thanks for all the responses....My primary drive is the SSD in my sig...and I'm replacing my secondary 7200RPM WD platter drive with a 256GB Samsung 830 when it arrives tomorrow...then I'll be using the 7200RPM platter for external storage...but I just want to get a dock or external enclosure with the fastest possible connection...my laptop has both eSATA and USB 3.0....looks like I'll be going with eSATA...but it seems to be a bit more difficult finding one with cool aesthetics and good reliability ratings....USB 3.0 ones are everywhere..

 

Is the port just esata or it doubles as a usb/esata?

I am looking at xoticpc homepage for your laptop and it looks like it is just an esata port

Remember, if it is only an esata port, you will need another usb port to power it.

 

Thanks...was simply not sure...

 

A 7200RPM drive won't even nearly saturate either, so the differences in transfer rate should not be affected by either protocol, despite slight overhead over USB. If you want a portable drive, IMO USB is always better since it can be powered by one cable and is a lot more flexible when using with multiple computers.

 

To add to this, USB 3.0 is backward compatible with USB 2.0 so it'll work on any computer made in the last 10 years. With eSATA you're out of luck if the computer doesn't specifically have an eSATA port.

 

Unless your laptop has a USB/eSATA combo port and you can get a USB/eSATA combo enclosure for cheap (they are expensive) then I wouldn't bother with eSATA since you'll have to connect both an eSATA and USB cable to power the enclosure which can be very inconvenient depending on how and where you use the enclosure.

Indeed eSATA is faster than USB 3.0 but not by much in comparison to 3rd party USB 3.0 chipsets found on pretty all current laptops with a USB 3.0 port(s) but once USB 3.0 becomes native (Intel/AMD chipsets) and get native OS support (Windows 8) then eSATA would be pretty much useless unless you've got a SSD or RAID enclosure.

USB 3.0 enclosures are backwards compatible with USB 2.0/1.1, requires only one cable to power and 3.0 enclosures can be found for cheap. It's totally up you depending on what/where the enclosure is used for, if you care about convenience and value for the dollar I'd go with USB 3.0.

 

Once again..thanks to everyone for setting me straight....back to USB 3.0 it is for me!! Now...that being said....can anyone recommend an external dock or enclosure that looks cool and has good reliability?

 

Haven't used this one personally, but my USB 2.0 Vantec enclosures have been working quite well: Newegg.com - VANTEC NST-280SU3-BK Aluminum 2.5" Black USB3.0 & eSATA NexStar 3 SuperSpeed Enclosure. Slightly expensive, but you get both with this one so no dilemma

Again, been using the USB 2.0 version of this one and no complaint so far after 4 months of use: Newegg.com - Mukii TIP-230U3-BK Aluminum 2.5" Black with Red Highlight USB 3.0 USB Powered External Enclosure.

The only usb 3.0 enclosures i've been using are for 3.5" drives.

 

For the life of the reviewer he could not get Firewire to work The guy probably didn't even know which chip set he was using.Fire Wire will kick USB 2.0 all over the floor as long as u use TI chip sets (not cheap Pacifica!) and it is very reliable. Anyway, thats a 15 year old interface.

Note that in my old FX with eSata, USB3.0 was faster than all my external esata interfaced drives. You have to test your eSata; so you may want to buy locally to get best real world speeds. Of course, YMMV depending on chip set / drivers.

The problem is some new laptops cheap out and only come with USB 2/3.0. No other High Speed ports included unless you include gigabit Ethernet.

This review makes more sense for causual users. I'm using the 1T where the base can be used as a 2.5" bare drive dock if needed.

AnandTech - The World's First 3TB HDD: Seagate GoFlex Desk 3TB Review

 

Since the guy couldn't get firewire to work, here's a benchmark from one of my externals. Even though it's already been decided, i included my CDM results for USB3.0 and e-sata. The tests were all done on the same HDD, but the usb 3.0 was in a different enclosure. The things a geek does when he has spare time

 

Personally I like this:

Newegg.ca - INEO I-NA214U-Plus Plastic 2.5" White USB 3.0 External Hard Drive Module with leather pouch (White)

Fast and easy hot swapping of hard drive and the adapter works with any SATA hard drive including desktop drives.

There's also a hard case version available but it looks very plain:

Newegg.ca - INEO I-NA216U Plus (Milky white) 2.5-Inch SATA USB 3.0/ USB 2.0 External Module with Protection Case

 

Check out Vantec's line. $20-40 for a USB 3.0 enclosure. Have two of them and it works great for me.

 

Firewire is even harder to find than e-SATA these days. We sell the 2nd gen 15R for 450 with an i3-2330M and even that has e-SATA. Unless you have a laptop with Firewire 800 (pretty much only Macbook Pros), Firewire shouldn't even be considered.

 

Firewire is still fairly common on desktop computers. Of course, it's probably Firewire 400 which is nearly useless nowadays since there'll be much faster USB 3.0 and eSATA ports right next to the Firewire port on pretty much any system.

On laptops, there's a better chance of finding a Thunderbolt port than a Firewire port.

 

Agree, FW 400 at least, has fairly disappeared over the cheaper USB 2.0 port.

It will be interesting to see what happens when Intel supports the USB 3.0

Just hope the next multi interface speed test, 15 years down the road, doesn't start with "for the life of me I could not get USB 3.0 to work!"

 

My slowest Sata drive, but not the oldest This is used on the Seagate Desktop USB 3.0 base but the same thing can be accomplished with the portable Seagates Go’s with the removable USB 3.0 adapter.

With several old laptop drives around, I hate spending money on cases. I do re-use my old WD USB 2.0 portable cases, for the road, before WD made the cheap integrated USB drives.

I like to keep these cheap old drives locked and loaded for emergency quick swap if any of my on the road drives bytes the dirt.

 

Wow, I didn't know you could just plug a bare drive into the GoFlex dock. I read that Seagate used really weird angles for the connectors and the enclosure in order to prevent that, but I guess they were more open-minded (and open standard) than I thought

 

I back up my data to both a USB 3.0 drive and an eSATA drive. I have hit the performance maximum of the drives' transfer speed on both ... there's no practical difference unless as noted you are using some crazy RAID 0 SSD array.

Something I like about USB 3.0 is that with 2.5" external drives, you just need one cord. Powered eSATA ports are not common, at all. So for most eSATA usage you need the SATA cable plus a power connection to the wall.

 

Therein lies a problem. I've got a Sharkoon esata dock attached to the Intel 3.0 Gbps sata port and with an ssd in it, it will not transfer faster than sata 1.5 Gbps speeds. I purchased a new Startech dual esata dock which supposedly supports esata-300 and yet again it would only transfer at 1.5 Gbps speeds, (141 MB/s r. + 134 MB/s w.).

Btw, if anyone has ever gotten faster speeds than that from esata, please do tell.

 

ummmm this is why you get a good external with both.......

@djmax...are you using an SSD or hardrive...thats probably the max speed of the ahrdrive

 

It's a 128GB Crucial M4. Crystaldiskmark shows 280/180 MBps r/w sequential on the Sata-II port.

p.s. I must have come across as pretty stupid for you to think I'd mistake a mechanical drive for an ssd.

 

well 140MBps is about what mechanical drives can do(my 1 TB hits 130-135MBps)...some can get close to 200MBps if they are the 3 TB drives.

thats why i asked...the number was in the ball park of mechanical drives but also SATAI....never know

 

What brand/model hdd are you talking about? Are those 3.5" drives? Those are some really good numbers for a mechanical drive.The fastest I've seen my 2.5" 7200rpm Hitachi 7K500-500 hit is about 70-80MB/s on eSATA.



As for backups go, I'm using eSATA simply because

1) my E425 has an eSATA/USB combo port (eSATAp) already &
2) my ExpressCard USB 3.0 adapter (Fresco Logic chipset) caused my computer to crash whenever I would connect my Ineo USB 3.0 enclosure (ASMedia chipset) to it. I tried different drivers but still the crashing happened. I'm starting to wonder if the enclosure is causing the problem and not the card, or vice versa. Switching my E425's ExpressCard mode in the BIOS from "Automatic" to "Generation 1" did not get rid of the crashing. USB 2.0 devices worked fine without any crashes.

I picked up an eSATA ExpressCard (JMicron chipset) and it works excellent. For me, eSATA is currently the best and fastest solution for backups and data transfers.

 

3Gbps eSATA will be faster than 2.5Gbps USB 3.0
5Gbps eSATA will be faster than 5Gbps USB 3.0
5Gbps USB 3.0 will be faster than 3Gbps eSATA

My 2560P's eSATA implementation uses the SATA-II port. <strike>This makes sense as it's quite a challenge to get SATA-III's 5Gbps signalling reliably over copper</strike> <-- they used the two SATA-III ports for the primary bay and upgrade/optical bay. Many USB 3.0 implementations on Sandy Bridge and older systems use a NEC controller running on a x1 1.0 (2.5Gbps) link rather than x1 2.0 (5Gbps), so it's slower than SATA-II.

We can generalize by saying eSATA if faster than USB 3.0 in current implementations. The Series-7 chipset used to host Ivy Bridge cpus gives us proper 5Gbps USB 3.0 without additional controllers so there we may say USB 3.0 will be faster than eSATA (SATA-II).

 

Has anyone talked about the virtual universal presence of USB yet? Its on almost every computer ever made. Not to mention it provide its own power. Taking these things into consideration and the winner seems clear.

 

you mean 6Gbps eSATA right?

yea i am referring to my hitachi 3.5 inch drive sorry. i saw the 3 TB 5400 rpm drives reaching i thought 160-180MBps so i am assuming the 7200rpm ones would be close to 200MBps. haven't bought one yet because of prices....i can't install all of my steam games because 1TB is too little lol

 

That will depend on what port# your eSATA port is on.

 

huh? doesnt the eSATA just connect to an internal SATA port?

 

Yes, but take for example the current Intel chipsets, they only support two SATA 6Gbps connections on port 0 and 1. If your eSATA is on port 2 to 5, then you'll still be at 3Gbps.

 

USB 3.0 = 5Gbps, works for wide range of devices, backwards compatible with USB2, provides enough power for 2.5" drives.
eSATA = 6Gbps (or 3Gbps as per discussion), specific to storage devices only, does not provide power.

Realistically the speed bump that eSATA might have over USB3 isn't going to impact real world usage. High end SSDs with 400MB/s and higher read speeds might be slightly bottlenecked but really...you have 400MB/s which is crazy fast anyway.

If you are buying new, definitely go USB3. I doubt eSATA is going to be around for long once USB3 is found in every laptop out there.

 

U mean thunderbolt....so much better then everything above anyways like I said get an external that has both....it'll cost more but give u every port possible

 

Thunderbolt has a lot going for it, but USB has more market penetration and that counts for a lot. Not to mention TB doesn't have that "killer app" so to speak. At least not yet.

 

i just like it for the bandwidth and nearly anything can connect to it....it honestly has the potentional to get ride of all cables and leave us with only 1 universial port/cable...or at least thats what i remember reading....so tired of 10 different cables and ports

 

Thunderbolt/Lightpeak has as lot of potential, but if it can't penetrate the market well enough, it's doomed. Not saying TB will fail, but only that the tech aspect itself won't be enough for TB to really take off. We need affordable and attractive devices as well. Personally, i think TB is here to stay, but it's still too soon to be sure.

USB3.0 is already pretty universal aside from the display interfaces.

 

It won't fail, but it will never have the popularity of USB its jut to well ingrained in the computer culture.

Thunderbolt is not a competitor to USB it will--eventually--work in tandem with it.

 

still rather see all ports vanish so we just use TB...i have like 15 different cables over the last decade stored for use...optical, usb (like 10 different kinds of usb...grrrr!!!), firewire, several kinds of HDMI, vga, display port, DVI (again multiply kinds), eSATA, SATA, IDE (a bit of a stretch to include this but you get the picture), audio cables, and am i missing anything? Between usb/dvi/hdmi they can amount to like 20 different cables along....

 

All the USB 3.0 docks I've seen so far seem to have SATA-II controllers, so they will never be faster that eSATA-300. I'll be interested to see the performance of a USB 3.0 SATA-III dock on native USB 3.0, but I guess it could be a while yet.