eSata vs USB 2

My new notebook has an eSata port. I've done some reading that says that eSata might be on the order of 3 times faster than USB 2 but I don't know how accurate that is.

Anyone have any real world experience? My usage would be an external harddrive for backup.

And I assume USB 3 is going to blow esata out of the water?

 

Basically, when external hard drives are concerned, USB 2.0 bottlenecks the file transfer. eSATA is the external version of the same interface between your laptop's internal hard drive and the motherboard, and therefore the hard drive's own speed will be the bottleneck, not the interface. So yes, eSATA can be several times faster than USB 2.0 in file transfers.

USB 3.0 will be comparable to eSATA for data transfer, I believe. Both of these interfaces will make the hard drive the bottleneck, not the interface.

 

Thanks for the help! Interesting, there aren't a whole lot of external esata drives, I guess they just expect you to buy an enclosure and then buy a bare drive.

 

As MidnightSun said, though USB 3.0 is specced higher on paper, real world performance will be similar to esata. Adoption of usb 3.0 will however likely surpass esata by a huge margin.

 

As stated, eSATA and USB 3 are comparable for the most part (some results show eSATA has a slight advantage in some cases). However the war is only begun, not over. One review indicates eSATA is poised to bring even greater transfer rates with it's introduction of esata 6.0, so stay tuned.

Incidentally, I thinks USB will still be the leader since it is by far the more widley used and recognized port available. And yes, USB 3.0 is backward compatable.

 

e-SATA is way faster than USB... in fact , its found to work better on an external drive compared to USB3.0... the only limitation u'll have is whether u have a HDD or SSD...

 

What a coincidence...

I just checked out e-sata today on my G73 to see how it could be used for testing hard drives. E-Sata is tons faster than a USB but caps as it is only SATA compliant and not SATA II.

My Intel SSD top read score on e-sata is only 140MB/s whereas it is 260MB/s through the computers SATA II connection when the drive is installed.

 

USB 3 in some case is faster than eSATA, most times they are similar tho.

when ever I get a new SSD I'll test my USB3 connection I'll bet I'll get near the full read/write speed.

 

Ya...this is my dilemma as I was hoping to create an external way to work with test ssds without building a new desktop...

oh well.....

 

will there be any adapter that can convert esata to USB 3??

 

Unfortunately no because Esata is still based n SATA vice SATA II which meand there is a bottleneck in performance thoroughput.

 

wait.. u have a Asus G73 with e-SATA? It doesn't come with that.. is it me or u are talking about other laptop?

 

Why would you want/need that? Anyway, there will be adapters to upgrade to USB 3.0. Just don't get suckered into buying the expensive ones.

 

esata and usb 3.0 will perform equally on a standard HDD the bandwidth on both of those interfaces exceeds the HDD's capabilities. USB 3.0 will perform better with fast external ssd's or any extremely fast flash media. Other then fast flash media im not sure usb 3.0 will be better for much else as long as you got an esata port for ur HD

 

What about compatibility? The ubiquity and universal appeal of USB far exceeds any other port by a wide margin.

Granted, superspeed is new, but after all these years, almost everyone is accustom to USB (including manufacturers) and trust it. Both should have no problem incorporating the more advanced version it into their system.

 

doesn't eSATA require a USB port as well since it doesn't provide power through the port?

 

They do. Unless you're one of the fortunate few who have a laptop with a power port. Otherwise, it's one for data, one for power.

Anyway, my external enclosures came with the two-headed snake cable so it's no big deal for me. Unless you really need that port?

 

I'm one of those fortunate few Actually, quite a few new machines have those ports if they have eSATA at all (released this year or late last year, basically).

Just as a data point, I have benchmarked the same drive in my eSATA/USB configuration and USB2 only, and I get about 20-30MB/s transfer with USB2, and 70-90MB/s with eSATA. eSATA is the way to go. USB3 will only be nice once you start having stuff like high-def video cameras that use USB3. Almost all other USB devices aren't limited by the speed of the bus, only bulk-data devices are.

 

would the USB/eSATA combo ports be the powered ports? If it is, darn. My N61JQ has a dedicated eSATA but at least there's a USB2.0 port right next to it.

then again, I have a USB 3.0 so I have choices.

 

My bad...its a G72GX....only been out of the box once since Xmas.

I pulled 140MB/s read off my Intel X25 on an external dock with e-sata plugged into the G72.