expresscard esata + ext HD box + two 3.5" HD's

I wanna run my AC powered ext HD box with two 3.5" HD's. I'm currently running under USB2.0 but hate the speeds. I installed a expresscard USB3.0 but one of the HD's kept dropping off under load. The expresscard USB3.0 was powered via USB2.0. I was thinking of installing a expresscard esata to see if that works.

Any thoughts

 

Since it's AC powered, the reason why the HD drops out may be because the USB3.0 controller is overheating/overloaded. I haven't tried USB3.0 expresscard adapters, but I've had bad experience with a cheap eSata adapter - it got hot and sometimes won't work at all. I don't know which ones are good, maybe the $45 Startech adapters are (I read they use better controllers)...

 

Oddly enough I bought the Startech expresscard USB3.0 adapter. Had the HD box powered externally and additional power going to the adapter. I installed only one HD and that worked fine. It was when I added the additional HD when the probs started. I also tried running one HD with the built-in esata port. No probs there. When I added the other HD, the HD's didn't initialize because the built-in esata port cant do port multiply. Thats why I'm thinking about installing the expresscard esata adapter. I assume it does port multi?

 

Sadly I don't think any external card does sata port multiplying - it's a pretty obscure feature found in ICH9 as far as I know (and only works on port 1). Don't know why Intel never bothered to implement it better.

What box do you have? Could it be an issue with the integrated controller (I know Silicon Image chips fail quite often with one drive working but two or RAID failing)...

 

Well since there are no expresscards that support sata port multi that solves that. The controller is JMicron. I'll just wait til my laptop dies and get one that has USB3.0 and sata port multi.

 

I apologize - I've researched this a bit and it seems that aside from Intel's ICH9/ICH10 integrated controller, there are third party JMicron and Silicon Image SATA controllers that support port multiplier and there are Expresscard adapters using them (which makes sense since they're basically PCIe X1 cards). However, you need to choose one that is compatible with your box (or vice versa), as there are two technologies for port multiplication, CBS and FIS (I'm unclear on the details, though).

Here's some Expresscard products that claim support for esata port multiplication:

Sonnet - Tempo SATA ExpressCard/34: 2-Port Serial ATA Host Controller

Addonics Product: 2-Port eSATA Express Card 34

Vantec – Vantec eSATA Express Card - UGT-ST450CB - 2-Port eSATA II ExpressCard/34

 

This is great news. Thx for researching this for me. I'm gonna go to Mediasonics forum and see who has bought this box in conjunction with an expresscard 54. The box is the Mediasonic HF2-SU3S2 ProBox 4 Bay Hard Drive Enclosure with USB 3.0 & eSATA. Not the most expensive box out there, but I'm hoping that I can get this working with an expresscard.

I know that the USB2.0, USB3.0 ports worked because I've run them with one drive in the box. It's when the second HD is added to the box was when the problems started. That was through the StarTech.com 2-Port Flush Mount ExpressCard 54mm SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Card Adapter (ECUSB3S254F). The laptops eSata/USB2.0 port worked also. Could not add the additional HD to the box because of the port-multiply issue.

I swapped positions with the HD's in the box but that didn't solve the issue either.

Btw, my expresscard slot is 54mm

 

I don't know why USB 3.0 is acting that way... it could be because the internal bus doesn't have enough bandwidth for two devices - if you're using the HDX x18t in your signature, then you've got PCI-E 1.1, meaning a maximum of 2.5Gbit/s on the Expresscard PCIe bus, while just one USB 3.0 port is supposed to reach 5 Gbit/s.
But that's just speculation - I'm also assuming the hard drives are getting all the power they need from external source, not the computer's USB port (in which case you should hear it trip/turn off when it's dropping from the system, because of low power).

I also briefly tried to use the port multiplier feature (with a Patriot Convoy XL), but gave up since my esata port is port 5 or 6, while multiplier works only on port 1 (which in my case is the main internal sata connector) on Intel ICH9 controller.

 

Yeah, I believe that the problem sits in the bandwidth issue. Even StarTech has stated that the card only supports 1 high-power device.

That's with the USB3 version.