Hi everyone, I'm currently looking into external Harddisks and I can't find a decent review of USB 3 vs eSata that isn't at least one year old. Does anyone know of any current comparison or can anyone just tell me which one is "better" for day to day work? I know USB 3 is theoretically faster but what about real world experience? Cheers, Fred
Seriously, I tried looking for an esata external, and it was just so much easier to find one that was USB 3. Unless of course you buy a dock, in which case those are fairly cheap at the cost of carrying a bare drive and dock around.
USB 3 is a much neater interface and I'd imagine much more future-proof seeing as it's only just really starting to be adopted. eSATA never really took off did it? Perfect world is a USB 3 portable SSD, so you get a single wire, compact and speedy solution. Still stupidly expensive though.
usb3 is faster for some uses, but, in this instance - (a) you're limited by the speed of the HDD(s) used (b) & with sata drives, esata is a native interface whereas there's an extra translation layer to r/w to usb. Now, theoretically, (b) should only have a major impact on small file transfers d.t. the added latency... ...but, whilst i've seen testing that goes either way, personal experience of using both (i have identical drives that i connect via usb3, all with effectively zero fragmentation so writing large files to the same cylinders on the matched drives, which i use to back up the non-raided drives in one of my DASes), personally i have always found that esata is noticeably quicker. That said, as the use i'm putting them to is not time sensitive, i'm either aiming to put these backup drives into 3rd build (making the esata DAS the backup) or getting an 8 bay usb3 box... ...partially the latter's about not needing to add an extra card for more esata ports but also, unless you're dealing with arrays when there can be advantages to esata, as The Beast says, usb is much simpler to work with... ...esp if you want things to be plug'n'play between machines.
USB3 has a pretty fast start speed, but once you start transferring a large file, and get into the "meat and bones" of the file, the speed drops considerably. If I were to buy an enclosure today for travel, it would be USB3. But if it was for backups, eSata for sure. Also, don't go by theoretical maximums, they are just that, theoretical.
Unless you have esatap on your pc and can find esatap drive I would just go with usb option. Otherwise you end up having to use 2 cables or even worse another power brick.
Hi Guys, thanks for all the replies - so it hasn't changed much, has it? I'd be using the drive for backup and partially for VMs... looking at prices for the size I'd need though I think I'll be going with a USB 3 drive from Western Digital (the 1TB Passport). Any recommendations from your side though? Cheers, Fred
I always build them myself. I find a HDD I find reliable (I like WD, and used to love Samsung) then find an enclosure that fits my needs and put it together myself
