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esata vs. USB...fight!

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superboyac:
Now that USB 3.0 has arrived, I need to rekindle this battle of mine.  I want this discussion to be about the actual merits of each protocol, not the technical specs.  meaning, I don't care if usb 3.0 is technically capable of transferring 12 megabits per second, that's not what I'm after here.  I'm looking for people's actual experiences with these devices, in a practical way.  I think most of us are familiar with the technical merits of each device, that's not very interesting.  I mean, just to summarize: esata is not very common, but is the same technology used on hard drives.  usb is extremely common, usb 3.0 is backwards compatible, it's still new, not all motherboards support it, blah blah...

Now, I've been fortunate enough to get one of those new Sony Vaio Z laptops which does have a legit usb 3.0 connection.  The same USB 3.0 port also has a very clever customized by Sony Light Peak built into it, that is used with it's special docking system.  It's probably the only light peak/USB connector currently available on a commercial product right now.  I also got that really great HD enclosure by Dat Optics, that has esata and usb 3.0 connectors on it.  So I'm all set up to run all sorts of experiements.

eSATA:
I am personally a big fan of esata.  Why?  Reliability.  Unlike USB, normal use of esata gets really top notch speeds.  i don't know the numbers exactly, but it's faster than any other connection I've ever used.  And it's not flaky.  It works if other things are attached to the computer.  I like the physical connector also compared to usb.  It seems to be far more reliable than USB.  By reliable, I mean it's always going fast and during long transfers it doesn't dip down and up in speed.

USB 3.0:
I've now used usb 3.0 on the laptop and also with the HD enclosure.  Very flaky.  USB has always been a flaky experience for me, ever since the beginning.  I don't know why...perhaps drivers, hardware compatibilities, whatever.  No version of USB was even close to as fast as the speeds that they advertise on the boxes and specs.  We're now at usb 3.0, and it's actual experienced output could now possibly be as fast as what usb 2.0 promised in the specs?  So silly.  And again, I don't care what the reason is, that's what it is.  I'm just trying to cut through all the usb BS specs.

Also, can we talk about mega-BYTES, and not mega-bits?  megabits is some BS the hardware manufacturers picked up on long ago to inflate the numbers they get to plaster on all their boxes and ads.  Nobody thinks in terms of bits unless they are a modem engineer.  It's bytes folks.  But then they wouldn't be able to confuse people.

Anyway, so at one point I was getting 70-90 MBps on the laptop's usb 3.0 connection.  But when I used it on the light peak dock's usb 3.0 port, it went down to usb 2 speeds, like 30MBps.  So last week I spent 3 hours on the phone with Sony trying all sorts of stuff (I got elevated to level 5!  that's like calling in the general!).  We're going to continue next week, it's still not solved.  But as usual, the usb connection is as flaky as ever.

It's fine for non-essential activities, like transferring things to a thumbdrive, or using an external drive here and there, or the other peripheral devices.  It's a remarkable innovation for that stuff.  But for sustained file transfer operations and long term reliability and usage, I don't like it.  I use esata for that or anything else for that matter: IDE, pcie, sas, etc.  For some reason, all those are more reliable than usb.

That's it, rant over.  That's how I feel about esata and usb.  If anyone wants me to try out some stuff regarding usb 3.0, esata, or light peak, I'd be more than happy.

MilesAhead:
I've talked to people with eSata docking stations, but I haven't gotten much in the way of numbers such as sequential read and write.  Can you post eSata Crystal Diskmark numbers along with the percentage free space of your drive and its max sustained transfer rate?

Usually when I run into people complaining about slow USB 3.0 they have chips on the motherboard. Not a PCI express card.

As example I have a couple of WD caviar black Sata III drives. The specs say max sustained transfer rate is 126 MB/s.  But Crystal Diskmark, for some bizarre reason, likes to call one million bytes a MB. Therefore the numbers are slightly inflated, where on a freshly formatted drive of this type it will show sequential reads and writes over 130 MB/s.  Since the factory spec is 126 I'm assuming the inflated number is due to the one million bytes = 1 MB quirk of CDM.  But still, I don't see my SIIG PCI express card slowing anything down. I'd be curious what eSata numbers are out there for this same drive in a docking station.

This is the drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533

This is the card: (edit: now for desktop machines you can get setups that provide 4 ports on the front of the PC.  This card the ports are on the back. No big deal if you have a big desk. If your tower is on the floor it can be a pita.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815150161

This is the dock: (edit: I thought I put the corrected link. This is the USB 3.0 dock, not USB 2.0)
http://www.siig.com/it-products/controllers-storage/hard-drive-storage/drive-docking/superspeed-usb-usb-3-0-to-sata-3gb-s-hard-drive-docking-with-fan.html

Since my HP machines only come with Sata II disk controllers, the drives in the docks outperform the internal system drives.

x16wda:
How did you do your throughput tests?  I just got a laptop with usb 3 ("super speed") ports, and the first full backup to an external usb 3 hard drive was significantly faster than usb 2 speeds (as I would hope), but I haven't done any specific measurements.  (It's kind of moot, it's not like I have an esata port on anything...)  Anyway, did you use a utility, or just queue up a hundred gigs and see how long it took?  FreeFileSync and watch what it said?

superboyac:
Found a thread that talks about some tests performed on usb and esata.  His tests show very clearly how esata is faster and more reliable than usb 2 or 3.
Thread is here:
http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/135680-usb-3-0-extremely-slow-transfer-rates.html
esata vs. USB...fight!
By the way, eSATA is a lot faster than USB3.0 ( which is still very buggy with the NEC chips).
Here is a comparison, all using the same disc but on various ports and using various drivers;

Even a working USB 3.0 interface is not as fast as eSATA. So a bit pointless really. I decided not to bother with any USB 3.0 hardware for myself after quite a lot of testing.

--- End quote ---

mouser:
One serious drawback of esata for external docking solutions is that you need one esata port and cable for EACH DRIVE in the dock.
This was a nasty surprise for me, and i've never forgiven esata for this issue.

To me, the external usb docks are great in that they are so portable; speed is not my main concern -- I just want to be able to quickly connect and disconnect and move the dock to different pcs, etc.  USB has seemed like a better match for my needs over esata.

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