Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room
esata vs. USB...fight!
barney:
i don't think we should dismiss as easily as that. Sure, there are differences. I'm trying to delve into those differences to see what the advantages and disadvantages are for multiple issues. Yes, in the issue of convenience, USB wins hands down. In real-life speed tests, esata wins hands down. We don't have to dismiss that so easily.
-superboyac (July 30, 2012, 02:52 PM)
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OK, wasn't dismissing it, per se, merely pointing out that differing requirements and attitudes make any real comparison moot. You've had USB issues - I haven't. You have multiple esata ports - I don't. For me, the convenience of USB far outweighs the speed of esata. For you, the speed of esata outweighs the convenience of USB.
I recall a similar discussion regarding USB vs. FireWire when they first came out. FireWire was faster, more reliable. USB won.
Same thing with VHS vs. BetaMax - VHS won, although BetaMax provided the better experience.
Similar contests have occurred regarding programming languages,with no clear resolution and no consensus.
The winner in this contest will be determined not by our preferences, but by what manufacturers decide to provide, and their decision will be based upon cost and convenience, not upon performance. It will only marginally be influenced by public preferences - mostly because that public tends to be singularly quiet about such things.
superboyac:
@superboyac the thread in your link is from Jan 2011. The only thing new I've learned since then is check Device Manager to make sure your USB 3.0 hub does not have the option to power off to save energy enabled. Otherwise if the drive in the dock is idle for awhile it may shut the port off. I've already posted my experience on that thread in detail.
-MilesAhead (July 30, 2012, 02:19 PM)
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Dang Miles! Always one step ahead! Thanks...
Carol Haynes:
The advantage of eSATA is that with an expansion box you can attach loads of drives whereas USB ports support only one drive (or the box contains a hub to attach more).
Just ordered one of these: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006CS1VN4 with two Seagate 3Tb drives.
I am putting the drives into my box after using that to clone them! (Hopefully)
Personally I have had no luck with eSata - I have had three mobos with eSata support and external devices apparently with eSata support and have yet to find a combination that works convincingly and consistently.
Almost the exact opposite of the experience described in the opening message - I have rarely had any issues with USB (only slow speeds with USB 2) - hopefully USB 3 will help to solve that - it has pretty much killed firewire, even Apple don't use it any more.
Carol Haynes:
@superboyac the thread in your link is from Jan 2011. The only thing new I've learned since then is check Device Manager to make sure your USB 3.0 hub does not have the option to power off to save energy enabled. Otherwise if the drive in the dock is idle for awhile it may shut the port off. I've already posted my experience on that thread in detail.
-MilesAhead (July 30, 2012, 02:19 PM)
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Dang Miles! Always one step ahead! Thanks...
-superboyac (July 30, 2012, 04:05 PM)
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Don't forget to disable the selective suspend option in Windows Vista/7 power settings too!
MilesAhead:
Don't forget to disable the selective suspend option in Windows Vista/7 power settings too!
-Carol Haynes (July 30, 2012, 04:15 PM)
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Also I should probably mention that the first USB 3.0 docks I tried were Sharkoon. They worked well enough but it drove me crazy they seemed to have a spin-down time-out that could not be disabled. Perhaps this has been changed in the interim, but when I got them a year or so ago I had to write a stupid "keep alive" app that wrote and deleted a tiny file every 5 minutes. Although many may just use docks for storage in my case I've found the WD drives in docks to be faster than my system HD(since I have off the shelf HP stuff the system HD is only Sata II.) Muxing video using the drives in the docks is much faster. Also reduces thrashing. It's really annoying if the dock spins down your drive.
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