Finally, someone that answers my question. For mechanical drives, the drives are the bottleneck and esata & USB3 are about the same. In the case of SSD drives, the fastest Esata beats USB3.
Thank you, sir. I lost support for my eSATA dock due to a Windows 10 update. I'm going to watch your video now in order to make a final decision, because I need that spare USB port.
My verdict is: I'm only using mechanical HDDs in the dock I have, but now I'll need a USB 3.0 port which are fully populated. My question is: Could I download some kind of driver to override the Windows 10 update that removed support? I have two spare eSATA ports, for crying out loud.
Many thanks for the follow-up to your earlier video on USB, David. When you're browsing the Internet for general research, I'm curious to confirm something I heard from another Prosumer many moons ago. He claimed that the eSATA standard requires cables that can function correctly over longer distances. And, I think he said, or implied, that the longer cables require a slightly higher voltage to overcome a higher impedance that occurs when using very long eSATA cables. I was never able to confirm his claim, one way or the other. This question becomes relevant if a slot adapter (like the one you showed briefly) connects to a SATA port that is integrated on the motherboard. In such a setup, the eSATA cable may be expecting more power than the motherboard's integrated SATA port can deliver. I for one would like to know what the experts have to say about this claim. The way I have avoided any faults is by using standard SATA cables for INTERNAL connections ONLY; and, whenever I use a motherboard's eSATA port at the rear I/O panel, I use standard eSATA cables for EXTERNAL connections ONLY. Some of our motherboards also have a second eSATA port integrated onto the motherboard: past experience has proven that a standard SATA cable works fine when connecting an integrated eSATA port to an internal storage drive, provided that such standard SATA cables are not too long, i.e. just long enough to reach. This focus on cables may seem superfluous; nevertheless, over the years I can't count the number of times a drive "FAULT" ended up being a failed SATA cable, even though I initially believed that the drive had failed, when it had not failed. Hope this helps.
Paul, considering the age of the cable, I suspect that the reliable lenght is indeed very limited. I had not thought of trying to test that, but maybe when I make a video or Live Stream about my new PC-based Oscilloscope, that is something I could try (although I am not sure if I can find a longer cable than about 4-feet). By the way, I do have some practical experience in this from one of my early engineering positions. We had lots of trouble with 48-pin ribbon cables used to connect two mini-computer buses together (DEC Vax units, if you have heard of that). The 5' and 10' cables were 'supposedly' designed to be ganged together for lengths as long as 25', however our Field staff was having a lot of problems getting distance beyond a single 10' cable. The 5' cables were rarely ordered, so they would try 10', then 20', with the 20' having many system crashes. I was dispatched to go check things out. When I starting scoping the signals (which were 5v limited), anything past 15' has saw-tooth (rather than square wave) well below the logic cutoff levels. When we notified the manufacturer, they simply changed that cable specs and released a repeater device about a month later. I will look further into the eSATA technology.
@@PE4Doers Yes, I remember the DEC VAX-11/780 -- very fine virtual memory super minicomputer. You and I must be operating on the same FM band. A few days ago, I took delivery of a brand new Western Digital 1TB M.2 SSD. My plan was to use "Copy Partition" in Partition Wizard to move all files from a 1TB HDD to this 1TB M.2 SSD. Almost immediately, that task locked up the entire computer, leaving me with a totally black screen: I had to do a hard SHUTDOWN and STARTUP. The problem ended up being the SFF-8470 end of an Infiniband brand 4-channel cable, with SFF-8088 termination at the other end -- the connector that plugs directly into a Highpoint RocketRAID model 2721 RAID controller in the host PC. I needed to do some trial-and-error, and what ended up working was a new Infiniband cable, and new adapter in the external storage chassis. I also used a much shorter SATA cable from that adapter to the M.2's SATA data connector. After fully testing my repairs, everything seems to be working now as intended. I'm glad I have learned my lessons from Hard Knocks University: this time, it was EZ to eliminate the M.2 because it was brand new, and was easily formatted by a different PC. I also did find that an extremely small machine screw was missing from the old adapter in the external chassis. You'll laugh: I went to a nearby hardware store, and the employee there and I were laughing together: these screws and matching nuts were so small, we dropped a few and were never able to locate them on the store floor. Moral of this story: do not drop small screws on the floor of a hardware store, because they have been known to sprout feet and take off running! Final score: store employee dropped 3, and I only dropped 2.
Great video, I have an extension to the question.... I run a Terra Master USB C DAS, it has 5 drive bays, used for non-critical storage and backup disks. it's a great piece of kit, but appears to struggle if there is a lot of parallel access on different drives. Any idea if an eSata multiple enclosure would do better?
Unfortunately I am not familiar with the Terra Master USB C DAS. Is it possibly a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 device? eSATA really only supports a single SATA drive, so that may be an issue if you connect it to a chain of drives.
@@PE4Doers Hey!! I'm not 100% sure myself on eSATA, but devices like Synology DX517 expansion box use eSATA to add 5 drive bays to a compatible NAS. I'll be honest I'm looking at a thunderbolt 3 enclosure at the moment.
@@scoobyflewFunny you should mention Thunderbolt. My next video being filmed is how to add Thunderbolt 4 to a desktop computer that has a compatible motherboard. Thunderbolt allows for up to 5 devices daisy chained on one Thunderbolt Channel, along with very high-speed data transfers to memory devices that support it. I will be showing both in a tw0=part video series.
And, as usual, the USB didn't get its full speed of 5 Gbit/s. Was it tested with a huge file or thousands of small files? When I try to transfer small files... USB 1, 2 or 3 are all the same scam.
What was the device you were using to test it with? I've found using an NVMe M.2 drive in a USB 3.0 enclosure works best (if USB 3.2 with USBC, even better).
@@PE4Doers Many devices. Today I transfered 138 GB from my alienware laptop msata ssd to a 4 TB external hdd and the transfer speed was around 21 MB per second. Too slow for USB 3. But... my alienware has many USB related issues (bad drivers? Hardware? Old Windows? I don't know and I don't care).
it's difficult to find esatapd external case for old drives. most stuff nowadays is usb 3.0 my old laptop has esatap and no usb 3.0 so there msut be a esatap to usb C 3.0 cable i guess??
Finally, someone that answers my question. For mechanical drives, the drives are the bottleneck and esata & USB3 are about the same.
In the case of SSD drives, the fastest Esata beats USB3.
You have that all correct 🙂
What about usb 3.2 / Gen2 drives?
Thank you, sir. I lost support for my eSATA dock due to a Windows 10 update.
I'm going to watch your video now in order to make a final decision, because I need that spare USB port.
My verdict is: I'm only using mechanical HDDs in the dock I have, but now I'll need a USB 3.0 port which are fully populated. My question is: Could I download some kind of driver to override the Windows 10 update that removed support? I have two spare eSATA ports, for crying out loud.
I wish you luck. It should just appear as a storage disk on you PC after you reboot.
Many thanks for the follow-up to your earlier video on USB, David.
When you're browsing the Internet for general research, I'm curious to confirm something I heard from another Prosumer many moons ago. He claimed that the eSATA standard requires cables that can function correctly over longer distances. And, I think he said, or implied, that the longer cables require a slightly higher voltage to overcome a higher impedance that occurs when using very long eSATA cables. I was never able to confirm his claim, one way or the other. This question becomes relevant if a slot adapter (like the one you showed briefly) connects to a SATA port that is integrated on the motherboard. In such a setup, the eSATA cable may be expecting more power than the motherboard's integrated SATA port can deliver. I for one would like to know what the experts have to say about this claim. The way I have avoided any faults is by using standard SATA cables for INTERNAL connections ONLY; and, whenever I use a motherboard's eSATA port at the rear I/O panel, I use standard eSATA cables for EXTERNAL connections ONLY. Some of our motherboards also have a second eSATA port integrated onto the motherboard: past experience has proven that a standard SATA cable works fine when connecting an integrated eSATA port to an internal storage drive, provided that such standard SATA cables are not too long, i.e. just long enough to reach. This focus on cables may seem superfluous; nevertheless, over the years I can't count the number of times a drive "FAULT" ended up being a failed SATA cable, even though I initially believed that the drive had failed, when it had not failed. Hope this helps.
Paul, considering the age of the cable, I suspect that the reliable lenght is indeed very limited. I had not thought of trying to test that, but maybe when I make a video or Live Stream about my new PC-based Oscilloscope, that is something I could try (although I am not sure if I can find a longer cable than about 4-feet).
By the way, I do have some practical experience in this from one of my early engineering positions. We had lots of trouble with 48-pin ribbon cables used to connect two mini-computer buses together (DEC Vax units, if you have heard of that). The 5' and 10' cables were 'supposedly' designed to be ganged together for lengths as long as 25', however our Field staff was having a lot of problems getting distance beyond a single 10' cable. The 5' cables were rarely ordered, so they would try 10', then 20', with the 20' having many system crashes.
I was dispatched to go check things out. When I starting scoping the signals (which were 5v limited), anything past 15' has saw-tooth (rather than square wave) well below the logic cutoff levels. When we notified the manufacturer, they simply changed that cable specs and released a repeater device about a month later.
I will look further into the eSATA technology.
@@PE4Doers Yes, I remember the DEC VAX-11/780 -- very fine virtual memory super minicomputer. You and I must be operating on the same FM band.
A few days ago, I took delivery of a brand new Western Digital 1TB M.2 SSD. My plan was to use "Copy Partition" in Partition Wizard to move all files from a 1TB HDD to this 1TB M.2 SSD. Almost immediately, that task locked up the entire computer, leaving me with a totally black screen: I had to do a hard SHUTDOWN and STARTUP.
The problem ended up being the SFF-8470 end of an Infiniband brand 4-channel cable, with SFF-8088 termination at the other end -- the connector that plugs directly into a Highpoint RocketRAID model 2721 RAID controller in the host PC.
I needed to do some trial-and-error, and what ended up working was a new Infiniband cable, and new adapter in the external storage chassis. I also used a much shorter SATA cable from that adapter to the M.2's SATA data connector.
After fully testing my repairs, everything seems to be working now as intended. I'm glad I have learned my lessons from Hard Knocks University: this time, it was EZ to eliminate the M.2 because it was brand new, and was easily formatted by a different PC.
I also did find that an extremely small machine screw was missing from the old adapter in the external chassis. You'll laugh: I went to a nearby hardware store, and the employee there and I were laughing together: these screws and matching nuts were so small, we dropped a few and were never able to locate them on the store floor.
Moral of this story: do not drop small screws on the floor of a hardware store, because they have been known to sprout feet and take off running!
Final score: store employee dropped 3, and I only dropped 2.
I don't know if YT allows links, so I'll try. See next REPLY for that link.
@@supremelawfirm No, only the content creator can include a link.
Great video, I have an extension to the question....
I run a Terra Master USB C DAS, it has 5 drive bays, used for non-critical storage and backup disks.
it's a great piece of kit, but appears to struggle if there is a lot of parallel access on different drives.
Any idea if an eSata multiple enclosure would do better?
Unfortunately I am not familiar with the Terra Master USB C DAS. Is it possibly a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 device? eSATA really only supports a single SATA drive, so that may be an issue if you connect it to a chain of drives.
@@PE4Doers Hey!!
I'm not 100% sure myself on eSATA, but devices like Synology DX517 expansion box use eSATA to add 5 drive bays to a compatible NAS.
I'll be honest I'm looking at a thunderbolt 3 enclosure at the moment.
@@scoobyflewFunny you should mention Thunderbolt. My next video being filmed is how to add Thunderbolt 4 to a desktop computer that has a compatible motherboard.
Thunderbolt allows for up to 5 devices daisy chained on one Thunderbolt Channel, along with very high-speed data transfers to memory devices that support it. I will be showing both in a tw0=part video series.
Hi from South African vloggers
🇿🇦 😀 ❤️ 🌍
..
Hey, thanks for watching. That is a Country I would like to visit someday :)
And, as usual, the USB didn't get its full speed of 5 Gbit/s. Was it tested with a huge file or thousands of small files? When I try to transfer small files... USB 1, 2 or 3 are all the same scam.
What was the device you were using to test it with? I've found using an NVMe M.2 drive in a USB 3.0 enclosure works best (if USB 3.2 with USBC, even better).
@@PE4Doers Many devices. Today I transfered 138 GB from my alienware laptop msata ssd to a 4 TB external hdd and the transfer speed was around 21 MB per second. Too slow for USB 3. But... my alienware has many USB related issues (bad drivers? Hardware? Old Windows? I don't know and I don't care).
it's difficult to find esatapd external case for old drives. most stuff nowadays is usb 3.0 my old laptop has esatap and no usb 3.0 so there msut be a esatap to usb C 3.0 cable i guess??
Are you referring to a cable for that connection?