I've been lurking and reading here lately and it looks like this is a great forum for advancing my computer literacy. No doubt my question is elementary, but from all my surfing the ISH I've not been able to find a clear answer.

I have a 4 year old Gateway with Intel 2.2, Intel Lexington mobo, 2GB, two 300GB Seagate internal drives, one WD 120GB external PATA. I plan to get into disk imaging (have tried Acronis TI, but have decided to go with ShadowProtect). I want to replace the PATA with at least a 750GB drive, and SATA II looks like the best thing going. My mobo doesn't support SATA, but I see the eSATA PCI controller cards, and I have a spare slot for one.

The best I can tell, an eSATA II drive plugged into an external port of such a card is supposed to give the same fast performance as one running off a motherboard socket. It sounds too good to be true. It would seem to me that if the mobo doesn't "support" SATA, I would not be getting true SATA performance.

I need some "learning" on this issue before I invest. Also, any recommendations for a decent eSATA controller (hopefully not over $75) and SATA HD would be appreciated. I'm considering an Icy Dock MB559US-1S enclosure with a Seagate drive. What do you think? Thanks.

Jean

Greetings JeanW

Let first talk about a Drive controllers You can get controllers which will add IDE (PATA) and/or Sata connectors to your computer.

The "E" part of ESATA stands for EXTERNAL and discribes a type of cable connection or port leading from a controller on your computer to a External enclosure containing a SATA type drive.

The signaling requirements and cable lengths (up to 2 meters) created a need for this ESATA standard vs the Regular SATA one.

The controller you purchase will be only as fast as the type of slot you plug it in. The fastest is a PCI-EXPRESS slot. The slowest would be the standard pci slot.

Use a PCI slot, you get 150mb/s, use a PCI-EXPRESS slot you get 300mb/s. I am almost certain you dont have a PCI-EXPRESS slot and you would be at the lower speed.

This is also known as SATA I vs the SATA II which most new computers support.

Mind you better than USB or Firwire in throughput in any case. You can look at this link for comparisions of throughput.


Sata I/O


I can not advise you on which one to purchase, but as a reference.

addonics.com

Good luck

Kaz

Thanks, Kaz, for your reply. What you say makes sense, because I didn't see how I could get the 3GB speed just from the addition of an eSATA PCI controller. Still, this is what is confusing me. The controller I'm looking at is the Promise SATA300 TX4302:

http://www.promise.com/product/product_det...;product_id=168

It says:

"Cost-effective eSATA 2-port external & 2-port internal Serial ATA adapter with SATA 3Gb/s drive support for motherboards with a PCI interface. The controller supports Serial ATA 3Gb/s drives and conforms to CabCon Volume 2 Specification, Serial ATA II Revision 2.5 "

With a PCI interface. That's what I have. Makes it sound like you can plug the controller into an old PCI slot and get the top speed. It doesn't mention that it has to be a PCI-E slot.

The SATA I/O link you referenced seemed to support my misconception:

"Currently, most PC motherboards do not have an e-SATA connector. eSATA is readily enabled, however, through the addition of an eSATA HBA or bracket connector (as shown above) for desktop systems."

And the bracket pictured is what I planned to add to my computer, and plug it into the eSATA PCI controller (*note at end). See:

http://www.pccasegear.com/prod3840.htm

Description says:

"The cable ends of the PCI bracket connect to either the SATA enabled mother board OR SATA controller card within your PC. This allows an external SATA device connection to be made from an internal source by connecting the cable end of the single port SATA I or SATA II PCI bracket to the controller cards internal female connection."

Do you see why I'm confused? I'm not terribly computer literate, and I'm do doubt missing something. Is it that the eSATA PCI controller plugs into a PCI slot on a motherboard which has a SATA bus, rather than ATA bus like mine? I'd like to increase my understanding. Can you clarify.

Thanks,

Jean


*Actually, I originally was looking at a controller card that had no external port and was going to connect the bracket to the card to give me the external port. Then I saw the TX4302 card with external ports.

This post has been edited by JeanW: Feb 21 2008, 06:51 PM

Greetings JeanW

You have to love the fine print.




So from the connector to the drive...300 MB/sec, on the PCI bus your milage will vary.



Note the UP TO bit, the 266mb is probly a burst speed and not sustained. no way 300 mb both ways. If I remember correctly you have a limit of 133 mb/s on PCI Busses.

As to the question about using a ESATA bracket assembly to attach to a ESATA connector on a SATA controller is fine. Its all about buss type and speed.

If you get 133 mb/s sustained or better on a PCI type buss I would be surprised. But in any case it is better than USB/Firewire throughput.

Regards

Kaz

Oh, my... It's hard to believe it's been nearly a month since your last post, Kaz. Appologies for the delayed response, but a family crisis, unplanned trip and computer crash are my excuses. Anyway, I wanted to thank you for your advice. I've just received my PCI SATA controller, bracket with external port, new Samsung HD753LJ drive and external enclosure and will start putting all together as soon as I get a chance. Will try to let you know how it goes. Thanks, again.

Jean

All went well. The only odd thing, to me, was that I had to use the CD that came with the Promise controller to make a floppy disk driver installer. I don't understand why drivers couldn't simply be installed from the CD. Anyway, it was a breeze; the hard drive seems fast enough to me, though I don't really know how to measure true speed. I just copied a 135GB image from C: to the eSATA in 46 minutes. The enclosure is relatively quiet and stays cool, speaking of which, the fan emits a cool blue light, and blue light flashes through the end grill when the drive is working. Thanks, again, for your help.

Hi JeanW

Just for fun, you can have a good check of your hard drive(s) by using HD Tune. It's a free program that lets you run a benchmark test and a diagnostic test on your hard drive(s). HD Tune has a rather comprehensive website, so feel free to check through the "Manual", "FAQ", and "Test Results" links. You'll need to click on the "Download" link to find the free version.

It should be able to pick up your new hard drive through the add-on controller you have installed.

I would be interested to see what speeds you get, if you want to check them out on the Benchmark tab, and post back here.

Cheers

Troy

Troy, thanks for that link. There's lots of HD stats there. I will have to download the app and test the Samsung.