eSATA Thoughts

[Patrick]

Here's my question: With the current USB 3.0 performance, do you think we still need eSATA? Why?

Personally, I am OK with 300MB/s in a universal port like USB. A spindle drive will not be bottlenecked by the USB 3.0 interface so for quick backup purposes, it makes a lot of sense to me to use a USB 3.0 enclosure because I can plug it into virtually any modern computer (given USB 2.0 is slow, but at least you can get to data.) With eSATA ports being less widely deployed, I'm probably at the point where USB 3.0 makes more sense.

Just want to see thoughts on this one.

 

[OBasel]

ESATA is pointless. Apple computers are the most popular in the world and can't use ESATA.

Everything has USB

How fast have you seen USB III go with solid state drives?

 

[Jeggs101]

How fast have you seen USB III go with solid state drives?

this. if usb is fast enough, it is better. old usb drives were too slow but with usb 3 this may have changed. can't plug a mouse into a esata port afterall

 

[mobilenvidia]

How many servers come with eSATA ?

With spindle drives 200MB/s max.
RAID0 enclosure with eSATA different story but then its far less portable and USB less useful.

USB3.0 is the way, much more convenient to cart around.
Now just need more USB 3.0 support on servers for us USB sticker OS installers

 

[MiniKnight]

What about USB 3 opposted to SATA 2? Equal? If so, USB is great. No BIOS setting needed for hot swap.

Are USB 3 controllers in Linux distros like Mint and Ubuntu yet?

 

[apnar]

Not to mention power. I know there is occasionally the odd hybrid USB/eSATA port but it's even rarer then eSATA. With USB you don't have to worry about carrying your power adapter around. That said I'm interested in seeing where Thunderbolt is in a few years. If the prices come down it could make an interesting alternative. Having a single cable for all protocols is very appealing.