eSATA Question

[budwzr]

I have a hybrid eSATA/USB3 connection on my laptop, and was wondering what can I do with that.

[redwudz]

You can use an external eSATA hard drive, which is usually much faster than USB. I have USB3 on one of my PCs but haven't tried any USB3 devices so I have no idea how fast it would be. But eSATA hard drives run at the same speed as the internal drives in the PC, so they should be faster.

What brand and model is the laptop? I'm wondering what sort of connector it uses for eSATA/USB3.

[budwzr]

Toshiba Qosmio.

So should I buy a esata enclosure? What's the best way to go? I would like to use that connection with a HD to render video. I don't see any esata portable drives at Amazon.

[redwudz]

If you have the proper cable, just about any external eSATA HDD will work. They will need an external power source unless you use one of the small lower power 2.5 HDDs that can run off the PC. About 56 external drives from NewEgg for illustration. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007601+600003465&QksAut...pe=&srchInDesc=

Or you could get a enclosure and put about any SATA drive in there. These from Cooldrives: http://www.cooldrives.com/index.php/hddenclosures.html?cat=223&external_interface=318

If you really need one powered from the PC, these Western Digitals work well, but they are USB2.0, so not quite the same performance as eSATA. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007601+50001306+6000034...pe=&srchInDesc=

Not sure what you have available for suppliers in your location, but even Amazon should have similar external drives or enclosures.

[budwzr]

Thanks fer the info, I'm gonna go for a 2.5 enclosure and 2.5 500G Hitachi drive, about $85 OTD all together from Amazon. Like you said, it needs two cables when hooked to esata port, but I don't see any single cable units like the portable USB drives we all have, guess it's too new.

[Moontrash]

the 2.5 case needs 2 connections because it needs enough power from the 2 usb connections to get the esata speed...i have a coolmax 2.5 esata enclosure but dont use it. I have, in regular use, a rosewill esata enclosure with a 640gb drive. Normal transfer rate is around 66mbs a second...usb 2 is around 22mbs. USB 3 speed they say is a tad higher than esata but I'm bettin the difference is negligible

if u have a decent laptop, make sure you get into the BIOS and enable "AHCI", so u'll be able to hot swap the drive.

[redwudz]

Be careful turning on AHCI in BIOS with a OS already in place, you may get a blue screen on boot. If so, just disable it in BIOS again. Most times it takes a registry change with an installed OS. Not a difficult fix, you can look it up with a internet search. Not being able to hot swap a eSATA drive isn't a big deal, you just have to plug it in and do a restart.