Vista - Faster external drives arriving--slowly

http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-6144...-0-5&subj=news

By Stephen Shankland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Brace yourself: there are good odds another port will be popping up on new personal computers
soon.

This one is for eSATA, an external version of the technology that's used to connect hard drives
inside the PC chassis. Unlike USB and FireWire, eSATA (short for external Serial ATA) lets
external drives communicate at the same speed as internal drives, so the technology could be
welcome for those trying to back up digital photo archives or who need added capacity for
storing digital music or recording video.

The big question for eSATA now is how widely and quickly it will catch on. But even cautious
people in the industry are optimistic that, at a minimum, it will be built into higher-end PCs
starting next year.

"Definitely in 2007, you'll see this populated as a standard feature on high-end PCs. In 2008,
you'll see that populated further into mainstream products," said John Gleason, manager of
worldwide consumer PC marketing for Hewlett-Packard, currently the top-ranked PC seller.

The higher speeds of eSATA compared to USB could grow more obvious as consumers try to wrestle
with ever-larger quantities of videos, photos, music and other data. "Backing up a terabyte
across a USB port would be incredibly painful. That's going to drive demand for a high-speed
port like eSATA, said Roger Bradford, who leads storage work for Intel's chipset and graphics
marketing group.

However, the challenges of eSATA are as considerable as its advantages.

continued......

http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-6144...-0-5&subj=news

I like my iomega usb external harddrive - so I won't have to brace myself -
I will look forward to it.

"MICHAEL" <u158627_emr@dslr.net> wrote in message
news:uCAZ9D3IHHA.4384@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-6144...-0-5&subj=news
>
> By Stephen Shankland
> Staff Writer, CNET News.com
>
> Brace yourself: there are good odds another port will be popping up on new
> personal computers soon.
>
> This one is for eSATA, an external version of the technology that's used
> to connect hard drives inside the PC chassis. Unlike USB and FireWire,
> eSATA (short for external Serial ATA) lets external drives communicate at
> the same speed as internal drives, so the technology could be welcome for
> those trying to back up digital photo archives or who need added capacity
> for storing digital music or recording video.
>
> The big question for eSATA now is how widely and quickly it will catch on.
> But even cautious people in the industry are optimistic that, at a
> minimum, it will be built into higher-end PCs starting next year.
>
> "Definitely in 2007, you'll see this populated as a standard feature on
> high-end PCs. In 2008, you'll see that populated further into mainstream
> products," said John Gleason, manager of worldwide consumer PC marketing
> for Hewlett-Packard, currently the top-ranked PC seller.
>
> The higher speeds of eSATA compared to USB could grow more obvious as
> consumers try to wrestle with ever-larger quantities of videos, photos,
> music and other data. "Backing up a terabyte across a USB port would be
> incredibly painful. That's going to drive demand for a high-speed port
> like eSATA, said Roger Bradford, who leads storage work for Intel's
> chipset and graphics marketing group.
>
> However, the challenges of eSATA are as considerable as its advantages.
>
> continued......
>
> http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-6144...-0-5&subj=news
>

I have an eSATA-to-go port on the back of my primary box. It works like a
"SATA-5" port and is equivalent to another port on the mobo. I have been
using eternal SATA ports on my test box for two years. They are on a
pass-through card and I have hooked up two ports internally to pass through
to two ports on the card and from there to external SATA drive enclosures.
I can boot from these drives and have been running Vista betas from these
drives. Transfer rates are many times faster than usb and firewire drives
and they work just like internal drives. There are eSATA connectors
available for ExpressCard 34 cards for laptops and I have been using one of
those on a MacBook Pro for nearly a year. There are now a number of ways to
use SATA drives externally with good results.

"MICHAEL" <u158627_emr@dslr.net> wrote in message
news:uCAZ9D3IHHA.4384@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-6144...-0-5&subj=news
>
> By Stephen Shankland
> Staff Writer, CNET News.com
>
> Brace yourself: there are good odds another port will be popping up on new
> personal computers soon.
>
> This one is for eSATA, an external version of the technology that's used
> to connect hard drives inside the PC chassis. Unlike USB and FireWire,
> eSATA (short for external Serial ATA) lets external drives communicate at
> the same speed as internal drives, so the technology could be welcome for
> those trying to back up digital photo archives or who need added capacity
> for storing digital music or recording video.
>
> The big question for eSATA now is how widely and quickly it will catch on.
> But even cautious people in the industry are optimistic that, at a
> minimum, it will be built into higher-end PCs starting next year.
>
> "Definitely in 2007, you'll see this populated as a standard feature on
> high-end PCs. In 2008, you'll see that populated further into mainstream
> products," said John Gleason, manager of worldwide consumer PC marketing
> for Hewlett-Packard, currently the top-ranked PC seller.
>
> The higher speeds of eSATA compared to USB could grow more obvious as
> consumers try to wrestle with ever-larger quantities of videos, photos,
> music and other data. "Backing up a terabyte across a USB port would be
> incredibly painful. That's going to drive demand for a high-speed port
> like eSATA, said Roger Bradford, who leads storage work for Intel's
> chipset and graphics marketing group.
>
> However, the challenges of eSATA are as considerable as its advantages.
>
> continued......
>
> http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-6144...-0-5&subj=news
>

Great info, Colin. Thanks.


-Michael

"Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarharst@msn.com> wrote in message
news:OK2W3L5IHHA.1504@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>I have an eSATA-to-go port on the back of my primary box. It works like a "SATA-5" port and
>is equivalent to another port on the mobo. I have been using eternal SATA ports on my test
>box for two years. They are on a pass-through card and I have hooked up two ports internally
>to pass through to two ports on the card and from there to external SATA drive enclosures. I
>can boot from these drives and have been running Vista betas from these drives. Transfer
>rates are many times faster than usb and firewire drives and they work just like internal
>drives. There are eSATA connectors available for ExpressCard 34 cards for laptops and I have
>been using one of those on a MacBook Pro for nearly a year. There are now a number of ways to
>use SATA drives externally with good results.
>
> "MICHAEL" <u158627_emr@dslr.net> wrote in message
> news:uCAZ9D3IHHA.4384@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>> http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-6144...-0-5&subj=news
>>
>> By Stephen Shankland
>> Staff Writer, CNET News.com

You're welcome.

"MICHAEL" <u158627_emr@dslr.net> wrote in message
news:e72Al55IHHA.3552@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Great info, Colin. Thanks.
>
>

Hi, Michael.

My new (last week) EPoX MF570SLI mobo (with AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ in the
AM2 socket) has six SATA II ports and 2 more that support eSATA. But the
board did not come with any eSATA external connectors, so I don't know what
they look like. And I don't expect to need them any time soon.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Mail 7.0 in Vista Ultimate x64)

"MICHAEL" <u158627_emr@dslr.net> wrote in message
news:e72Al55IHHA.3552@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Great info, Colin. Thanks.
>
>
> -Michael
>
> "Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarharst@msn.com> wrote in message
> news:OK2W3L5IHHA.1504@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>>I have an eSATA-to-go port on the back of my primary box. It works like a
>>"SATA-5" port and is equivalent to another port on the mobo. I have been
>>using eternal SATA ports on my test box for two years. They are on a
>>pass-through card and I have hooked up two ports internally to pass
>>through to two ports on the card and from there to external SATA drive
>>enclosures. I can boot from these drives and have been running Vista betas
>>from these drives. Transfer rates are many times faster than usb and
>>firewire drives and they work just like internal drives. There are eSATA
>>connectors available for ExpressCard 34 cards for laptops and I have been
>>using one of those on a MacBook Pro for nearly a year. There are now a
>>number of ways to use SATA drives externally with good results.
>>
>> "MICHAEL" <u158627_emr@dslr.net> wrote in message
>> news:uCAZ9D3IHHA.4384@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>>> http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-6144...-0-5&subj=news
>>>
>>> By Stephen Shankland
>>> Staff Writer, CNET News.com

I've used external SATA connectors for a few years and wouldn't be without
them BUT... a couple of caveats:

1) there are still 2 "standards" for the connectors (and thus cables) - the
eSATA connector and matching eSATA cables and external standard SATA
connectors using standard or more robust SATA cables. This is true for both
ends of the cable. Get the right ones for any external enclosure you buy.

2) There are very few on-board or add-in SATA adapters that support dynamic
plugging of SATA drives and some that say they do don't do it very well!
Intel doesn't. ASRock did but poorly, Highpoint cards do it well. I have a
pccard that does too.

So, although the benefits of the sata connection are considerable, rebooting
can reduce those benefits.



"MICHAEL" wrote:

> http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-6144...-0-5&subj=news
>
> By Stephen Shankland
> Staff Writer, CNET News.com
>
> Brace yourself: there are good odds another port will be popping up on new personal computers
> soon.
>
> This one is for eSATA, an external version of the technology that's used to connect hard drives
> inside the PC chassis. Unlike USB and FireWire, eSATA (short for external Serial ATA) lets
> external drives communicate at the same speed as internal drives, so the technology could be
> welcome for those trying to back up digital photo archives or who need added capacity for
> storing digital music or recording video.
>
> The big question for eSATA now is how widely and quickly it will catch on. But even cautious
> people in the industry are optimistic that, at a minimum, it will be built into higher-end PCs
> starting next year.
>
> "Definitely in 2007, you'll see this populated as a standard feature on high-end PCs. In 2008,
> you'll see that populated further into mainstream products," said John Gleason, manager of
> worldwide consumer PC marketing for Hewlett-Packard, currently the top-ranked PC seller.
>
> The higher speeds of eSATA compared to USB could grow more obvious as consumers try to wrestle
> with ever-larger quantities of videos, photos, music and other data. "Backing up a terabyte
> across a USB port would be incredibly painful. That's going to drive demand for a high-speed
> port like eSATA, said Roger Bradford, who leads storage work for Intel's chipset and graphics
> marketing group.
>
> However, the challenges of eSATA are as considerable as its advantages.
>
> continued......
>
> http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-6144...-0-5&subj=news
>
>