E-Sata vs USB - It's worth the switch!

JCitron

Trainzing since 12-2003
Well the investment in E-Sata technology is well worth it. The old $19.00 cable makes for a substantial difference when copying large amounts of data.

I recently backed up my Trainz folder, including the program, any addons, etc., plus all my content. The total file copy with USB took 10 hours!

With the new E-Sata cable, since the drive supports both, the data copy took about 2 hours, perhaps less because I let it run then went out to an appointment. By the time I got back, everything was copied.

Now I'm tempted to see how Trainz (TS12) runs from the external drive.

John
 
Nice results, but was the USB limited by either cable or drive as to speed?

Ed,

It's the same drive and enclosure. This is most likely the difference between the USB 2.0 interface versus the E-Sata. The cable is the same length, but the interface is different.

Heck at $20.00 at Best Buy with no sales tax in New Hampshire, the cable was worth it.


John
 
USB 3.0 is even better then e-sata:p Well worth the few extra bucks as well. But either is defiantly a step up regardless from USB 2.0.
 
USB 3.0 is even better then e-sata:p Well worth the few extra bucks as well. But either is defiantly a step up regardless from USB 2.0.

That's good to know, but I don't have any 3.0 devices yet. I have the capabilities, but no devices!

That is really good to know about the 3.0 speed. I'll have to look around for some drives the next time I'm out.

I was trying to find an alternative to the 10 hour data copy for my TS12 folder! That was a total killer because I couldn't do anything else on the machine while that was happening.

How about making devices available for backup, but making the backup procedure so slow it's useless? This is typical of consumer-grade products. Super-sized drives, but making the copy process deadly, (not dreadfully) slow to a point where backing up data is so painful no one wants to do it.

In the old days, I actually was able to backup more than this on DLT 8000 tape drives in less time!

John
 
That's good to know, but I don't have any 3.0 devices yet. I have the capabilities, but no devices!

That is really good to know about the 3.0 speed. I'll have to look around for some drives the next time I'm out.

I was trying to find an alternative to the 10 hour data copy for my TS12 folder! That was a total killer because I couldn't do anything else on the machine while that was happening.

How about making devices available for backup, but making the backup procedure so slow it's useless? This is typical of consumer-grade products. Super-sized drives, but making the copy process deadly, (not dreadfully) slow to a point where backing up data is so painful no one wants to do it.

In the old days, I actually was able to backup more than this on DLT 8000 tape drives in less time!

John
That is for sure takes me a few hours to back up my stuff with my USB 2.0 external...
But the speed of 3.0 vs eSATA depends on the exact type. eSATA apparently follows the same as the internal SATA with 1.5Gbps(SATA I) 3.0Gbps (SATA II) and 6Gbps(SATA III) if yours is eSATA III then it will be 1Gbps faster then USB 3.0 as it transfers at 5Gbps.
 
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