eSATA Hard Drive Questions.

I am looking to buy an external hard drive and have narrowed my search down to 2 units. One is the Cavalry CAXM37500 and the other is the Seagate ST3500601XS-RK (please note that I can get the Seagate drive locally for $169.99 so the huge difference in price from Newegg is not a factor just for comparison purposes).

Now to the questions. The Cavalry uses an eSATA to SATA adapter that mounts to the case like a PCI card but does not take up a PCI slot on the Mobo. IT simply allows you to plug the adapter into a SATA port on the Mobo (I have 3 ports available). The Seagate uses a PCI to eSATA adapter that actually needs to be plugged in to the Mobo (I think this gives you two eSATA connectors though). I only have 2 PCI slots (also a PCI express 1 and 16) and plan to possibly use 1 of these slots for some additional USB ports. That means that both PCI slots would be taken if I choose the Seagate. So which method is better? Is there a downside to using the Seagate when going through the PCI slot? I don't want to spend money for an eSATA drive that can't perform as well as it should. Also, the Cavalry has USB 2.0 connectivity as well so I could hook it up to my laptop if necessary, something I can not do with the Seagate as it is eSATA only. The Seagate has 16MB cache vs. 8MB on the Cavalry. IS that a big deal?

Any other things I should consider?

Never heard of Cavalry... All my internal drives are Seagate... never had a problem.

Doesn't help your main qu Mike, but reliability is a considerationa nd Seagate have a good rep for this. If there are External drives I assume you would be using for archiving an storage so perhaps 16 vs 8 cache isn't an issue though.

EOSAddict wrote in post #3068249
Never heard of Cavalry... All my internal drives are Seagate... never had a problem.

Doesn't help your main qu Mike, but reliability is a considerationa nd Seagate have a good rep for this. If there are External drives I assume you would be using for archiving an storage so perhaps 16 vs 8 cache isn't an issue though.

The Cavalry drives seem to get rave reviews everywhere I look. They use Hitachi HDD in the case. I have both Seagate and WD and have had no problems with either (knocks on wood). This drive is for backup purposes. I plan to use it to backup my entire PC (160GB for OS/Apps/Data and a 200GB for photos).

In that case, no worries.. just not a make I've seen over here.

I did some digging around about eSATA on Anandtech's site and found out some interesting things. Here is a synopsus:

eSATA appears to be just a little bit faster than FireWire800, but noticeably faster than FireWire400 and USB2.0.

In order for eSATA drives to be hot swapable like USB or Firewire drives you MUST have an eSATA controller. This can be on the Mobo or through a PCI card. A eSATA to SATA bracket like with the Calvary frive will NOT support hot swapping. This is a biggy for me as I won't have the drive on all the time but don't want to have to reboot in order to shut the drive off.

Just like most connections there are PCMCIA adapters for eSATA so I can use the Seagate drive (eSATA only) with my laptop if necessary.

So it looks like I am going to get the Seagate over the Calvary. It is a little more expensive than the Calvary but I can also get it locally rather than waiting for delivery.

A few points:

I believe eSATA is simply SATA with some extra shielding built into the cabling. So it should pretty much act and perform as if you had an internal SATA.

$170 for the seagate (plus tax) seems kinda pricey to me. Even with the controller card.

There is no way I would ever get an external drive without USB 2 support. It almost defeats the whole purpose of an external in the first place. Sure maybe in a year most people will have eSATA....but then again maybe not. The one thing you can be sure of though is everyone has USB 2 (PC, MAC, Linux), it will always work, and it is pretty fast.

Buying the seagate for $170...and then having to buy a PCMCIA eSATA so you can use it with your laptop just doesn't make sense to me. If you get the other drive you have the advantage of eSATA speed, and USB 2 flexability. And sure the cavalry is hot swapable, you just use usb 2. I mean if you want it to be hot swapable just so you can grab it, plug it in quick, and copy some photos over then isn't usb 2 plenty fast enough for that?

As a side note I noticed the cavalry enclosure looks almost exactly like this thermaltake enclusure I have which I like allot and works great:

http://www.newegg.com …aspx?Item=N82E1​6817145027

Which brings me to another point. Why don't you buy the drive and the enclosure seperately? Both the drives you listed have a 1 year warranty, which downright sucks. You can buy a 500 gig seagate with a 5 year warranty and enclusore sperate for the same price (if not less)

Sathi wrote in post #3069163
A few points:

I believe eSATA is simply SATA with some extra shielding built into the cabling. So it should pretty much act and perform as if you had an internal SATA.

$170 for the seagate (plus tax) seems kinda pricey to me. Even with the controller card.

There is no way I would ever get an external drive without USB 2 support. It almost defeats the whole purpose of an external in the first place. Sure maybe in a year most people will have eSATA....but then again maybe not. The one thing you can be sure of though is everyone has USB 2 (PC, MAC, Linux), it will always work, and it is pretty fast.

Buying the seagate for $170...and then having to buy a PCMCIA eSATA so you can use it with your laptop just doesn't make sense to me. If you get the other drive you have the advantage of eSATA speed, and USB 2 flexability. And sure the cavalry is hot swapable, you just use usb 2. I mean if you want it to be hot swapable just so you can grab it, plug it in quick, and copy some photos over then isn't usb 2 plenty fast enough for that?

As a side note I noticed the cavalry enclosure looks almost exactly like this thermaltake enclusure I have which I like allot and works great:

http://www.newegg.com …aspx?Item=N82E1​6817145027

Which brings me to another point. Why don't you buy the drive and the enclosure seperately? Both the drives you listed have a 1 year warranty, which downright sucks. You can buy a 500 gig seagate with a 5 year warranty and enclusore sperate for the same price (if not less)

Have you looked around at prices for any external with eSATA? My guess is no if you think $170 is pricey (Check Pricegrabber for more info). Also, buying that external case ($35.99) and an internal drive isn't going to save me any money. It just means that now I have two manufacturers (and possibly 2 retailers) to deal with if I have any trouble.

The reason I would like it to be hot swapable is so that I can turn it on and off when I want, not take it somewhere. Most likely it will sit in the same exact spot for its entire life. But it will not be used all the time so why keep it running?

You do make a valid point in that buying the Seagate and the PCMCIA adapter ($35) possibly seems sensless. However, I don't think my laptop is very fast when transferring files from the card reader to the HDD via USB so using this external via USB might also be really slow. Hence the need for the adapter.

In2Photos wrote in post #3068218
I am looking to buy an external hard drive and have narrowed my search down to 2 units. One is the Cavalry CAXM37500 and the other is the Seagate ST3500601XS-RK (please note that I can get the Seagate drive locally for $169.99 so the huge difference in price from Newegg is not a factor just for comparison purposes).

Now to the questions. The Cavalry uses an eSATA to SATA adapter that mounts to the case like a PCI card but does not take up a PCI slot on the Mobo. IT simply allows you to plug the adapter into a SATA port on the Mobo (I have 3 ports available). The Seagate uses a PCI to eSATA adapter that actually needs to be plugged in to the Mobo (I think this gives you two eSATA connectors though). I only have 2 PCI slots (also a PCI express 1 and 16) and plan to possibly use 1 of these slots for some additional USB ports. That means that both PCI slots would be taken if I choose the Seagate. So which method is better? Is there a downside to using the Seagate when going through the PCI slot? I don't want to spend money for an eSATA drive that can't perform as well as it should. Also, the Cavalry has USB 2.0 connectivity as well so I could hook it up to my laptop if necessary, something I can not do with the Seagate as it is eSATA only. The Seagate has 16MB cache vs. 8MB on the Cavalry. IS that a big deal?

Any other things I should consider?

The Seagate FreeAgent™ Pro comes with 5 year warranty. I do not know of any other hard drive company, internal or external, that can beat or match this.

I just picked up a Connectland Enclosure that supports eSATA + USB 2.0 for around $45 from newegg.com and at the same time got a Western Digital 250GB SATA II 16MB cache OEM hard drive for $69. The enclosure comes with an internal IO eSATA connection that plugs in to an available SATA motherboard connection.

After setting up my new computer last week I just took my hard drive from my previous setup, plugged it in the enclosure and quickly moved all my files to my new desktop.

computer that i build has a esata adapter at the back and planning to use that for the backup....

Just FYI
The PCI card that comes with the Seagate is not a bad thing, it is a good thing.
Seagate is offering you a pair of additional Sata ports (e-sata) so you aren't forced to use ones that may not be available on your Mobo.

The other solution is simply an adapter that goes from normal internal Sata to the e-sata connector. You can get thsi same part for a few dollars if you don't want the extra e-sata ports or to use the PCI slot.

USB2 would be handy, but you can also get an E-sata cardbus adapter for your laptop, or even a USB2 to Esata (I think) so this is not a make or break issue.

Lastly there are a ton of Seagate E-Sata models with USB2 as well (I couldn't even find one without USB2 ? )
http://www.newegg.com …n=seagate+esata​&x=14&y=32

You have probably already made a purchase by now, but the problem that I see with both of those drives is they only have 8 MB cache. That will be a bottleneck if you have a computer with a really high speed bus. A drive with 16 MB cache will improve throughput considerably. Unfortunately, I don't think that an external drive can be used in a RAID array which would be the preferred configuration for a new drive if you are already running RAID. I have always been a big fan of Western Digital and my current computer uses two W-D SATA II drives in a RAID1 configuration.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #3169249
Just FYI
The PCI card that comes with the Seagate is not a bad thing, it is a good thing.
Seagate is offering you a pair of additional Sata ports (e-sata) so you aren't forced to use ones that may not be available on your Mobo.

The other solution is simply an adapter that goes from normal internal Sata to the e-sata connector. You can get thsi same part for a few dollars if you don't want the extra e-sata ports or to use the PCI slot.

USB2 would be handy, but you can also get an E-sata cardbus adapter for your laptop, or even a USB2 to Esata (I think) so this is not a make or break issue.

Lastly there are a ton of Seagate E-Sata models with USB2 as well (I couldn't even find one without USB2 ? )
http://www.newegg.com …n=seagate+esata​&x=14&y=32

Thanks CDS. I have come to realize that the PCI adapter is the way to go, especially since most of them are using the PCI-E 1x slot, and not a standard PCI slot. Now I just have to decide which model I want or if I want to put one together myself.

bill boehme wrote in post #3170148
You have probably already made a purchase by now, but the problem that I see with both of those drives is they only have 8 MB cache. That will be a bottleneck if you have a computer with a really high speed bus. A drive with 16 MB cache will improve throughput considerably. Unfortunately, I don't think that an external drive can be used in a RAID array which would be the preferred configuration for a new drive if you are already running RAID. I have always been a big fan of Western Digital and my current computer uses two W-D SATA II drives in a RAID1 configuration.

I haven't actually bought one, yet. Some other things have come up and taken precedence. However, on the subject of RAID I don't currently use a RAID array nor have any immediate plans to do so either. I believe some of the new adapters allow the use of external RAID now though from doing my research. Also most of the drives I am currently considering offer a 16MB cache drive. Thanks for your help.

I am heading out hopefully today to pick up my Hard Drive. Best Buy has the new WD 500 GB USB/eSATA drive for $139.95, no rebates. I still need to pick up a bracket or a PCI card to use the eSATA since the WD does not include one but I will probably wait for that and just use the USB for now and switch later to eSATA.

bill boehme wrote in post #3170148
You have probably already made a purchase by now, but the problem that I see with both of those drives is they only have 8 MB cache. That will be a bottleneck if you have a computer with a really high speed bus. A drive with 16 MB cache will improve throughput considerably. Unfortunately, I don't think that an external drive can be used in a RAID array which would be the preferred configuration for a new drive if you are already running RAID. I have always been a big fan of Western Digital and my current computer uses two W-D SATA II drives in a RAID1 configuration.

I don't see why you can't use external drives in a RAID array; most of my servers RAID external drives (some of the larger ones don't have internal drives at all). But it probably isn't wise to use RAID on a drive intended for backup.

The cache issue is true enough ... 16MBytes is worth having, but again for a backup drive the lack probably isn't a deciding factor.

For backup purposes, having USB as well as eSATA is definitely a feature. After all in a recovery situation without the original PC, connectivity is more important than speed.