IOGear eSATA 3 Gbps Dual Port ExpressCard/34 GPS702E3
by IOGEAR
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: IOGEARAudio: English (Original Language)
Format: CD
Platform: Windows
Model: GPS702E3
Product features:
- EXPRESSCARD/34
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of IOGear eSATA 3 Gbps Dual Port ExpressCard/34 GPS702E3
Customer Review: On a PC, installation easy. Ext. drives faster than USB or FireWire.
Summary: 5 Stars
If you check on the web, I think you'll see that, given the limitations of the speed of current SATA hard disk drives themselves, an external SATA drive connected to the PC via an eSATA adapter like the Iogear # GPS702E3, will transfer data faster than if it were connected via USB, FireWire 800 or even USB 3.0 (which is just coming out now).
This is due to current HDD's being internally slower than their SATA/eSATA connection to the PC's internal bus. This means if you need speed from an external HDD, then you should switch to eSATA, and forget about USB or FireWire. I found that this Iogear adapter installs easily and works fine on an older PC.
As an example, I have a 2.5 yr. old Lenovo laptop PC with an Intel Core Duo 2.20 Mhz CPU & 4 Gb of RAM. It runs Windows Vista Ultimate on a 100 Gb 7,200 rpm internal EIDE/PATA HDD.
Unfortunately, some time ago I ran out of HDD space & so I installed two 500 Gb 7,200 rpm exernal HDD's (specifically, two Western Digital My Book Premium ES Edition HDD's). One of these external drives holds my documents and the other is for backups only (the internal HDD is just for Windows & other programs). Like on a lot of PC's, these initially were connected to the laptop via USB.
What I found wast that, using Norton Ghost with both drives connected via USB, it took about 2 hours to backup the documents from the one external drive to the other. This seemed too long to me.
So I disconnected both external drives from their USB connections and reconnected them to the laptop via eSATA using the Iogear eSATA adapter #GPS702E3. The installation was smooth. I just plugged the adapter into the ExpressCard slot and Windows saw it, searched automatically for its drivers and installed them. Then I shut the PC off, connected the two external HDD's to the adapter and rebooted. Both drives appeared in Windows Explorer just like before. No problems.
Voila! Using Norton Ghost with both drives connected via eSATA, now it took only about 15 minutes to back up the same documents from the one external drive to the other. That's about 1/8th the time it took with USB. I'd try it with FireWire, but I only have FireWire 400 on this old laptop (not FireWire 800), so it wouldn't mean much.
Some cautions, however, may be in order. On a PC when installing the adapter I think it is best not to connect the HDD's to the adapter until you are sure Windows has recognized it and successfully installed the drivers. Then, with the PC off, connect the drives to the adapter and reboot. Also, I believe there are some issues with eSATA drives not being so reliably "hot swappable," so it is best, if the PC is running, not to disconnect the drives, and/or reconnect them, like you might be able to do with USB devices. Disconnecting or reconnecting an eSATA drive with the PC running may cause Windows to stop "seeing" the drive until you reboot, at least from what I have read.
I'm a happy camper now, with more free time to roast marshmallows ;)
Description of IOGear eSATA 3 Gbps Dual Port ExpressCard/34 GPS702E3
eSATA 3Gbps 2-port ExpressCard/34. The IOGEAR eSATA 3Gbps Dual Port ExpressCard/34 adds 2 eSATA ports to your laptop computer. It is great for users who want to add SATA connectivity to their laptops but do not want to buy a whole new laptop. Devices commonly used with eSATA ExpressCard/34 adapter are hard drives DVD drives and Zip drives. The slim portable design fit easily into a laptop bag or backpack. With support for hard disk hot-plugging this eSATA adapter provides a convenient way to add high speed high capacity hard disk drives to your laptop. It works in any available ExpressCard slot and supports data transfer rates up to 3.0 Gbps. This 2-port eSATA ExpressCard adapter offers independent command fetch scatter/gather and command execution features. In addition it also supports 48-bit LBA for drives with capacity larger than 137 GB. ExpressCards the brand new standard designed to replace CardBus effectively quadruples the amount of available computing bandwidth. This results in faster music downloads smoother streaming video and lightning-fast access to mass-storage devices.Digital Cameras and Photo Categories
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