eSATA for MacBook Pro

Question

eSATA for MacBook Pro

Is it possible to connect external eSATA drives to a MacBook Pro? If so what do you need. I want to take advantage of the speed gains.

Thanks

Power Mac Quad G5, Macbook Pro C2D 17in 3gig, iMac G4 17inch, iBook G3 turqoise, Mac OS X (10.5.1), I want so many new apple products!

Posted on Feb 6, 2008 3:02 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Rod Hagen

Level 7

32,000 points

Feb 6, 2008 4:22 AM in response to Reelsick Productions

You'll find one option at http://www.sonnettech.com/product/temposataexpress34.html , Reelsick and another at http://firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-2sm2-e/

Bear in mind, though, that eSata will only be a little faster than FW800 (which current MBP's have built in), so you may want to consider whether the price of the additional card is worth it when compared to a FW800 drive if you have a FW800 capable MBP. Barefeats have some useful reports on speed comparisons of the different interfaces -see, for example, http://www.barefeats.com/rosa06.html

Cheers

Rod

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Answer 2

Mar 3, 2008 4:23 PM in response to Rod Hagen

I just bought the PNY ExpressCard... I just installed the 1.1.9 drivers off the CD, plugged up the card... then plugged up the cable.

Everything works flawlessly and it shows as connected via PCI bus and mounts the drive with a SCSI interface. Really impressed. Really fast.

OS X 10.5.2 - MBP 1,1 - 1.1.9 Silicon Image drivers - PNY ExpressCard - Seagate FreeAgent Pro 500GB

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Answer 3

Rod Hagen

Level 7

32,000 points

Mar 3, 2008 4:30 PM in response to PC Defector

That's great PC defector.

Always good to get some feedback when things work out well!

Cheers

Rod

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Answer 4

May 18, 2008 8:08 AM in response to Rod Hagen

Rod Hagen wrote:
Bear in mind, though, that eSata will only be a little faster than FW800 (which current MBP's have built in), so you may want to consider whether the price of the additional card is worth it when compared to a FW800 drive if you have a FW800 capable MBP. Barefeats have some useful reports on speed comparisons of the different interfaces -see, for example, http://www.barefeats.com/rosa06.html

Cheers

Rod

I want to use an external drive (to work off of, not store). Would you still say that there isn't much difference between a firewire 800 and an eSATA express/34? I guess I'd be more concerned with read speed than write speed.

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