Question about e-SATA/ USB enclousre- Urgetn pls

I am in the market today to buy an external HD. Wanted a seagate one. I could find 2.5 inch 54000 RMP ( Seagate FreeAgentGo) with USB but no option for e-SATA.

1- At the moment the PC I own has no e-SATA port but I want to get an e-SATA external HD as it might be very common in future( just a guess- being a bit future proof!!).

I aaked the shoop keeper and he told me that he can put a seagate HD in an enclosure that have a USB and e-SATA port as well. It,s fine but only thing that I don,t know that if I use this enclosure just as a USB one, whether i will needed an extra powere supply or not?

The enclosure does has a separate power supply port that can be powered from two USB ports of the computer through a wire supplied along with the case. I am not sure whether this power supply will be needed if I use e-SATA port or I will need it even if I use only the USB port for data transfer. Shop keeper has no idea about it.

Any help will be appreciated?

2- Also is it a good idea even to get an e-SATA capable case as I don,t find e-SATA port so commomn and USB3 is on the way that may make e-SATA obsolete even before it can become mainstream.

3- If I get a seagate external HD( Seagate FreeAgentGo) with USB port only, later on, in the future, can I just change this case with that of an e-SATA capable one, if needed?

Thanks

 

aigle:

I can answer some (but not all) of your questions.

I have a 2.5" SATA drive installed in an inexpensive Vantec NextStar3 enclosure which I use with my laptop for backup/image storage.

The enclosure has both USB and eSata capability. It came with eSata hardware to install into a desktop box. It also has a connection port for an external 5v DC power supply, (which was not included) - and therefore, I don't use.

USB: The supplied USB cable is designed to connect from the enclosure to 2 separate USB ports. On my laptop, connection to just 1 USB port is adequate to power the external drive.

eSata: My laptop has no eSata port, so I have never used this option. I don't know if an external 5V DC power supply is required when connected to eSata.

 

I think 2.5'' usually don't need power supply, but you can check the specific external case specs. I don't know if eSATA makes a difference either.

For 3., perhaps you can check here, or post a Q:
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board?board.id=freeagent&nobounce

 

I forgot, it does void the warranty, that much i found:
http://stx.lithium.com/stx/board/message?board.id=warrantyinfo&message.id=3&nobounce#M3

 

Aigle,

My motherboard only had 2 Sata ports so I added this PCI controller card. This particular cards offers 2 additional SATA ports which can be either 2 SATA internal or 2 ESata enternal or 1 of each. It has worked very well with XP Pro and Acronis products. Purchased over the web from BestBuy.

PNY-2-Channel SATA II RAID PCI Card-P-DSA150-PCI-RF

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...rd-P-DSA150-PCI-RF&cp=1&lp=1&_requestid=76636



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This is SATA docking station and will accept either 2.5 or 3.5 drives. The drives just slide in and the drive is always exposed. I like it for its simplicity to accept both size drives and is very quick and easy to insert the drive. This docking unit plugs into either the ESata port mentioned above or has a USB connect option.

Thermaltake ST0005U BlacX 2.5/3.5 Hard Drive Dock - SATA to USB and eSATA (T925-1252)

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3829117&csid=_21

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Antec also offers a external sata enclosure (3,5") which can be either usb or ESata. This has a fan and also functions very nice. There is the usual hassle of inserting the drive into the enclosure and tightening the screws, etc but has worked very well. I ordered this from the Staples store.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...p=&qp=&list=n&iht=y&usc=All Categories&ks=960

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You add your own SATA disk to any of these enclosures.

 

@Tadoussac, Pedro, Groverh

Thanks, very helpful replies. I think as long as I don,t have an e-SATA port I will just go with USB Seaget FreeAgent ATM.

Thanks

 

Yes, typically a usb device is rated at I think 5volts draw from the usb header. So in most cases an external 3.5" drive will need a transformer for power. some of the 2.5" varieties I saw can run only off the voltage provided by the usb header.

When considering eSate, generally even a 3.5" drive will draw power from the eSata port. I am pretty sure that is one of the major differences of it being 'e' sata. There is no doubt that eSata is like having a harddrive, and usb is like having a flash drive. The speed difference is HUGE. Myself, I bought one that is usb only because I got the enclosure really cheap, and it was a LianLi. But if I had money to throw around, I would buy the usb/eSata combo.

Sul.

 

Indeed. eSATA seems to be much faster, so it would be noticeable with large files / lots of files and so on.
My own choice was Seagate internal HD and a separate casing with USB and eSATA.
I don't use eSATA but the price difference was tiny, so i opted for that. I always have the option.

Personally, i can live with USB even if it seems sluggish at times (backup and so on).

 

Thanks for all replies. I ended up with Seagate FreeAgentGo.

 

Looks like a nice drive, aigle.

FWIW, I have the same enclosure that Tadoussac has.....a Vantec NextStar3. I use it in conjunction with a 2.5" SATA drive to back up my wife's laptop. Her laptop does, in fact, have an eSATA port but not a damn thing comes out of it.....absolutely *zero* power; I need to plug in the USB cable in order to get any power to the drive. I presume that's the rationale behind having the connection port for an external power supply.

I'm pretty sure I read something about a "Power Over eSATA initiative but, to my knowledge, there has not been a whole lot of progress. Perhaps interest waned after USB 3.0 was announced.

 

A guy brought a 3.5" hdd enclosure to a LAN party once with usb and esata. At the time I had an Asus A8N32SLI mobo with an esata built in. It worked with only the esata cable just fine. If using the usb, it needed the power. Go figure.

Sul.