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One of the first eSata/USB devices on the market is speedy and very small
We’ve been regularly seeing PCs with the ‘new’ eSata ports for some 18 months now but it’s still relatively rare to find eSata devices to plug into them.
Maxell’s straightforwardly named 32GB Solid State External eSata/USB Hard Drive is one such device, though. It combines eSata and USB connectivity, with a mini-USB port at one end and the eSata connector under a cap at the other. In theory that provides flexibility with the speed of eSata but compatibility with older computers through USB as well.
In practice it’s not quite that simple: very early models of the device only work in Sata mode on combined eSata/USB ports, rather than plain eSata ones. If you’re using the mini-USB connection it works normally. Fortunately, the problem is fixed in the latest ones, and a Maxell-installed firmware update is all that’s needed if you do get one with this problem.
Once we’d tracked down a notebook with a combined port, performance was good. Using eSata we saw transfer speeds of around 20Mbytes/sec, compared with around 15Mbytes/sec over USB2. In raw numbers, that doesn’t sound like much of a boost, though it is 33 per cent faster. Considering it costs twice as much as a basic 32GB USB-only device, it may not be enough of an increase, unless you have specific speed needs.
Whether the Maxell device is right for you is a tricky question. What it boils down to is whether convenience is worth more than capacity. The thinner, smaller SSD wins in terms of size and portability, and it’s certainly hardier than the best USB hard disks. But for roughly the same price it’s possible to pick up a 2.5in external hard disk still pocket-sized, realistically with 15 times the storage space (a 500GB model will cost around £90), or a USB-only SSD may work just as well.
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Pros Slight speed increase over USB; thin and light; robust
Cons High cost premium
Overall A clever piece of kit, but the high price limits its
appeal to the speed freaks only
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#1 USB key / Promising eSATA numbers
This is the #1 USB key in performance, below is a speed test from this devices, I cannot test eSATA for now my comp doesn't have eSATA slot but as you can see USB 2 results are very promising and a step up than what Maxell announced, they have announced 25Mb/s read and 15 write for USB only but that's better in reality, 35Mb/s read and 25Mb/s write in USB mode for 2 differents Maxell keys tested [b]eSATA disabled, using USB 2.0, empty & default NTFS partition[/b] -------------------------------------------------- CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008 hiyohiyo Crystal Dew World : crystalmark.info -------------------------------------------------- Sequential Read : 34.470 MB/s Sequential Write : 25.865 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 31.069 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 23.291 MB/s Random Read 4KB : 4.174 MB/s Random Write 4KB : 1.528 MB/s Test Size : 100 MB Date : 2009/04/23 14:53:55 if you're crawling the 20 pages of this [url=http://www.liberkey.com/forum/support-dans-l-utilisation-de-la-liberkey/206-choisir-sa-cle-usb-test-de-rapidite/page-17.html#15194]thread[/url] (the link points to my Maxell bench, another Maxell bench from the guy who presented it to us is [url=http://www.liberkey.com/forum/support-dans-l-utilisation-de-la-liberkey/206-choisir-sa-cle-usb-test-de-rapidite/page-14.html#14821]here[/url]) about usb key speedtest you can conclude the fastest are both eSATA compatible drives, the OCZ Throttle and Maxell SSD because all other standard USB keys cannot write small files that fast, an external 2.5" hdd cannot reach that read & write speed aswell for small files and about big files no comments, #1 in all areas. I can also add the guy who suggested & convinced me to buy this key in the thread got this results with eSATA turned on: [b]eSATA enabled, empty FAT32 partition[/b] -------------------------------------------------- CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008 hiyohiyo Crystal Dew World : crystalmark.info -------------------------------------------------- Sequential Read : 81.222 MB/s Sequential Write : 47.297 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 71.273 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 35.255 MB/s Random Read 4KB : 7.483 MB/s Random Write 4KB : 1.916 MB/s Test Size : 50 MB Date : 2009/04/16 0:25:38 Monstruous results as you can see, even in USB mode the key is fastest than my samsung 2.5" ATA100 built in my Packard Bell EasyNote portable :D funny. To note that the key is not detected as a removable drive but like a normal drive. As a comparaison I can show you what was the results of my old BUSlink PRO II 8GB, almost all usb keys have these numbers and this BUSlink is supposed to be a "Hi-Speed" 20Mb/s read and 15Mb/s write from BUSlink, that is lower than that in reality [b]standard USB key BUSlink PRO II 8GB[/b] -------------------------------------------------- CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008 hiyohiyo Crystal Dew World : crystalmark.info -------------------------------------------------- Sequential Read : 19.152 MB/s Sequential Write : 6.917 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 19.131 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 3.877 MB/s Random Read 4KB : 4.124 MB/s Random Write 4KB : 0.063 MB/s Test Size : 100 MB Date : 2009/04/22 20:27:20
Posted by ArnaudDOVI, 23 Apr 2009