Hacking USB 3.0??

[OrGoN3]

esata v3 and usb3 are both 600MB/sec. sata is not better than usb3. If I'm using a usb2 PC I' also use an enclosure with a esata port on it, but usb3 makes that redundant.

Where to start. First off, there is no eSATA v3, or v2 for that matter. The only official version of eSATA is 3gbps. Any motherboard claiming to have eSATA 6gbps is just using the internal SATA-III controller, and it's not necessarily compatible with the future eSATA 6gbps standard. The new eSATA, and current SATA-III, will be and is 6gbps (750MB/s). USB 3.0 is 4.8gbps (600MB/s). The new Firewire will be 6.4gbps (800MB/s). Please note, those are their theoretical top speeds. They will never be able to sustain those speeds in the real world. I don't think they've been able to top 575MB/s with USB 3.0, and I know they've hit 600MB/s with SATA-III.

In any case, your entire post is redundant: redundantly wrong. So yeah, having both ports is far from redundant. But then again, you need a USB 3.0 controller card to gain any performance. If it's plugged into a USB 2.0 port, it will be the same as any other USB 2.0 device.

 

[George Dawes]

My mistake, yes, esata has only one revision and is 375MB/s, not 600.

I use a plate to redirect an internal sata port for external use, so always based speed on that. Of course eSata is a separate standard.

I know speeds are theoretical - but that isn't an issue at this point in time, no hard drive can saturate either usb3 or e/sata (obviously this will change). Obviously you'd need a USB3 controller card to gain any performance, that is just common sense (and well established in this thread)

I never claimed either port were redundant, but for copying wii isos to a drive, USB3 makes taking a drive out of a case to hook upto e/sata redundant. lrn2context, as the kids are all saying.

 

[OrGoN3]

Oh, so by eSATA you meant SATA. I geuss that would be a context error, as the kids say these days. The point wasn't whether any current drive can fully saturate USB 3.0 or SATA-III or eSATA, it was that they aren't the same speeds and they aren't 600MB/s.

It's a thread about USB 3.0, and you were giving false information. So I just clarified. It's the internet, don't take things so serious.

As for copying files to a drive, there are some portable USB 3.0 drives and they do transfer at higher rates than a USB 2.0 portable drive. While they aren't anywhere near their full throughput, they are higher enough to see a difference if transferring a large chunk of data.

Obviously the Wii would have no benefit, but that's just reading so who cares?

 

[George Dawes]

But usb3+overhead is still way faster than esata (I overestimated esata speed - as OrGoN3 says, it is only 375MB/s. if USB3 has 225MB/s overhead I'll be more than shocked).

Either way, the hard drive is the slowest link in the chain. USB3/SATA3/ESATA will all run at the same speed for copying some wii isos over. The only difference is USB3 (and an enclosure with a ESATA port) can just be plugged into a PC without opening the enclosure up (which admittedly is incredibly easy with most, but why bother if you don't have to?).