C90S eSata Transfer Rates

Hi guys I was wondering what everyone else's eSata transfer rates were since mine are virtually the same as USB. Here are mine...

File: Sins of a Solar Empire Demo (536 MB)
OS: Vista x86 Business

Vantec NexStar Drive Dock + SG Barracuda 7200.11 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s:
USB: 12-20 MB/s settling at ~16.6 MB/s
E-SATA: 12-15 MB/s settling at ~13.3 MB/s

Vantec NexStar 3 Enclosure + WD Scorpio 160GB 5400 RPM SATA 1.5Gb/s:
USB: 12-16 MB/s settling at ~14.7 MB/s
E-SATA: 12-15 MB/s settling at ~13.9 MB/s

I copied the file 5 times for each from my internal hdd. Just from observation in the past, it seems to be the same when doing multiple files of various lengths.

 

Try running HD Tune or HD Tach hard disk utilities on both USB and eSATA and see how they compare.

 

Here are the results:


WD w/ USB



WD w/ SATA



Seagate w/ USB



Seagate w/ SATA

Unless I'm reading the results wrong, it looks like SATA connection should be doing better.

 

Your eSATA connection is far outstripping your usb runs on avg transfer in the HDTune benchmark, which is correct. These numbers are pretty different from your 1st post above, which I can't sort through but HDT is more accurate. Specific file transfer times/speeds do vary depending on file size and number of files being transferred - single larger files transfer faster than multiple smaller ones.

The difference you have between the WD and Seagate drive speeds through eSATA is going to be due to 1) platter density, 2) rpm and 3) production generation differences (the 160 WD is based on older tech and will perform slower). Otherwise, the numbers look correct.

I've seen this pop up in all of my hdd's that I've benchmarked over the past couple of years; the 3yo 250 Maxtor is 15-20MB avg transfer slower than my 9mo 320 WD or external 500 over eSATA (in the 60s). I'm now looking to upgrade to one of the new high density single platter WD 320 or dual 640, which will bump avg transfers into the 80+ range .

 

Yeah, the HD Tune results look like what I would expect from USB and eSATA. But based on your real-world transfers, the file transfer took longer on eSATA than USB. Don't know how to explain that based on the HD Tune results.

What version of the eSATA drivers are you running?

 

Yeah, I understand that the two drives will have differing speeds overall, although I didn't really think it'd depend on all those variables you mentioned, heh. Still, I'm just worried that my USB speed is better than the eSATA.

I'm using the JMicron 1.17.18.7 drivers that are listed as the latest for the C90S from Asustek support page.

 

Are you getting the same kind of real-world transfer speeds in XP Pro (I'm assuming the C90S is set up for dual boot based on your sig)? I haven't migrated any of my Windows machines to Vista yet, but in XP Pro, the difference between USB 2.0 and eSATA transfer speeds is noticeable whether I'm using my Vantec Nexstar 3 USB2.0/eSATA drive enclosure or my Thermaltake BlacX USB2.0/eSATA hard drive dock.

 

Haven't tried it in XP since all the transferring happens in Vista. My XP partition is pretty much just for games. I'll try though, to see if the transfer rates are better in XP.

 

The only reason I mention it is that people have been complaining of file transfer issues with Vista. Service Pack 1 was supposed to have helped but I'd like to rule out an OS-related issue before assuming it's hardware-related.

 

try the latest drivers.

ftp://driver.jmicron.com.tw/jmb36x/Win2k_xp_Vista/JMB36X_WinDrv_WHQL_R1.17.38WHQL.zip

 

My experience with eSATA vs. USB.
NB - F8Sn
Enclosure - Mascool 2.5 form factor eSATA_USB/sata (inside)
HD inside enclosure TOSHIBA HDD2D63 (brand new)

Backup of 2 Gb of mixed .jpeg and .exe

Time:
USB -1 min 15 sec.
eSATA - 48 sec.

Note: eSATA via express card is not bootable or my machine

 

Hrm, it looks like it's Vista. Using the same file, the eSata was faster. WinXP doesn't show the transfer rates so I was only able to time it.

Seagate -
USB: 21s
eSata: 16s

Western Digital -
USB: 22s
eSata: 18s

Thanks adolfo, I'll give these a try. Tried looking for them on the site myself yesterday, but they only had the 38X listed.

Update: I tried the driver you linked, but it didn't work. USB is still faster and it's also doing something funny for both USB and eSata where it pauses for about 5 seconds to finalize the file transfer in Vista. I know it's supposed to do this, but it only took a couple seconds at most with the older drivers.

 

oh :S sorry to hear that. I thought it was worth the shot ! Maybe a clean install, not with the recover asus dvds, would make your situation better !