Best external HD solution

anything I don't mind

anything I don't mind

anything I don't mind

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I am looking in to what the best solutions is, i want to spend the least amount of money and have the fastest transfer rates i can get.

I have this motherboard:

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2761#ov

I have several internal sata hard drives that i want to access to backup data on to them.

I was thinking of purchasing a usb 3 pcie card for £10 and then using a usb3 to sata adapter with the card. But then i realized that my motherboard came with an esata expansion slot. I have never used it and never used esata before.

Should i go down the usb 3 route or should i try and use the esata ? the hds are standard 1tb 3gbps sata.

edit: sorry for wrong section
 
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Looking at that motherboard you have USB 2 and firewire built in. I cannot see the esata you speak of.

You could either just use the usb2, although slower will do the job. Depends on how much you will be using the external hd I suppose.

You could use the firewire port which is fairly fast. I think the one you have is firewire 400.

Or you could buy a USB3 or esata card which will give you usb 3/esata ports at the rear to plug into. Some also give internal headers for connecting front io ports.

I would think the usb 3 route would be better as it is more flexible I think as USB drives are more commonplace and widely used. But if it is only going to be used by the one drive then I would be leaning towards esata.
 
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the motherboard came with the esata expansion card but i have never used it and not sure if i have the cables. I will give it a try this evening and see if it works ok. apparently it needs a power cable as well, not sure if it came with that.

895.jpg


card on the right.
 
you'll just need to make sure that the external drive has a eSATA connector as well and a eSATA connection cable has to be sourced

Sorry for stating the obvious

EDIT

On a personal note.... I went the dock solution... like these

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/search_results.php?sortby=&groupid=&search=dock

You can get them with eSATA as well. A lot more flexible than having several external HDD's all over the place. Pop in the drive, backup and store

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-065-BT

mine has a IDE connector as well ... I'm an old fuddy duddy and still have a pile of old IDE drives knocking about
 
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That addon card is not going to work because it uses internal sata ports. All my sata ports are full. So the options are a pcie external sata and esata to sata cable or a usb 3 to sata adapter and pcie usb3 card.

On windows 7 i have experieced a problem when copying over USB where at the end of the transfer it seems to hang for a number of seconds. I google this and some other people have the same problem.
 
groen said:
In the end i bought a StarTech 1 Port PCI-Express eSATA for £10 and a Akasa eSATA Cable for SATA HDD and SSD

EWdx4.jpg.png


Hopefully this is fastest and for £16 not too expensive.
Click to expand...

Is that the Flexstor version powered via the USB connector?

let us all know how you get on ie,,, does it work? Transfer speeds etc.

Would be interesting to have the knowledge to use ourselves or reccomend to others in the future :D
 
If it's powered by the USB cable then he might be struggling depending on what HDD's he's using.

You can power 2.5" HDD's from USB but I don't believe it will power a 3.5" HDD.
 
Surveyor said:
If it's powered by the USB cable then he might be struggling depending on what HDD's he's using.

You can power 2.5" HDD's from USB but I don't believe it will power a 3.5" HDD.
Click to expand...

mmmmmmmmm yes I see what you mean

still be interested in the outcome though :)

EDIT

Had another look at it and it looks like 2.5" and SSD's and no go for 3.5"
 
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realy :( that sucks, well i can always return it see what happens. Maybe ill find another power source some how. What a shame it doesn't work for 3.5. But for £6 probably not even worth the time to return it.

yea it says on the page Simple connection for 2.5" SATA and SSD drives. Stupid i didn't see it, just thought ssd then it would work etc. I just cancelled the order but the esata card is still on order. Now just need to find correct cable setup for the esata. Might need a plug and esata adapter to sata cable.


Do you know if esata can power 3.5" drives? You can get cables that go from esata with sata data and power cable on the end, but does it work for 3.5" drives?

last edit: Ok what i think i will do is use the card adapter above that offers an external molex off an internal one, then i just need to either find a female molex to sata power or a molex with a sata converter, then ill just buy a normal esata to sata cable. Unless you can let me know if i can power 3.5" off a esata port using one of these cables:

ajZS0.gif.png


http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CB-005-LL&groupid=1929&catid=1928&subcat=
 
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groen said:
Do you know if esata can power 3.5" drives? You can get cables that go from esata with sata data and power cable on the end, but does it work for 3.5" drives?
Click to expand...

I think you'd need eSATAp for that:

eSATAp

If you're keeping the eSATA card then you'd be better off with something like this:

Akasa DuoDock Docking Station

Mains powered and you can just slot in any HDD you like without messing around with cables.

Alternatively get a USB 3.0 add in card and a USB 3.0 caddy or just live with USB 2.0 speed.
 
I can't see how this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-060-AK&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=72 is going meet the requirements of best external solution that i am after.

That uses usb 2 connection, i could just purchase one of those sata to usb2 adapters for £8 if i just want usb 2. The point of the thread was to find out if esata was a better option than usb 3 considering that i have an old motherboard and will have to purchase a pciexpress adapter for either solution.

But thanks for your help. Looks like the solution that i will have to do is using the external molex adapter that came with the motherboard and then purchase a esata to sata cable and molex to sata cable or converter.

pcie esata £10
female molex to sata power £2
esata cable £6 (nice one)

I think i have a molex extension but ideally i would like a female molex to sata power cable but i can't find any decent long ones. What would be ideal is if i could find a mains power to sata adapter, those £8 usb 2 adapters come with a mains power for sata, might use that.
 
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read the spec again :)

it has eSATA connection - which is what you have been harping on about wanting to do :)

this is a review of the USB3 version but note that connector on the back (at 1.25 minutes) - eSATA


all the cables and connections are included in the box
 
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OK, sorry i did not see that it has esata port as well. That would be perfect, i am going to see if i can work out a cheaper option, if not then ill just go with the dock. The dock is better because that way i don't have hds lying on top of my pc with cables coming off it etc. But coming in at £12+£27 seems a bit much for something ill rarely use.
 
Depending on your man cave setup and how much your engaged with fixing other peoples problems, recovering data from corrupted drives, backing up NAS/Servers etc etc... you'll be surprised how much you'll actually come to use it.

:)
 
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