eSATA running slower than USB2

Uncle Petey · 7 Apr 2013 at 14:48

A LOT slower...

I just put my WD Blue 500GB HDD into an external dock (Icy Box IB-112StUS2-B) and used a PCI slot eSATA-SATA connected to the same SATA port on the mobo that the HDD used when connected internally and got ridiculously slow speeds.

My Steam library is on this drive and games take an age to load.
I then tried it via USB2 and load times are acceptable, but still noticeably a little slower than a direct sata-mobo connection.

Here are the HD Tune results for each:

eSATA:

USB2:

Any idea why it's this bad? I've tried two different esata cables and no change.
I may just return it and get a USB3 dock/caddy instead if this can't be sorted.

Cheers for any help

AbsenceJam · 7 Apr 2013 at 16:29

What does the info tab show for the active udma mode?

Uncle Petey · 7 Apr 2013 at 16:43

AbsenceJam · 7 Apr 2013 at 22:42

That is strange then. Check if there's anything accessing the disk when it's connected by eSATA (various sysinternals tools do this), though to be honst even if that's the case the average throughput would be higher.
Have you tried a different port and removing the controller in device manager then rebooting?

Uncle Petey · 8 Apr 2013 at 19:51

Not tried those options yet. I'll have a go later.

Cheers.

Freddie1980 · 9 Apr 2013 at 13:30

There might be an issue with your motherboard BIOS, it might be worth flashing to the latest BIOS and or updating the drivers for your boards controller.

Just out of interest why do we have eSATA? Why can't we just run a regular SATA cable to out devices?

AbsenceJam · 9 Apr 2013 at 14:55

Freddie1980 said:
There might be an issue with your motherboard BIOS, it might be worth flashing to the latest BIOS and or updating the drivers for your boards controller.

Just out of interest why do we have eSATA? Why can't we just run a regular SATA cable to out devices?

You can, but it has a much better connector, shielded cables and a proper eSATA port transmits at a higher power. eSATAp is a small + since it didn't really get anywhere.

Uncle Petey · 10 Apr 2013 at 14:24

I believe I'm on the latest bios.
I'll have a little look at the available drivers and utilities though.
Probably should've mentioned that the mobo is an Asus Z77V-LX.

Tbh, usb2 may not be the greatest connection in the world, but it's doing fine with games and media.
Anything I need to run really quickly is on the SSD. Still, it would be nice to get to the bottom of this.