Adapter advice for esata please

[wparsonsgisnet]

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I just bought 2 500GB 4-way D2 LaCie HD's (reasonable at $140).

 

I don't have esata ports on my Gateway Pentium-D cpu so am looking for esata pci adapters. I see them at $30 at MicroCenter and $50 at LaCie.

 

What should I look for in this adapter board (the LaCie's will only do 1.5GB speed).

 

Thanks to all.

[ericperlberg]

Well, I don't know how much this will help because I bought both a PCI Express card for my macpro and a notebook express card. I bought a Firmtek card and 2 bay SATA enclosure for sticking in my own SATA drives (way cheaper than buying LaCie drives and dead easy to use, and hot swappable). The setup has received excellent reviews (dare I say it... Bill, you can google the products for reviews...). Installation was very straightforward. Mount the card in the computer. Install a driver. Bob's your uncle.

 

Bill, you might want to think about getting the enclosure and buying raw SATA drives if you think you'll be archiving info this way. It's way cheaper even after only a few drives and with the enclosure I get 3gb throughput. It really is fast, the eSata on my laptop is faster than the internal laptop drive. the enclosure is very quiet and has a 3 position fan switch but I only use slow. The card is a nice red pc card (they have 2 port and 4 port and PCI Xpress and PCI old style).

 

The only thing which maybe could catch you out is apparently there are 2 different cables for hooking up e-sata. There's an explanation on the firmtek site. You need to make certain you get the correct cable connector for your particular card and drive.

[wparsonsgisnet]

Eric, thanks for that. I agree with everything you say and expect to get there.

 

These are my first eSATA drives and I like to take baby steps. I realize these are only 1.5 GB-spec drives, but they are a nice first step and not too expensive.

 

I don't plan to utilize RAID so haven't gone to an exclosure yet -- tho the real estate on my desk is suffering from the presence of my disk farm.

 

When I've gotten esata under my belt, I'll revisit the enclosure plan. I agree completely about the costs and would like fans to be a part of the configuration. (Actually, I have to go home tonite to see if I've even got a free pci slot.)

 

Regards,

[ericperlberg]

even 1.5gb throughput is fast, almost double the nominal speed of firewire 800. I don't find RAID a compelling argument for small office use either, just use my 6 drives as 3 individual drives and their backups which are scheduled once a day using mac software called SuperDuper.

[wparsonsgisnet]

...I don't find RAID a compelling argument for small office use either, just use my 6 drives as 3 individual drives and their backups which are scheduled once a day using mac software called SuperDuper.

 

Eric, this is exactly what I do (with individual drives). As I am the only user, RAID doesn't make any sense. I "mirror" as well, in my case with Second Copy in windoze. I also keep a 3rd copy of my digital negatives on another drive in a fireproof box in my detached garage. My original process was to have 2 copies -- until one of those drives went south. As soon as I got it replaced so I could sleep again, I moved to 3 copies.

 

I do like the idea of a rack with fans and less cabling. Next pass.

 

For now, I need to select a PCI adapter card. I think I'll wander over to Micro Center and ask some questions this weekend.

 

Regards,