eSata Card

[Falcon Speed]

Currently, I have one of these hooked to my motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812816068

It uses eSata cable to sata ports. I am not quite sure if this would be considered as an eSata card.

So, here is my question, Would this be considered as a Sata connection or eSata Connection. I know that SATA is faster than eSata.

JDC, i carefully looked at the link that you provided the other day. And now, I understand why you recommended that case with the dual-top external sata ports. That is pretty cool.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811133182

BTW... before you pull out the hard drive during the hotswap stage, does Windows send a command to tell the case to cut the power to the hard drive? I have always wonder if it is safe to abruptly disconnect the power to the hard drive when it is running. Would this abruption cause any damage to the spinning head? I have been doing it for years now with the eSata setup and have not had one fail drive yet. The only time was when I plugged the hard drive back in wrong with the molex. That is just stupid human error.

[Train]

That card has a 3.0 GB/s Transfer rate

That is SATA II transfer rate.

eSATA with SATA III transfer rate. Example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816124044

[Falcon Speed]

Hi Train,

I am not sure what mine is. It came with my gigabyte motherboard but looks exactly like the one that I provided.

Here is my board:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...d=3450&dl=1#sp

On my board, is the Marvell 9128 chip the most ideal to use interms of speed? Right now, I have RAID 0 against the southbridge.

In compliance to get the full 6Gb/s, the drive has to be SATA3 too right?

[Train]

Marvell 9128 chip:

2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (GSATA3_6, GSATA3_7) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
Support for SATA RAID 0, and RAID 1

So, yes the motherboard will support to 2 SATA III devices.
Now remember, SSDs have a onboard controller too. Which normal SATA devices do not have. DO NOT mix them up.

[Falcon Speed]

Now remember, SSDs have a onboard controller too. Which normal SATA devices do not have. DO NOT mix them up.

Yes, I am aware of that too. They come in SATA2 or SATA3 as well.

Do you know the answer to the bolded question in my original post?

[Train]

Read the other thread.

[Falcon Speed]

about abruption of power?

[SpywareDr]

Wikipedia: Hard disk drive > Landing zones and load/unload technology

However, if you remove/disconnect/power-down a device while data is being written to it, you risk data corruption.

[Falcon Speed]

That is exactly what I was looking for. I did not know the terminology. So it is called Landing Zone.

Is there a program that to ensure to move the head to the landing zone or at least give status?

So, I guess that I can sit there all day and plug and unplug my hard drive with abruption of power?

However, if you remove/disconnect/power-down a device while data is being written to it, you risk data corruption.

I use ACHI which means when I disconnect, I usually click on the icon in the systray to release the drive before I disconnect the power. I should be safe there.

[Train]

Just remember to give it time for the data to be written to the drive first.

[SpywareDr]

Is there a program that to ensure to move the head to the landing zone or at least give status?

Wikipedia: Hard disk drive > Landing zones and load/unload technology

Disks are designed such that either a spring or, more recently, rotational inertia in the platters is used to park the heads in the case of unexpected power loss. In this case, the spindle motor temporarily acts as a generator, providing power to the actuator.
...

So, I guess that I can sit there all day and plug and unplug my hard drive with abruption of power?

Wikipedia: Hard disk drive > Landing zones and load/unload technology

... wear and tear on these microscopic components eventually takes its toll. Most manufacturers design the sliders to survive 50,000 contact cycles before the chance of damage on startup rises above 50%. However, the decay rate is not linear: when a disk is younger and has had fewer start-stop cycles, it has a better chance of surviving the next startup than an older, higher-mileage disk ...

[Falcon Speed]

This is the exact same bracket that I have hooked to my sata ports (set to marvell SATA3).

It is in the picture with the yellow cables 5th entries down:
http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=...8&fr=yfp-t-701

How can I find the specification of transfer rate for this? It is eSata to Sata. It came from another motherboard which I tossed a while ago and could not remember.

[Train]

Since that is just a bracket with eSATA connections, it should be the same speed as the controller. Mine transfers at 60+ the same as the transferring from one internal hdd to the other. OOPS, that is the speed I got with a 5800 rpm SATA II hdd.

[Falcon Speed]

Thank you for the confirmation on that.

The original bracket that I posted, it only transfer at 3gbs while the marvell controller can transfer up to 6gbs. I just wanted to make sure that it is not the same as the bracket in the original post because that would limit the range to 3gbs. I have that exact same one from Gigabyte in my box.

My new hard drive is a SATA3 with 7200 rpm, plugged to the Marvell controller. I am not sure why it is not reaching up to 6gbs from the benchmark in CrystalMark.

[Train]

The physical read / write limitations of the hdd.
Switch to a SSD and it will be bunches faster. Much more spendy too.