Suggestions for E-sata Flash drive

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necrophile

[H]ard|Gawd
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Sep 6, 2008
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Lo,

I have found myself in need a of a portable storage device and figure a flash drive will suit my needs. However, whilst I was looking for a usb one I noticed you can now get e-sata connections and I have one on my case so for flexibilty of use I thought I would look for one.

I noticed the ocz throttle primarily but also the likes of the kanguru e-flash drives. I am not too sure what I will be storing on this but don't want to be too restricted.

Does anyone have any experience of these types of drive, are they worth it over a plain old usb one?
 
it all depends, usb drives are way more portable. Everyone has usb ports on their computer so you'll be able to use usb flash anywhere. Now with esata you're more restricted.
The big + for esata flash is that is way faster something like ocz throttle has about ~3-4x read speed of regular usb flash
 
I don't mind having to take a usb cable in my bag for compatability of something like the throttle or for powering the device with non powered e-sata ports, but the advantage I was thinking of the kanguru is it has a usb on one end and an e-sata on another.

I generally don't like to restrict myself too much with purchases incase I do need something in the future and don't have it cause I was miserly before.

The OCZ is quite cheap though compared to others I have found.
 
Toms did an article on this not too long ago, and compared several drives.
 
Yes, I have browsed a few articles and am still undecided.

I was hoping someone may have some experience as as much as I like reviews, user experience is also good.

I was looking at portable hard drives like LG's xd1 but decided I didn't need that much space and 16 or 32GB seems a decent size for handling anything I could throw at it.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/storage/review/2009/07/04/OCZ-Throttle-eSATA-Flash-Drive-32GB/p2

Looking at this review the differences especially in small files really shows up but again I would like to hear personal opinions, if possible of people who use them for maybe a few months and if any niggles become apparant.
 
That looks sweet, I did not even know there were eSATA flash drives. I have an HD dock that is esata and usb and the esata is much faster, so I can totally understand wanting one of these. Let us all know what it's like if you buy one.
 
Decided due to availability to go with the ocz.

Nice enough looking thing and seeing as I don't mind cables not too bothered about the usb to mini usb cable needed.

One thing of course I forgot was that I needed ACHI support enabled in the bios, seeing as I hadn't installed the driver for it I had to use a registry edit to enable it in windows first. Without it windows didn't see it without a hardware rescan in the device driver it created errors on the drive if pulled out when the computer is still on.

Works well enough and is faster by about 3x than the USB on it's own, whether or not it is worth the time saving over a cheaper USB only one is down to opinion but it is the same as buying a mid range gfx card over a high end, yes, they both display gfx but you have to sacrifice something going with the mid range.

Probably not recommended for those who like bang for buck though.
 
I think there are some out there, but i also been researching to get esata/usb flash. There seem to be 2 enclousres (2 brands with each),

Throttle 32 GB eSATA Flash Drive
Silicon Power eSATA / USB SSD 32gb flash drive

Ridata RDESSD32G-R-BX 32 GB External Solid State Drive Racer with Dual eSATA and USB
Kanguru 32GB E-flash (esata, USB2.0)

I was almost set to go with the Ridata mostly out of design, mostly is convinience, due that my laptop has a powered esata port, i would only need the cable at home where my desktop dont have a powered port, and becuase it has a USB conection in case i need to move stuff to another computer. While the OZC n Silicon power i would have to carry the cable with me always. But i read a user review about problem with using the usb cable to power n not able to get good speed with USB anymore ..... so now i dont know what to do. :(
 
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You don't need the cable if you have a powered port, my desktop case doesn't so I have to power it with the cable although you can pick up powered expansion brackets easy enough.

The cable wound up is about the same size as the device itself so personally, I always have room for it in a pocket or bag.

Still, I haven't had a chance to use it for any length of time so don't know if any annoying niggles will appear. I ain't in the US so my choices are not as broad as yours or that is at least what I found.
 
necrophile said:
You don't need the cable if you have a powered port, my desktop case doesn't so I have to power it with the cable although you can pick up powered expansion brackets easy enough..
Click to expand...

Well i what i mean by having to carry the cable with the OZC/Silicon is that in case i need to transfer files to another computer that dont have esata i would need to have the usb cable with me, while the Ridata/Kanguru have a USB conection already so that allows me to use the USB without the need of the cable, so i could leave the cable home with my desktop ;) .
 
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