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USB3 vs eSATA

Joined
Jun 10, 2010
Messages
609
For those that have USB3 and eSATA devices, do you think USB3 is worth the upgrade?

If my motherboard already has an eSATA, but no USB3, should I think about getting a third party USB3 adapter?
 
No and no. Stick with eSATA.

In addition, the maximum sustainable throughput of current USB3 implementations is no faster, and usually slower, than current eSATA 3.0Gbps implementations. And there will be no inexpensive USB3 versions of flash memory card readers for the foreseeable future (or put it this way, a USB3 flash card reader that transfers any faster than USB2 speeds will initially cost more than many large-capacity external hard drive kits).
 
For those that have USB3 and eSATA devices, do you think USB3 is worth the upgrade?

If my motherboard already has an eSATA, but no USB3, should I think about getting a third party USB3 adapter?

you could, but right now usb 3.0 flash drives are still trying to get popular, and supplies still don't have the demand volume to make more and lower prices.

so I would wait some more until prices get cheaper
 
USB 3 flash drives are available now and by Christmas there will be dozens on the market.

USB 3 is a one cable solution. Plug in harddrive and go.

You may not get faster speeds over USB 3 over ESATA, so it's not night and day, but USB 3 cards are cheap really. Add a drive enclosure and you have a single cable solution that is fast and easy and powers the drive.

By Christmas a lot of folks are likely to be upgrading as the market gets a lot more USB 3 devices.
 
USB 3 flash drives are available now and by Christmas there will be dozens on the market.

USB 3 is a one cable solution. Plug in harddrive and go.

You may not get faster speeds over USB 3 over ESATA, so it's not night and day, but USB 3 cards are cheap really. Add a drive enclosure and you have a single cable solution that is fast and easy and powers the drive.

By Christmas a lot of folks are likely to be upgrading as the market gets a lot more USB 3 devices.

To complicate the decision a bit, powered eSATA exists as well, so there are single cable solutions for both standards.
 
Powered Esata has a handful of products out there. It never took off at all. Primarily because it served only one task, drives. Flash drives were never built to the standard. Printers, cameras, webcams and the rest could never BE used on Esata, and thus the standard failed to make any impact on the market. USB 3 came along to improve on Esata, and it will do so. It will not be much longer before it begins to appear in every device you can think of that currently uses USB 2. Higher bandwidth will eventually get used, it's inevitable. Remember the days when plain old SATA was never expected to be exceeded? Then along came SSD's and life changed. In time USB 2 will be as "old and outdated" to us as USB 1.1 is. It's just a matter of time.

And the optical option exists in the USB 3 spec so longer cable lengths can be built when that is needed as well.
 
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