Will e-SATA take the place of USB ports?
Posted on 19/12/06 15:24 by geno 888                             
Will e-SATA take the place of USB ports?
ZDNet published an interesting article on the new standard for external ports on computers, the e-SATA (short for external Serial ATA). The best part of this port is that unlike USB and FireWire, e-SATA lets external drives communicate at the same speed as internal drives.

This connector can be found more frequently in recent mainboards, and it is a very interesting alternative to USB and Firewire ports to connect devices externally with high speed. In fact, Universal Serial Bus (USB) connections allows data transfer at a theoretical maximum of 480 megabits per second, and IEEE 1394 "FireWire" connections runs at 400Mbps or 800Mbps. In comparison, eSATA transfers data at 3 gigabits per second.

Some manufacturers are already selling external hard disc drives, and I wonder if in a near future we can see also some optical devices (maybe a 16x Blu-ray or HD-DVD burner...) with an e-SATA connection.

 

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By Dolphinius_Rex, Tuesday 19 December 2006 18:37
Dolphinius_Rex16x HDDVD-R burner? LOL! By the time they get those out we'll have the NEXT external system coming out I think Stick Out Tongue
By kidsafe, Tuesday 19 December 2006 20:52
Yikes... These are vastly different technologies here. FireWire and USB 2.0 are high-speed peripheral buses. They can handle anything from mass storage to networking to audio devices to output devices like printers and input devices like keyboards. eSATA is electronically identical to SATA and is designed strictly for mass storage.
By kidsafe, Tuesday 19 December 2006 20:53
In addition, FireWire buses are capable of supporting 63 devices each. USB 2.0 buses support 127. Each SATA port can only support one drive.
By ItsRick, Wednesday 20 December 2006 04:27
USB can supply power - can eSata?
By Waethorn, Wednesday 20 December 2006 06:03
no
By Waethorn, Wednesday 20 December 2006 06:09
This is kind of a good article though. Anybody remember old flavours of SCSI? It was used not only for hard drives, but also for optical drives all the way back to the original CD-ROM's, as well as scanners, & printers. eSATA *could* be the next external standard. A system would need to maintain regular USB for things like keyboards and mice, and anything else that requires self-powering via the port but doesn't require super-high-speeds. Perhaps eSATA 2.0 will support some kind of power channel to have it power those drool-worthy HD-DVD-RW drives and high speed 90000dpi scanners, but I'm holding on to the hope that Wireless-USB will not be a complete dud.
By 4633, Wednesday 20 December 2006 07:28
So much for taking over....one device at a time...external power source...used mainly for storage....yeah right....Someday I'll give up usb...maybe when a wireless usb exist....Oh NO...someone's gonna steal my idea...damn it...oh well...
By T3R, Wednesday 20 December 2006 11:41
T3Rgeno 888, as a long-time member of CD Freaks, you should already now that it is very unlikely that Blu-ray drives/discs would ever reach 16x CAV reading/recording speed due to physical limitations. In fact, 12x CAV is considerd maximum practical limit at the time being, and we will have to wait for actual models for some time. As for HD DVD, 9x is the limit. 12 x 36 = 432 mbps (max) or 54 MiB/s. Do we still need eSATA for external optics? Well, think again.
By Dennis_Olof, Wednesday 20 December 2006 16:34
This is what will be. USB and Firewire will still be around for a long time, the speed is verry high, it is well proven, working on lots of systems. Besides most addons that use USB2 (firewire800) don't need eSATA. BUT eSATA will become the future standard of connecting addons that require heavy transfer systems. Like for example, harddriver, HD PVR system perhaps, DVD Burners, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray burners, and so on. Even so eSATA is more expencive than USB2. Just as Firewire800 is more expencive than USB2. I think most users prefers USB2 and that eSATA is more likley to replace FireWire800 (at least on the PC platform). Firewire is a good system but the spreading of it has been limited compared to USB and it will probably die out in the end. Even if eSATA becomes popular I don't think we will se a great deal of it integrated on motherboards, more in the form of addon cards.
By Jughead, Wednesday 20 December 2006 19:14
Jughead@Dennis_Olof "Even if eSATA becomes popular I don't think we will se a great deal of it integrated on motherboards, more in the form of addon cards." Of course if any one, Abit already started integrating it. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage.asp?Image=13%2D127%2D011%2D02%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D03%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D04%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D05%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D06%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D07%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D09%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D10%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D08%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D12%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D11%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D13%2Ejpg&CurImage=13%2D127%2D011%2D03%2Ejpg&Description=ABIT+AW9D%2DMAX+Socket+T+%28LGA+775%29+Intel+975X+ATX+Intel+Motherboard+%2D+Retail
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