IS E-SATA 2/5 GT/S FASTER THAN SATA 300?

[willheim]

Hi,

I have a question that I should know the answer to but don't.

I have a 2007 Mac Pro 3Ghz 8 core machine. The internal bays, I believe, are Sata 300 gbs.

I have an eSata card in one of the the PCIe slots, a Silicon Image pci 1095, 3124 that I use for 5 terabytes of external storage, plus I have some sample libraries on there. It says in the system profiler that the speed is 2.5 GT/s.

I have it configured for 8 lanes (using the Mac Lane Configuration app.)

So, I just bought a couple SSD drives from OWC, one for boot, and one for samples.

My question is, should I put the second SSD drive in the eSata array or one of the MacPro internal bays? The eSata array holds five drives. One drive bay is empty at the moment.

THanks!

[mikehalloran]

eSATA is rated at 3G transfer as is the internal buss on your Mac Pro. There are different ways to rate it but, when the math is done, there is no difference.

I favor using the internal bays if you have one available. I read that there are cooling problems with certain bays on some models - if you have one of those, that's the bay that would get a WD "green" drive for Time Machine were it mine. Green drives run slower but a lot cooler and are fine with Time Machine where speed is not an issue - lots of reports that Seagate has problems with them but that the WD 2T and 3T drives are reliable.

Some external housings are having the same sleep issues that are plaguing external Firewire. This is a problem with some power supplies that many manufacturers are using and not the drives.

There will be no benefit to 6G drives but, for many sizes, that seems to be what is available. 3G drives, when you can find them, are less expensive but are disappearing. Likewise, when/if 6G eSATA becomes available, you will not benefit.

[willheim]

thanks!