Solution for slow file transfers?
May 16, 2013 2:20 PM Subscribe
I'm looking for a way to transfer files more quickly from my laptop to an external drive. Currently, I'm using USB 2.0 ports & a USB 2.0 hub. However, my HP HDX18 laptop does have an eSATA port & an ExpressCard 54 slot (Gen 1.0). Using Windows 7 64bit operating system.
I do a lot of photo editing & store most of my photos on an external harddrive & back up to a separate external. Only one of my externals has both USB 2.0 & 3.0 capability. They are filling up though, so I am looking at getting another external with at least 2TB of storage - like this Seagate that Wirecutter recommends that has a good balance between price/quality/capacity. I don't know much about desktop eSATA drives, but would be open to suggestions. My editing & backup speeds are really limited by the USB 2.0 ports I'm currently using though. Currently, I'm using a powered USB 2.0 hub as a docking station for the external harddrives, wireless mouse/keyboard, & printer. I prefer hubs & external drives that are NOT self-powered & don't charge from the USB ports on the laptop.
I have been trying to pick between these two ideas:
Option 1) Using the eSATA port on the laptop by purchasing a USB 3.0 to eSATA adapter cable & USB 3.0 female to female coupler
to connect to a single USB 3.0 external harddrive. From what I've read, eSATA is faster than USB 3.0, so the transfer rate would be limited by the USB 3.0 end of the cable but that is still way faster than my current USB 2.0 connections. My concerns with this idea are that I had read that I can't use a hub to connect multiple drives though this port, but can only use the eSATA port with a single external drive; if the adapters/couplers will slow my transfer speeds; and that I don't know what the transfer speed of my eSATA port is.
Option 2) Getting an adapter to convert my ExpressCard slot to USB 3.0. While it would still be faster, I wouldn't get top USB 3.0 speeds because my ExpressCard 54mm slot is Gen 1.0 & tops out at 2.5gb/sec.
If either of these will work with a hub, I'd get a new USB 3.0 hub to replace my old 2.0 version, which I've had over 6 years. My budget's not unlimited - looking for reasonable balance between price/performance (example - I'm not buying a new PC or iBook). The expensive components are easier to determine than the cheap ones - there are several brands & types of adapters ranging from $5 to $35 and that is the most confusing part.
I'm hoping the tech savvy folks here can help me out since I've already spent a number of hours doing research online. I'm in a small town, so I'm pretty much limited to online stores - not just limited to Amazon, I also use newegg, frye's, etc, but not ebay. And I'm open to other product suggestions for the externals/adapters/hub - these were just picks based on what I found so far. Thanks for the help!
I do a lot of photo editing & store most of my photos on an external harddrive & back up to a separate external. Only one of my externals has both USB 2.0 & 3.0 capability. They are filling up though, so I am looking at getting another external with at least 2TB of storage - like this Seagate that Wirecutter recommends that has a good balance between price/quality/capacity. I don't know much about desktop eSATA drives, but would be open to suggestions. My editing & backup speeds are really limited by the USB 2.0 ports I'm currently using though. Currently, I'm using a powered USB 2.0 hub as a docking station for the external harddrives, wireless mouse/keyboard, & printer. I prefer hubs & external drives that are NOT self-powered & don't charge from the USB ports on the laptop.
I have been trying to pick between these two ideas:
Option 1) Using the eSATA port on the laptop by purchasing a USB 3.0 to eSATA adapter cable & USB 3.0 female to female coupler
to connect to a single USB 3.0 external harddrive. From what I've read, eSATA is faster than USB 3.0, so the transfer rate would be limited by the USB 3.0 end of the cable but that is still way faster than my current USB 2.0 connections. My concerns with this idea are that I had read that I can't use a hub to connect multiple drives though this port, but can only use the eSATA port with a single external drive; if the adapters/couplers will slow my transfer speeds; and that I don't know what the transfer speed of my eSATA port is.
Option 2) Getting an adapter to convert my ExpressCard slot to USB 3.0. While it would still be faster, I wouldn't get top USB 3.0 speeds because my ExpressCard 54mm slot is Gen 1.0 & tops out at 2.5gb/sec.
If either of these will work with a hub, I'd get a new USB 3.0 hub to replace my old 2.0 version, which I've had over 6 years. My budget's not unlimited - looking for reasonable balance between price/performance (example - I'm not buying a new PC or iBook). The expensive components are easier to determine than the cheap ones - there are several brands & types of adapters ranging from $5 to $35 and that is the most confusing part.
I'm hoping the tech savvy folks here can help me out since I've already spent a number of hours doing research online. I'm in a small town, so I'm pretty much limited to online stores - not just limited to Amazon, I also use newegg, frye's, etc, but not ebay. And I'm open to other product suggestions for the externals/adapters/hub - these were just picks based on what I found so far. Thanks for the help!
I have a desktop external eSATA drive and it's really fast. I use it to make nightly system image backups. You can buy just an enclosure and extract your current drive and put it in the eSATA enclosure for not much money. Seems like they're around $30 or so.
posted by GuyZero at 2:28 PM on May 16, 2013
posted by GuyZero at 2:28 PM on May 16, 2013
I second just buying an eSATA enclosure. My one beef with them is that the cables ten to be a bit more fragile or touchy and if you are somewhere and forgot the cable, not many people have one handy.
And since this is really about Photo Storage and redundancy... I can tell you that flat out, Smugmug.com is a great deal and a great cloud service. They back their servers up so thee are 2 copies of your stuff in the cloud.
posted by bobdow at 2:40 PM on May 16, 2013
And since this is really about Photo Storage and redundancy... I can tell you that flat out, Smugmug.com is a great deal and a great cloud service. They back their servers up so thee are 2 copies of your stuff in the cloud.
posted by bobdow at 2:40 PM on May 16, 2013
Seconding the dock. I have one sitting next to my "work" machine right now. that i use for making/writing full drive images, cloning, etc. it's as fast as your drive is. Alternatively, just a drive that itself has an eSata jack on it.
would't mess around with USB3, and especially screw converters like that. Just use eSata, it's better than any of the other options anyways.
posted by emptythought at 3:13 PM on May 16, 2013
would't mess around with USB3, and especially screw converters like that. Just use eSata, it's better than any of the other options anyways.
posted by emptythought at 3:13 PM on May 16, 2013
Yeah, you want a docking station with eSATA. Then you can just buy bare hard drives and slap them in as necessary, like loading a cartridge. It wouldn't work with your existing external drives, of course, but typically it's pretty easy to disassemble the drive enclosure and pull out the bare drive inside.
There are lots of them out there of varying quality. If it's important to you, you can get one with both USB3 and eSATA (the cheaper ones are typically USB2). Some of them have slots for two drives.
posted by neckro23 at 3:46 PM on May 16, 2013
There are lots of them out there of varying quality. If it's important to you, you can get one with both USB3 and eSATA (the cheaper ones are typically USB2). Some of them have slots for two drives.
posted by neckro23 at 3:46 PM on May 16, 2013
Best answer: I agree with the others above that getting an eSATA dock or enclosure is a good option and will give you the fastest speed. But to address the options you asked about:
Option 1) Will not work at all. That adapter is for plugging into a USB port on a computer and connecting to an eSATA drive, not the other way around.
Option 2) Is totally workable and honestly 2.5Gbps is more than fast enough. At that point the bottleneck is the hard drive itself, not the connection. One reason to prefer this option is that you're free to use any USB 3.0 drive, which are more common than eSATA.
posted by zsazsa at 5:00 PM on May 16, 2013
Option 1) Will not work at all. That adapter is for plugging into a USB port on a computer and connecting to an eSATA drive, not the other way around.
Option 2) Is totally workable and honestly 2.5Gbps is more than fast enough. At that point the bottleneck is the hard drive itself, not the connection. One reason to prefer this option is that you're free to use any USB 3.0 drive, which are more common than eSATA.
posted by zsazsa at 5:00 PM on May 16, 2013
Response by poster: Thank you, I will look at the eSATA stations & drives. I can work with touchy cables (thanks for the heads up); are these eSATA stations more sensitive to dust that regular externals? I live in rural Texas on a dirt road, so I have more dust than the average suburban user.
My location also makes online backups unattractive - I have DSL but it's still not the best connection. That's why I'm not a fan of Adobe's recent decision - there are still a lot of areas that don't have access to a reliable broadband connection.
I will probably get a docking station but also implement option 2 since it's not very expensive & would work with my existing equipment.
Thanks for all of ya'll's great advice!
posted by briar0rose at 8:17 AM on May 18, 2013
My location also makes online backups unattractive - I have DSL but it's still not the best connection. That's why I'm not a fan of Adobe's recent decision - there are still a lot of areas that don't have access to a reliable broadband connection.
I will probably get a docking station but also implement option 2 since it's not very expensive & would work with my existing equipment.
Thanks for all of ya'll's great advice!
posted by briar0rose at 8:17 AM on May 18, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Oktober at 2:28 PM on May 16, 2013 [1 favorite]