T420 eSata?

[JvdL_NL]

Hi guys,

Recently I bought a 3TB LaCie d2 external hdd (this one: https://www.lacie.com/nl/products/product.htm?id=10554) .
I want to use this drive through the eSata connection, but my thinkpad does not recognize the drive. It does when connected via USB.

Things I tried:

It doesn't show up in Device Manager (also, the drive remains in sleep mode, doesn't spin)
Updated BIOS
AHCI is enabled in BIOS
Installed the System Update stuff from Lenovo
Did the AHCI-tweak in Windows register
Rebooted a thousand times

What else can I do? I'm running Windows 8.1 now, but didn't work on Win7 as well.



Thanks in advance

George

[bit_twiddler]

Is there a product description in english? I'm looking through their
english-language site, and they list a D2 3tb drive, but it doesn't
support sata.

[wolfman]

I've used an eSATA drive with my T420 both via the port on the Thinkpad as well as through the Series 3 plus dock. A couple things you might want to check...

1) My external eSATA drive came with a USB cable and an eSATA cable. The drive would work great via the USB cable, but if I just plugged in the eSATA cable, it wouldn't work. However, if I plugged in the eSATA and USB cable it would work over eSATA.
2) Based on #1, I realized the cable my drive enclosure shipped with was not an eSATAp cable (e.g., powered eSATA) - so it required the USB cable for power. However, the T420 has a eSATAp port. I ordered an eSATAp cable and I was able to plug that single cable into the T420. It's a Y cable, the single end to the T420 and the forked end into the eSATA and USB ports of the drive enclosure.
3) Both the eSATA and the eSATAp cables didn't feel like they went "in" all the way on the T420 - they fit snug, but it looked like there was more housing outside that I expected. Just an FYI as the port itself looks like it could break relatively easily if you think it's not seated and try and force it.

Hope that helps...

[bit_twiddler]

Just to add to what wolfman has said, the e-sata port on the dock is not powered, but the one
on the T420 itself is. But, if your enclosure is using a 3.5" drive, which it probably is from
looking at the pictures, then it probably came with an AC power adapter and would not
be designed to draw power from USB or esata-p (powered esata).

So, if you have an enclosure with an AC adapter, it should work fine with the T420, docked or undocked,
using either esata port. Otherwise, you'll have to futz around as wolfman has described.

[jcvjcvjcvjcv]

Make sure the port is not disabled in the BIOS (or anywhere else).

Also: 3.5" HDDs require 12V and the eSataP port on Thinkpads only provides 5V. 12V esataP ports are extremely rare unfortunately. The eSata port on the dock is unpowered eSata, which is kinda lame from Lenovo. They could have at least included 5V. But we already know Lenovo hates eSata, otherwise they would not have dropped it in the *30 series.

But your external one doesn't need powered eSata, so it should just work. My external HDD's with eSata all work perfectly fine with my W520.

[JvdL_NL]

thanks for the replies guys. Yeah it can't be a power issue.
It must be a driver issue... How is the driver called which manages eSata? Is it a lenovo driver or a more generic driver (jmicron or something idk)?
The hdd does work with eSata on other laptops

[jcvjcvjcvjcv]

Does anything with eSata work on your T520?

No, it's not JMicron, the eSata port is connected to the Intel chipset, just like all other Sata ports.

Perhaps look into the Intel Matrix Storage Manager and install it if you don't have it yet.

Did you check in the BIOS to make sure the eSata port isn't disabled? Disabling of external data ports is a feature (for data safety).

[bit_twiddler]

jcv.. has a point - the option in the bios to disable ports is devilishly difficult to
find - I think it's under the "security" section. It's not like they went out
of their way to make it easy to find.

I'll check it out on my machine the next time that I reboot, but that may be a while.

[bluesceada]

Maybe using a USB 3 esata(p) Adapter would be the easiest solution. But no idea if those might be too expensive. (and of course there won't be 12V if they don't implement a boost converter and reduce the possible current drawn by that...)

[jcvjcvjcvjcv]

That's about the dumbest suggestion there is...

The point is to NOT use USB, since eSata is superior.

And laptop eSataP never has 12 V

[bluesceada]

That's about the dumbest suggestion there is...

The point is to NOT use USB, since eSata is superior.

And laptop eSataP never has 12 V

Define "superior" ? 12V would have been, but if eSataP also doesnt have it,...
Otherwise, yes there is probably some protocol overhead, but every magnetic drive should be within the limits of USB 3. But yes USB 2 would be relatively bad for modern fast magnetic drives that can exceed 60mb/s (which is the absolute maximum limitation for USB 2, practically that is more like a limit of 35mb/s ...)

And most USB 3 adapter actually support S.M.A.R.T. forwarding, if that is what you care about....

For externally attached SSDs the case would be a different one of course...

[jcvjcvjcvjcv]

In this case superior means: for small files enormous data transfer rate gain: easily two times more, even with HDD's. Also less CPU use, even with double data transfer rate.

eSataP exists with 5V and in another variety with 5V and 12V. However, since there is no 12V present in laptops anywhere, there isn't on the eSataP either.

On desktops you might get eSataP with 5/12V

The port on the T420 is EUHP: esata usb hybrid port. It means that you can also put a USB cable in the same port.

See:
http://www.addonics.com/technologies/euhp.php

The 12V is on P12 / P13; which are missing in most cases. Also you need a supported eSataP cable to actually use the 12V. Most eSata cables lack the additional 2 connections. Some even miss the two pins for 5V.

[bit_twiddler]

I'm a regular esata (and usb 3.0) user - I can confirm what jcv... has said about esata superiority.
USB 3.0 is actually pretty complex and a lot of weird bugs have shown up. It took a long
time until laptop manufacturers were willing to support it.

USB 3.0 bugs still regularly show up on Linux, thanks to a buggy piece of code that Intel contributed.

By comparison, esata is very clean because there is very little in the enclosure. While writing this
post, I just copied a 17G directory on my T420 to a 2Tb drive in a "Fantom Drives" esata enclosure
connected to a mini-dock plus series 3 (4338) in 4m 26 seconds.

I used to have weird problems resuming from suspend or hibernate with USB 3.0 - by comparison esata
is rock solid.

USB 3.0 is nice when it works, but if you want something that will work solidly with every operating system
out there, get esata.

[bluesceada]

In this case superior means: for small files enormous data transfer rate gain: easily two times more, even with HDD's. Also less CPU use, even with double data transfer rate.

Ok CPU usage really makes sense... ok so with small files, you mean (more technically) different non continuous address ranges on the drive, right? I wonder how large that protocol overhead really is and how big the files need to be that the protocol overhead will become negligible ( say < 1% of total transfer size), do you know that by chance or have any sources?
Wikipedia states that there are also two different storages protocols possible, USB-attached SCSI or a USB mass-storage bulk-only-transfer (BOT). I guess at least my device might then be USB-attached SCSI because it supports SMART....

I'm a regular esata (and usb 3.0) user - I can confirm what jcv... has said about esata superiority.
USB 3.0 is actually pretty complex and a lot of weird bugs have shown up. It took a long
time until laptop manufacturers were willing to support it.

The "willing to support it" was probably rather a problem of chipset manufacturers introducing it very late into their chipsets, and an extra IC was required (in case of the T420s a NEC/Renesas controller is built-in)

USB 3.0 bugs still regularly show up on Linux, thanks to a buggy piece of code that Intel contributed.

Did they contribute to the NEC/Renesas driver part or USB3 in general? If any of those, that issue then seems to have been fixed, some kernel versions earlier (before I had my T420s), I had some issues on my Desktop that also has a PCIe NEC/Renesas card (like the controller in the T420s). I am running the kernel that comes with debian testing (3.14 at the moment). But my "bugs" only were USB2 stream/realtime (CDC/UART) devices not running as good connected to my USB3 than on my USB2 ports (but maybe that device could also be blamed for not being 100% up to USB specs)

According to wikipedia there are also required firmware upgrades for these controllers ... ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB3#Spee ... ity_issues )

By comparison, esata is very clean because there is very little in the enclosure. While writing this
post, I just copied a 17G directory on my T420 to a 2Tb drive in a "Fantom Drives" esata enclosure
connected to a mini-dock plus series 3 (4338) in 4m 26 seconds.

For me it was vice versa. I always had problems with eSata on my desktop PC (basically never had really working hotplug), which runs on an AMD SB710 southbridge. It did neither work correctly in Windows or Linux in all kinds of controller modes (IDE, RAID, AHCI is selectable in bios, where AHCI should usually be the preffered one...)

I used to have weird problems resuming from suspend or hibernate with USB 3.0 - by comparison esata
is rock solid.

Never tried it in earlier kernel versions, because I don't suspend my desktop, but no issues with suspend-to-ram on my T420s, didn't try hibernate yet.

USB 3.0 is nice when it works, but if you want something that will work solidly with every operating system
out there, get esata.

YMMV, as for me it's vice versa in USB3 vs. eSata problems. But probably each of them had their problems in their infant phase....

So in the end, regarding the T420(s) you might be still right, as (e)Sata should be out of it's childhood issues now (not like on my somewhat older desktop system where the hardware/bios might need to be blamed), while USB3 still has some issues and requires a firmware update and recent enough operating system+drivers to work flawless, especially on some of the machines that had it very early already.

[bit_twiddler]

re: "For me it was vice versa. I always had problems with eSata on my desktop PC (basically never had really working hotplug), which runs on an AMD SB710 southbridge. It did neither work correctly in Windows or Linux in all kinds of controller modes (IDE, RAID, AHCI is selectable in bios, where AHCI should usually be the preffered one...)"

You might be right about the hotplug thing. I've never tried that with esata, just using it permanently connected
to my dock.

I am finally (this is something like 4 or 5 years after my first attempt) having success with USB-3.0 via
an expresscard plugged in to my X200s. But, I still have to eject the card before attempting to
hibernate, and have been too busy (or lazy) to figure out what the problem is.

This is in (K/X)Ubuntu, with the 3.13.0-32 kernel. I'm afraid to breath on it after all of the problems
that I've had with it.

[jcvjcvjcvjcv]

In this case superior means: for small files enormous data transfer rate gain: easily two times more, even with HDD's. Also less CPU use, even with double data transfer rate.

Ok CPU usage really makes sense... ok so with small files, you mean (more technically) different non continuous address ranges on the drive, right? I wonder how large that protocol overhead really is and how big the files need to be that the protocol overhead will become negligible ( say < 1% of total transfer size), do you know that by chance or have any sources?

That Linus guy on Youtube has a video comparing USB 2.0, USB 3.0 and eSata. With files of ~1 MB, eSata already cuts the needed time in half.

I have a WD My Book Home Edition with FW800, USB 2.0 and eSata. The HD-Tune benchmark will give 2.5 times higher average for eSata (75 MB/s vs 30 MB/s), with less CPU usage. And of course when copying stuff it takes a lot less time with eSata. Now with USB 3.0 the bandwidth issue might be gone, but the protocol shortcomings are not.

By comparison, esata is very clean because there is very little in the enclosure. While writing this
post, I just copied a 17G directory on my T420 to a 2Tb drive in a "Fantom Drives" esata enclosure
connected to a mini-dock plus series 3 (4338) in 4m 26 seconds.

For me it was vice versa. I always had problems with eSata on my desktop PC (basically never had really working hotplug), which runs on an AMD SB710 southbridge. It did neither work correctly in Windows or Linux in all kinds of controller modes (IDE, RAID, AHCI is selectable in bios, where AHCI should usually be the preffered one...)

Well, what did work as it was supposed to be on older AMD chipsets (or for that matter the nForce chipsets for AMD CPU's)? It's not an eSata problem, but an AMD problem.

Also mind that on a lot of motherboards the eSata port is connected to some cheap third-party chip.

[ATJ]

I am having a similar problem to the OP.

ThinkPad T420 running Windows 7 trying to connect to a OWC Mercury Elite Pro enclosure. The enclosure supplies power and also has a USB 2.0 interface which works with the T420. The eSATA interface works fine with my wife's Toshiba but doesn't show up in Disk Management on the T420.

I have:
* Updated BIOS
* eSATA port is enabled in the BIOS
* AHCI is enabled in the BIOS
* Updated the driver for Intel(R) Mobile Express Chipset SATA AHCI Controller

What else can I try?

[bit_twiddler]

Do you remember if, when you plugged your drive into your wife's Toshiba,
did Windows pop up a little bubble from the taskbar to the effect that it
was installing a driver for the enclosure?

The hardware on your T420 could be working fine, but Windows may need
a driver so that hotplugging and other features work properly.

The only way that I know how to test the hardware directly is to boot Linux,
but there must be a way to do it on Windows.

[ATJ]

Do you remember if, when you plugged your drive into your wife's Toshiba,
did Windows pop up a little bubble from the taskbar to the effect that it
was installing a driver for the enclosure?

Possibly. I can't be sure.

It is a moot point now as I have decided not to connect that drive to my ThinkPad.

[chx1975]

Must be a Windows driver issue. I have been using 2.5" disks both with an eSATAp to 22pin desktop SATA cable or in an external casing doing the same. I have attached 3.5" disks with their own power. Zero problems. I am using Linux here.