ExpressCard/54 vs. PCI-e for eSATA external hard drive

[wedgyboxer]

I know there has been brief discussion on this subject before but there was no straightforward answer. The results I saw posted awhile ago were convoluted as two different benchmarks were used for the two formats so no really good comparison could be made. (See http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=29346)

Now personally I think it would be much more convenient to have a PCI-e card and just stick it in the advanced dock, especially since I have heard complaints about the ExpressCards sticking out too far and plus it would be one less thing to have to plug in or out.

So basically...does anybody have any comparable speed benchmarks using an ExpressCard and a PCI-e card? preferably using the same system, same drive, and same benchmarking software

I welcome any opinion on the matter as I am kind of stumped.

Note: If you like to see things then here is a possible ExpressCard http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=128&pid=1036 and here is a possible PCI-e card http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=14&pid=1019.

[rbsrao79]

Hi,
I guess, the the thread you refferred to was initiated and terminated by me. I don't have an expresscard to actually give you a bench mark for, but let me give you a few warnings about the the pci-e adapter. I tried it and faced a lot of issues because the thinkpad refused to initialize it during cmos. Although listed in the other thread, I'll recap the issues


1. Irritating double beep during bootup (really loud and really bad) on display of initialization error

2. Drive not recognized by cmos and hence cannot be used as a boot device

3. There is a really wierd issue with Thinkvantage R'N'R. Although its implemented using windows (a light weight variation), it can't recognize the device and hence the drive. Additionally, if the backup was made when the drive was connected via e-sata, R'N'R refuses to use the backup data even when the drive is connected as usb.

4. The siig card was not flashable. Although there was a panel in the device setup (in control panel), it was greyed out. This meant that you couldn't upgrade to the new driver from Silicon Image. (which might have solved some of the issues). I returned the card, but maybe I could have used another computer to actually flash it.

5. When connected via the e-sata port, you can't unplugged the drive at whim. You have to first unmount (usb remove via softwate). Usually, this is not the case with usb drives. However in this case, windows treats the drive as an internal drive and hence such a removal will cause an ntfs delayed right failure.

Note: Despite initalization error and other problems listed above, the card is detected by windows xp and it does its job too.

Another forum member did try an addonics expresscard and didn't find any issues with that. He posted benchmarks in the other thread.

I initially asked this question to decide whether or not to buy the dock but went ahead and bought it anyway. I returned the card.


Rajeev

[wedgyboxer]

Thanks for all your input Rajeev.

It seems to me that despite the 1) double beep at bootup and 2) the issues with IBM's R & R I see no problem for me as you have outlined above.

I intend to always have the card plugged into the dock and not use it as a boot device nor do I want to flash it.

So I guess the convenience factor of not having to plug the drive in and out, plus not having to stick in and out an expresscard outweight the inconveniences you experienced.

My only questions are 1) could you tell me what brand and model pci-e card you used? 2) did you ever do any benchmarking of the drive when it was connected through the card? even if it isnt from a benchmarking program someone else gave results for it still could be helpful... 3) what was it about the card that made you return it precisely? i know that each of the things you listed is inconvenient but you say that the card is detected by xp and does its job... and 4) what are you using instead of the pci-e card now? usb? expresscard?

Thanks again, and still, any opinions or advice would be of help.

[rbsrao79]

Taken from my entry in http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=29346:

Controller : SIIG eSATA II PCIe i/e (SC-SAE212-S2) - Silicon Image 3132 SataLink Controller
Drive - Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250gb

HD Tune: Maxtor 6B250S0 Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 20.7 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 62.8 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 50.3 MB/sec
Access Time : 14.9 ms
Burst Rate : 98.1 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 2.7%

My internal drive by comparison (not sure why cpu went to 33%).
Drive - Hitachi 7200 rpm 60gb
HD Tune: HTS721060G9SA00 Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 22.9 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 45.0 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 36.1 MB/sec
Access Time : 15.1 ms
Burst Rate : 85.5 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 33.3%


HDTach gave similar results except for burst speed.

Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250gb:
Burst Speed : 122.1 MB/s
Average Read : 54.5 MB/s
Random Access:16.4 ms

Drive - Hitachi 7200 rpm 60gb
Burst Speed : 112.4 MB/s
Average Read : 37.9 mb/s
Random Access: 15.1 mb/s

I got the card hoping that it would speed up backup which I believe is generally a sustained transfer. Since R'n'R failed miserably here, I didn't see the point of keeping it. I currently just use USB.

Another minor addition to the beep problem is that the error generated waits for a key press before continueing to boot. Hence if you want to restart and then go for a coffee, the machine won't be ready by the time you return.

Rajeev

[darrenf]

Both PCIe and ExpressCard will be faster than any eSATA drive. Are you suspecting that there will be another bottleneck?

-darren

[rbsrao79]

Darren,
Speaking of bottlenecks, I didn't see the advanced dock 37 mb/s mentioned by Ron in the benchmarks I did.


Rajeev

[darrenf]

Not having a docking station myself, I don't have any experience with that issue. Where did the bottleneck show up for him, when using the dock's PCIe slot or somewhere else?

-darren

[rbsrao79]

I believe he noticed this while doing ultrabay(sata) performance tests on the dock.

Rajeev

[darrenf]

It may be wishful thinking, but perhaps the bottleneck only affects the SATA bus and not the PCIe bus.

-darren

[wedgyboxer]

The major issue I'm worried about is compatibility between the eSATA pci-e card and the advanced dock as rajeev has already documented his troubles therein.

However, I would also like to know whether there is a bottleneck through the pci-e card on the advanced dock.

The whole point of the question is that obviously the fastest and least troublesome option would be the expresscard straight into the laptop but if the pci-e option is at least comparably fast and has no major problems then it would obviously be the most convenient solution.

I have tentatively decided to buy the eSATA card and try it out but I'm still looking around for which card I wanna buy as there several out there and not much useful user information as to how good they are. Any suggestions would be welcome.

(And my gut feeling and from what I've seen in the diagnostics, is that there is no speed difference between the two options and hence the bottleneck is in fact only the drive itself as mentioned by darren.)

[Winchester]

I purchased the SiG PCIe Firewire card and was unable to get it to work in the Advanced Dock slot. I wanted to run Firewire HDDs off it. No luck.

[misfit]

I believe he noticed this while doing ultrabay(sata) performance tests on the dock.

Rajeev

I know this is an old thread but the Ultrabay in the dock is connected to the laptop via USB, hence the speed limitation.

[bill bolton]

I know this is an old thread but the Ultrabay in the dock is connected to the laptop via USB, hence the speed limitation.

For the systems covered by the discusssion in this thread, it was connected via PATA to SATA bridge in the Ultrabay Slim drive carrier (that is the external connector on the carrier was for a PATA channel) not via a USB channel.

Cheers,

Bill B.