eSATA is the way to go

In january of this year I bought a Lacie 2BIG storage enclosure. This is a 2 disk RAID enclosure that can be connected through eSATA or USB and can be configured in raid-1, raid-0, concatenation, and JBOD. Unfortunately I could only connect it through USB as the necessary eSATA controller didn't arrive before I left for my family visit to the US Virgin Islands.

In the meantime my Lacie eSATA controller arrived, and I hooked op the storage device through eSATA. Everything worked fine so I did some benchmarks. Granted, these are not real usage benchmarks but optimal performance benchmarks on an otherwise unused disk.

My storage device is configured as a raid-0 (no fault tolerance) device. This is not a conscious choice, but it's how it arrived when I bought it. I will probably reconfigure it as a raid-1 device, although i still have to think about that since I can also just do daily backups. This data doesnt change that often so 2 sets of backups should safeguard against most disk problems, and im not sure raid-1 is going to give me enough additional security. Mostly it'll give me an easier recovery if and when a disk fails.

This disk is hooked up to a Dell XPS 710 through a Lacie SATA-II 3GB/s PCI-X 4E Card. This gives me 4 external SATA connectors for 4 eSATA devices.

Here are some read transfer speed numbers:

• USB 15MB/s
  
• Firewire 30MB/s (this is a different disk, just as a reference. The 2BIG does not offer Firewire)
  
• Internal HD 60MB/s (raid-1 internal boot disk of the XPS710)
  
• eSATA 80MB/s
  

Furthermore, the eSATA connected disk only uses 3% CPU, where USB takes up 35% of the CPU.

To me it seems that eSATA is the way to go for local primary storage. In my opinion a NAS (network attached storage) can work to some degree, but as primary storage I am not impressed by any single NAS storage's performance. If I would use a NAS it would be as backup storage. The 2BIG lacie system produces an acceptable noise level, comparable to my XPS710. Since I put it under my desk, i barely notice it. Using larger eSATA storage devices might produce unacceptable amounts of noise, so be aware.

Regards,

Cor

edit: i just connected the controller to a PCI-X slot instead of regular PCI (had to move some cards around), and now I get a sustained read speed of 100MB/s, but at 10% cpu use.

Cor -- this is the way I'm going as well.

Currently, my two backup drives are connected by Firewire 800, but the Mac Pro has two extra SATA slots inside which can be run to a spare PCI slot in the back for conversion to eSata.

My favorite single-drive enclosure is the AMS VENUS. It has a fan but is still virtually silent.

My favorite, single-drive enclosure is the . It has a fan but is still virtually silent.

A couple of other good ones are Granitedigital and weibetech (though grantiedigital uses sata so you need I to L convertor) both are quiet and easy to swap things in and out of (the weibetech also has USB connection just in case )

A couple of other good ones are Granitedigital and weibetech (though grantiedigital uses sata so you need I to L convertor) both are quiet and easy to swap things in and out of (the weibetech also has USB connection just in case )

I like Wiebetech too, but I was looking for a 2-disk system so I could do raid-1. In the meantime im reconsidering using raid-1, so maybe id make a different choice now. I do like having 1TB of diskspace in this small, pretty quiet box though

Cor

Hey Cor,

I use the LaCie Two Big with 2x 500GB drives too. I was attracted by the same reason: eSATA! I didn’t get a controller card as my ASUS board has eSATA. For performance reasons, I didn’t want to use a NAS box as working system for photo/video stuff. Thanks for the values. I haven’t done any benchmarks, but from working with it, it feels very fast. I use it in RAID1 configuration and I am about to buy a second unit in the future. RAID1 is simple and easy to restore in case of a drive failure. So far I don’t have to manage many RAIDed Terrabytes, so RAID1 is still fine for me. And yes, eSATA was my way too! Additional USB connector is great for some cases where I want to connect it to machines without eSATA.

Julian