eSATA Cable Query

My Tecra laptop has a native eSATA/USB 2.0 combo port and machine's internal bus is rated for SATA III.

My system image backup solution consists of a recently purchased mobile 750 Gb SATA III WD Black 7200 rpm disk drive that's installed in in this recently purchased enclosure:
eSATAp & USB 3.0 2.5" SATA 6Gbps Hard Drive Enclosure | HDD Enclosures | StarTech.com United Kingdom

I performed my first system backup last week. Maybe it's just my perception, but it seemed at the time that backup could have been quicker, especially at SATA III transfer rates.

I'm now thinking the cable used to connect the enclosure to the source port could be a possible reason, as it was included in the box with the enclosure.

This begs the question, are there SATA II and SATA III eSATA cable ratings? If so, perhaps the cable I used was rated SATA II.

Ideally, I'm looking for a relatively inexpensive, quality SATA III rated eSATAp cable. The one that Startech have on offer is £34.

whs said:

Hmm, that is strange. eSata and USB cables are quite different. My external enclosure has 2 different ports - one for USB and one for eSata. The plugs and ports are different.

eSATAp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My Sony Vaio laptop also has a powered eSATA port. I noticed that when I make a system image using the native Windows 7 imaging tool it takes about 40 minutes on average. But if I use the free Macrium it takes about 25 minutes to image the same drive. I'm not very knowledgeable about the different imaging software available but I do know Macrium lets me choose the amount of compression I want while Windows 7 doesn't. So another possible reason for slower imaging speeds/times could be the imaging software you're using.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

matts6887 said:

Yes; there are different ratings for different cables. In order to get SATA III speeds; you need to use a SATA III cable; as long as your system board will support it.

Uh, that's not really true. All decent quality SATA cables, including e-SATA, will fully support maximum SATA III speeds. Rating cables as being SATA III compliant is just a marketing ploy.

More likely, the OP's slower speeds come from using a 5900 rpm HDD. Even 7200 rpm drives haven't saturated full SATA II speeds. Note my use of the word full. SATA speed ratings are a range, not an absolute. SATA III, for example is rated at any speed greater than SATA II up to 6 Gbps. Also, not all machines with SATA III ports run those at full SATA III speeds.

The only way to gain SATA III speeds, assuming the port supports it, would be to use a good quality SSD instead of a HDD.

This is the disk drive I'm using in the Startech enclosure:
WD Black | Mobile 2.5-inch Hard Drives

Specififcation of that disk drive is the first row on listed page.

BTW, there isn't any assumption of support of SATA III support on my laptop. The system specification clearly states that it is. The internal system disk drive (model MQ01ACF050) is:
https://storage.toshiba.eu/cms/en/hd...?productid=566

BTW, your last paragraph isn't entirely correct. The fastest disk drives are close to matching SSD speed, with a plus of better reliability. I would never trust SSD technology for this application.

whs said:

Hmm, that is strange. eSata and USB cables are quite different. My external enclosure has 2 different ports - one for USB and one for eSata. The plugs and ports are different.

To what are you referring?

marsmimar said:

My Sony Vaio laptop also has a powered eSATA port. I noticed that when I make a system image using the native Windows 7 imaging tool it takes about 40 minutes on average. But if I use the free Macrium it takes about 25 minutes to image the same drive. I'm not very knowledgeable about the different imaging software available but I do know Macrium lets me choose the amount of compression I want while Windows 7 doesn't. So another possible reason for slower imaging speeds/times could be the imaging software you're using.

I've always used the native Microsoft imaging programme, even back in the Vista days under USB 2.0.

Reliability is of paramount importance in this application. The main issue here is I believe it should run at a faster pace under eSATA III than it did under eSATA II on my other machine.