On Sun, 2006-11-12 at 19:55 -0500, Chris Ruprecht wrote: > Hello all, > > I'm trying to find a reliable solution for external hard drives > (non-SCSI because of costs). > I tried USB and FireWire and am not impressed by either speed nor > reliability. I'm now thinking of using an eSATA solution but I have not > hear of any experiences (good or bad). Has anybody tried this? It > promises high speed and it looks like it might be as reliable as > internal drives. > > Please let me know if you heard anything ... > > Thanks, > Chris > Hi I have been using "plug in" SATA drives for about a year - no problems whatsoever !!!! My machines only have SATA 1 but some of the boxes support SATA 2 Remember they are not HOT SWAP yet, coming very soon I believe. I have fitted a SATA to SATA cable/socket from Lindy to a Shuttle and can easily connect the following on the back panel 1. PATA drive in an ext ICYbox with SATA 1 and USB I/F 35MB/sec with simple hdparm read 2. SATA to SATA Icybox for SATA 2 drives Full speed hdparm read 70MB/sec I think Also have a couple of brilliant internal 5.25in Icybox SATA "slots" that carry a raw SATA 2 disk (no disk caddy needed) again full SATA speed Only 11 UK pounds and very well built. I have removed my DVD-ROM from the Shuttle and replaced it with the Icybox SATA "disk holder". Temp may be a problem on this particular machine but it has been working OK for 3 months. This is probably the best solution if you don't want to move data to other peoples machines, but just plug in for backup or installation of a new operating system. I have not used eSATA cable/sockets yet. I have labelled all my disks using e2label but still get into trouble (have to do things on the command line) when moving them from machine to machine !!!! I'm hoping hotswap will solve that problem and the pain of a reboot. Unplugging/plugging in when the machine is up does not kill my machine it just doesn't notice ! John
