eSATA on VPC-Z (and S/Y series) - an eSATA ExpressCard Review

Hey folks,

since some of you might be thinking about how to improve data rates with your external hard drives – eSATA is the perfect interface for you.

How?
Since only the bigger Vaio E and F models have eSATA equipped and the smaller Vaio series lack eSATA interfaces, we can help out ourselves with an ExpressCard to eSATA controller.

Why?
Compared to USB 2.0 which can only transfer about 30 MB/s, eSATA connects an external drive directly through the SATA interface and will not bottleneck your performance any more. Theoretically, eSATA can transfer up to 3 Gbit/s, the ExpressCard itself 2 Gbit/s (0.48 Gbit/s for USB 2.0). So, eSATA could theoretically be up to 5 times as fast as USB 2.0.

There are several of those controllers, available as ExpressCard 34 (34mm) and ExpressCard 54 (54mm) modules supporting up to two eSATA ports.



Physicals / Card Package:
Most of those slide-in-cards do stick around 2cm out of the computer, plus additional 3cm of the eSATA cable jack. Since I do not like those sticking out cards, I searched for more compact ones and found two cards, offering one eSATA port each, fitting cleanly inside the slot and not sticking out far like other cards.

The Cards are:

• AKE BC338 (JMicron JMB360)
• Delock 61748 (Silicon Image SiI 3531)

Prices are between 10 and 20 bucks, the Delock seems to be a bit more expensive than the AKE. I ordered the Delock from a local retailer, I found the AKE only in eBay as a China import.





Both support SATA II specification, up to 3 Gbit/s, SATA Port-Multiplier (multiple SATA devices at one port), Legacy and Native Command Queuing (LCQ and NCQ) as well as Hot Plug. All common OSes (Windows since 2000, 32 and 64bit, Linux since Kernel 2.6 and Mac OSX) are supported.

How do the cards fit in a Vaio VPC-Z?
Unfortunately, the cards to not completely slide into the Z’s ExpressCard slot. The reason for that is, that on one hand the slot is a bit too short; on the other hand the outer shape of the Z’s side is a little bit curved. In total, the card sticks out about 3mm (side of the case); seen from the top, about 1mm over the aluminium plate (see pictures). Note: in other laptops, like the Apple MacBookPro 17”, the cards fit completely inside.



With the eSATA and a USB jack attached to the Z for comparing the size, it’s quite safe regarding accidental unplugging or passing strangers pulling your laptop off the table or breaking connectors. In addition to that, the card can reside inside the slot while travelling – just plug and forget.



Build Quality:
Both devices feel and look solid and well-built. The Delock’s eSATA housing (the plastic frame around the connector) is just a tiny bit loose. Nothing serious, the connector itself, which is looking like a piece of PCB is working reliably, however it looks just a bit cheaper than the AKE’s. On the other side, AKE’s ExpressCard did not fit in the slot of the Z. It turned out that I had to flatten the sheeted metal enclosure of the card a bit in order to make it slide in. I just crimped the piece of metal with pliers tighter to the connector and it worked. Seems to be I have faced some tolerance issues with either the card or with the Z’s slot.

Features / Performance:
Both cards work quite nicely on my Z. I have a Samsung EcoGreen F2 HD154UI connected through a Revoltec Alu Guard 3.5 enclosure (great device btw). Both cards show all features in HD Tune and max out the drive (about 80 MB/s avg in sequential read speed).



AKE:
The AKE card is working well on my Win 7 x64 machine without driver installation, but is not recognized when inserting the card into the running system (no hot plug). Neither it is after installation of the most recent drivers from JMicron's website. The card came with an 8cm CD with totally outdated drivers. AKE does not provide a website for driver download or support – at least I did not find anything like that. Since hot plug is not working for me (might also be another issue with e.g. the drivers), I had to go into sleep mode in order to make the card be recognized. Even then, hot plug of the drive to the eSATA port randomly did not work either, so another sleep mode and wakeup was needed. Kind of annoying, but when everything was properly recognized, the drive worked perfectly and fast.



Delock:
For the Delock card with the Silicon Image chipset, you need to install the drivers first. You can download them from the Delock website or directly from Silicon Image. I suggest latter, since those drivers are updated more often than the Delock site. Both provide a package with the raw drivers without containing any bloatware or unnecessary autorun apps or tray icons – that’s the way I like. If you think the same way about lightweight driver packages, forget about the included Delock driver CD (it installs some kind of useless RAID tool which shows an ugly splash on system bootup). The hot plug feature of both - card and drive - worked perfectly – that’s how it’s meant to be. The performance of the card was good. In Win 7 x64, it was about 5 MB/s slower than the AKE card, in Win XP 32bit, it was even a bit faster than the AKE card (I will figure out wether the reason for that is driver-related…).

Win 7 x64:


Win XP x86:


Conclusion:
If you want to speed up your backups or data transfers to your external storage, eSATA is an inexpensive way to do so. If you do not have an eSATA capable drive enclosure yet, they cost about 40 bucks. With this investment, dramatically increased speeds compared to USB 2.0 make you ready for the future. As you won’t buy new external drives with less than 1TB anymore, at least I don't want to be stuck at 30 MB/s when transferring large files.
If you spend 10-20 bucks on a slim eSATA card, you get a cheap and efficient interface expansion for your Vaio. Both tested cards work for what they are made for; unfortunately, with the AKE card you will probably face some hot plug issues. The Delock card works without flaws after installing the proper drivers but the connector feels cheaper than the AKE’s.
Altogether, I recommend the Delock card, since its overall performance is better and it is working great out-of-the box. If you want to save money, you plan to have the card in the laptop all the time and the sleep mode trick does not bother you, go for the AKE.

 

some details i also discovered about the expresscard34 slot

it is limited by being pci-express x1 so theoretical max throughput is 2.5 gigbits

so right there you won't get USB 3.0 max 5 gigbits or esataII 3 gigabits

however theoretical limits are never reached due to overhead, and real world max speeds are usually half

so the max real world throughput of the pci-express is 1.25 gigbits or roughly 150 MB (megabytes) per second

it should still be fast enough to utilize 10,000rpm drives or external SSD like OCZ Enyo (expensive!)

good luck! personally i am going with USB 3.0 expresscards since they provide 2 connections even though they require power from 1 USB2 slot

 

@pyr0,

I already bought my expresscard eSata adapter a few weeks ago. Now I wish I had waited (mine has two eSata ports and protrudes out of the laptop). Excellent information. Rep added.

 

I am curious what is acutally the maximum speed of the cards. For now, it seems that they are able to keep up with current drives. I may get in touch with some faster HDD's like the velociraptors in 2-3 weeks - I will test if the cards will bottleneck then.

@JP$: Perhaps you can add your experience with your card and what card you are using, too. I think the sticking-out box of the bigger cards do only contain connector stuff. Electronics inside should be the same as the slim cards. So perhaps we can break down the cards to the chips used for bridging ExpressCard-eSATA and figure out the best.

I found some other interesting slim cards:

• Syba Slim ExpressCard 1x eSATA, JMicron JMB360 Notes: identical to the AKE? Also available labeled as OWC card.
  
  Link: Syba Web
  
  
• Sonnet Tempo SATA Edge ExpressCard/34, Controller unknown, Notes: Manufacturer not providing drivers for Windows, Windows users shall download drivers through automatic Windows driver installation wizard.
  
  Link: Sonnet - Tempo SATA Edge ExpressCard/34: Compact 1-Port Serial ATA Host Controller; Compatible In MacBook Pro and Windows NoteBooks With ExpressCard Slot

There are many others where the eSATA ports are provided through this protruding bulge outside the computer JP$ described. Beside the common Silicon Image and JMicron chipsets, there are some cards (like the Sonnet Tempo SATA Pro, 2 ports) featuring a Marvell controller that seem to be even faster than the SiI and JMB chips. We'll have to investigate that in the future.

There are mostly Mac-related reviews and card comparisons, since Apple also removed eSATA ports from their newer laptops, e.g. this: Macintosh Performance Guide: Reviews ? MacBook Pro eSATA ? Introduction
Oddly enough, there the JMB360 chip card won the comparison, since it is bootable! and very fast in a MBP, while I had some issues with that. Perhaps I got a lemon... Will figure that out.

 

Yeah, I just got the AKE card (wish I had read this first, but then again, it was only $11), and it seems to be working (I need an eSata cable first, to test it out). Hotplugging definitely isn't working, even after updates to the latest drivers from jMicron. I'll report back if I get it working with an attached drive (like whether you can boot from that drive).

 

I purchased my expresscard adapter from a local Best Buy for about $13. Here is an Amazon link to the adapter: Amazon.com: Dynex® - 2-Port eSATA II ExpressCard Adapter DX-ESATL: Electronics.

My transfer rate (when copying large files from the computer to my external or vice versa) using the eSata adapter seems to be about 20MB/s on average. Via USB 2.0, I am seeing transfer rates from as low as 6MB/s, but mostly around 10MB/s.

I really only bought this adapter because it was readily available and had native command queueing support.

 

Seems very slow to me. What external device are you running?

 

Seagate Momentus 500GB 5400 RPM drive: Walmart.com: Seagate Momentus Internal Laptop Hard Drive, 500GB 5400 RPM, SATA-300 8MB Buffer: Computers

I have it in an Acomdata Tango enclosure: Walmart.com: Acomdata Tango USB 2.0/eSATA 2.5-Inch SATA Hard Drive Enclosure TNGXXXUSE-BLU (Blue): Computers.

Any thoughts?

 

Very odd. You should max out at least USB 2.0 (~30 MB/s). Your enclosure also does only support 1.5 GBit (SATA Rev. I), I could not find out what chipset is used in that device. Maybe you can find out in the device manager.
If I were you, I would try another enclosure, it smells like yours is crappy - you can get faster speeds with a 5 bucks usb flashdrive or SD card...

 

What's a good way to test transfer speed? Just copy a 1GB file to the external via eSata?