USB 3.0 v. eSATA

[unfaithfulsfan]

Hi everybody & Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

I'm going to get myself an external hard drive for Christmas this year. Wondering which would be the better route to go: USB 3.0 or eSATA? From what I've read, overall it's better to just stick with USB 3.0 for simplicity's sake. One article I read had USB 3.0 faster on reads but eSATA faster on writes but, by and large, they weren't that far apart. The big convenience factor for USB was that a seperate power cord is not necessary. Not so with eSATA.

So I'm kinda leaning toward the USB option but would like to know what y'all think. Thanks a ton & Happy Holidays to everyone!!

Jack

[XstollieX]

I would go with USB 3.0 over eSATA. One of the main reasons is eSATA is fading away, I don't see it on all of the boards coming across the bench. Plus if you need to transfer files to an older computer, it may not have eSATA or USB 3.0, but a USB 3.0 drive would still be compatible with a USB 2.0 port, just slower.

[Apoptosis]

If you want to move data around then you should go USB 3.0 as it will work on most any PC thanks to USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 backwards compatibility. I had a eSATA Flash Drive and never used it much because no one else had eSATA to plug it into. One of the reason eSATA flash drives were short lived.

[unfaithfulsfan]

Thanks, Apoptosis! That's kinda what I thought.

[Major_A]

I have both and the funny thing is I like eSATA better. But, always one of those, as already stated USB is universal (Hell it's in it's name) whereas eSATA is few and far between.

[unfaithfulsfan]

Yeah, that's the way it works. Every single time I find something I really & truly like; that's reliable, durable and doesn't require replacement every 6 months, it vanishes from the shelves never to be seen again. It sucks that we live in a disposable society where the best of a particular technology, no matter what it might be, either never catches on or is so severely undercut by something similar (read cheaper) that it can't survive. Damn, that's a depressing thought!