Author Topic: eSata  (Read 28462 times)

Per E. Johannessen

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eSata
« on: December 11, 2020, 04:43:12 pm »
I have a ThinkStation P520 with an eSATA port and I'm trying to find some "external SSD disk system" to connect to it.
All systems I find use either USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt. Preferably I'd like to have an external enclosure/cabinet that can hold one or two SSD's. Any ideas?

roberto

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Re: eSata
« Reply #1 on: December 11, 2020, 05:10:29 pm »
I have eSATA on my laptop, and it works like any other hard drive. The condition is that you connect the external disk, before turning on the computer, and disconnect it when turning it off.

Per E. Johannessen

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Re: eSata
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2020, 06:03:18 pm »
What external disk brand/model do you have?

ivan

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Re: eSata
« Reply #3 on: December 11, 2020, 08:17:37 pm »
I have an eSATA to SATA cable which I use to connect an SATA drive to my test computer.  That allows me to attach any size drive (largest I have used is 2TB).  The only drawback is that you need an external power supply for the drive, I am working on getting a power connector to attach to the computer to solve that problem.

Since we don't have hot swapping for drives the drive needs to be connected before the computer is switched on.

Doug Bissett

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Re: eSata
« Reply #4 on: December 12, 2020, 09:00:34 am »
Quote
I have a ThinkStation P520 with an eSATA port and I'm trying to find some "external SSD disk system" to connect to it.
All systems I find use either USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt. Preferably I'd like to have an external enclosure/cabinet that can hold one or two SSD's. Any ideas?

I have two Nexstar enclosures, with e-Sata. One has USB 2, and the other has USB 3. I usually use USB, because e-Sata is "inconvenient" most of the time. You do need to have the device attached at boot time, or it won't be recognized. The disk that is inside can be SSD, or HDD. SSD prices have dropped, so they are now a good option (more for resistance to shock, than for speed). Performance will depend a lot on exactly what you are doing with it (the same is true for internal disks).

I would seriously question why you would want more than one physical disk in a single enclosure. If there is a hardware RAID, it may make sense (OS/2 doesn't know about RAID, so it needs to be hardware controlled, if you use it). Then again, there are better ways to do that, without spending a lot of cash.

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I have eSATA on my laptop, and it works like any other hard drive. The condition is that you connect the external disk, before turning on the computer, and disconnect it when turning it off.

Well, not quite. E-Sata, and Sata, are both "hot plug" technologies, You do not need to have power off to physically connect/disconnect them. You do, need to have the device attached at boot time, or the driver will never "see" it. You cannot eject the drive dynamically either. There is no way (in OS/2) to eject it (without shutting down), however, you CAN power it off, and turn it back on later, just don't try to use it while it is off, and don't try to shut down, or re-boot without turning it on again. I don't recommend doing it, but it does work (it can take a LONG time to do a CHKDSK on a 1 TB drive, when it isn't properly closed out).

In fact, there is a program that does partly eject the drive, so you can turn it off, and don't need to worry about shut down, or re-boot. I am NOT going to suggest it, because it is not very user friendly, and it would be easy to lose data, if you are not careful. It can re-mount an e-Sata disk that was mounted at boot time, but it can't mount a disk that wasn't attached at boot time.

I did some tests with the USB 3 device. Doing a copy with RSync using USB 3, and e-Sata (same device). The speed (as displayed by RSync) was almost identical.

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That allows me to attach any size drive (largest I have used is 2TB

The largest physical disk that OS/2 can support (currently)  is 2 TB. You can get larger disks, but OS/2 can't use them (yet). I am not even sure that you can make a larger one work, by limiting the available size to 2 TB. I do know that work is being done to fix that problem, but it is not one of the high priority projects.

roberto

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Re: eSata
« Reply #5 on: December 12, 2020, 02:14:29 pm »
What external disk brand/model do you have?
It does not seem to me that it is a problem of the disc, if not of the feeding. As Ivan told you. I use an e-sata cable with a usb booster just to have more amps as booster. The disk is a small one from a normal 2 1/2" laptop not ssd. It is not a large disk 3 1/2" that possibly needs more power and this cable that I am telling you is insufficient.
https://www.ebay.es/itm/USB-Power-Data-Cable-for-2-5-HDD-SATA-Hard-Disk-Drive-22Pin-to-eSATA-50CM/402579530540?hash=item5dbb9c232c:g:2DsAAOSwViVfv6Md
saludos

Pete

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Re: eSata
« Reply #6 on: December 12, 2020, 03:01:11 pm »
Hi Per

I have an Icy Box external disk enclosure, model IB-351StU3S-B, which has both USB3 and eSATA connection options - see https://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/p/Icy-Box-IB-351StU3-B-35-inch-HDD-Enclosure-USB-30-Black_48539.html

It is for 3.5" disks but should be possible to find or make some sort of 3.5" to 2.5" adaptor.

As others have pointed out eSATA disks need to be already attached at boot time so the disk is treated as a standard SATA drive - hot plug and eject are missing from our OS. Now that we have USB3 that is the preferred connection option here for convenience.


Regards

Pete


Per E. Johannessen

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Re: eSata
« Reply #7 on: December 12, 2020, 03:54:46 pm »
Thanks to all for info.

Doug, I had hardware controlled RAID in mind when mentioning an enclosure for 2 disks.
Not really necessary, just that I'd like to try it.

Pete, I was actually looking at various Icy Box disk enclosures but couldn't find any wth eSATA.

Anyway, both of you mentioned USB 3 so I think I'll go for that.


Andi B.

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Re: eSata
« Reply #8 on: December 12, 2020, 06:41:52 pm »
I've an internal Fantec enclosure where I can insert 3.5" and 2.5" SATA disks. Maybe you can find an external one. Mine works very well with 3,5" disks but has some compatibility problems with different 2.5" SSDs. Not what you're looking for but USB3 is terrible slow compared to that. About 5-10 times slower. Regarding the discussion at the testers group about USB transfer speed it seems we can never get more than about 20MB/s. Although I can't believe it this is what David has to say about that. While with other OSes write/read speed to USB3 attached disks is only limited by the disk speed, for us it stays at about 18MB/s (same as with USB2 and even slower as with old USB2 drivers a few years ago). Of course all measurements made with the same system and same disk and same connector/cable.....

Doug Bissett

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Re: eSata
« Reply #9 on: December 12, 2020, 08:38:26 pm »
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Regarding the discussion at the testers group about USB transfer speed it seems we can never get more than about 20MB/s

I have seen a little faster than 20 MB/s, with the AN USB X driver. It all depends on whether the connectors work properly ( (A type, especially, are very marginal), which USB 3 adapter I use, and which device. Most devices just won't go as fast as USB 3 is supposed to go (you are lucky if they do 20% of what they should do). That usually has nothing to do with the driver, most of the time, it is the device (some controllers aren't worth even trying too). You also need to remember, that USB write, is always slower than USB read (usually half). There is also a feature (called "USB BOOST", on my machine), that helps USB speed, when the OS knows about it. I think that needs some sort of support from the OS. It also needs to be enabled in the BIOS.

FWIW, I don't get more than 20 GB/s using e-Sata either. It can be affected by how fast the (e-)Sata controller is designed to run. It also depends on how you measure the speed. There are many things that can affect it (including the cable length). On disk cache seems to be important.

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About 5-10 times slower.

This is almost guaranteed to be a bad USB connector. 5 -10 times slower indicates that you are connecting to the HS controller, not the SS controller. There is a tool, supplied to the Arca Noae testers, that tells you exactly how a device is connected. It seems to be essential to be able to adjust the connectors so they actually work. Unfortunately, there are no plans (that I know of) to release that tool to the users (they probably don't want to support it). There is a tool, by the same name, that does something similar in windows. It is called USBTREE, if anybody wants to give it a shot. I have no idea if it is actually the same program, and I haven't tried it myself. YMMV.

Per E. Johannessen

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Re: eSata
« Reply #10 on: December 12, 2020, 08:57:46 pm »
Well, that's a surprise to me. I never thought that we would achieve USB 3 transfer speeds that the hardware manufacturers lists as max speeds but only 20% of what they should be able do is very disappointing.
Slow, or not, I will eventually need an external USB 3 drive and will also continue trying to find eSATA solution.

Doug Bissett

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Re: eSata
« Reply #11 on: December 13, 2020, 05:03:20 am »
Well, that's a surprise to me. I never thought that we would achieve USB 3 transfer speeds that the hardware manufacturers lists as max speeds but only 20% of what they should be able do is very disappointing.
Slow, or not, I will eventually need an external USB 3 drive and will also continue trying to find eSATA solution.

It is disappointing, but not surprising. USB has always had the problem where manufacturers don't follow the rules, and build product that doesn't even come close to what the specs say they should be. When they say it is "USB3", people just assume that they will run at USB 3 design speed. It isn't so. I have had very good results with my (Vantec) NexStar  enclosures (I usually use Seagate drives in them), but the cheap USB sticks are mostly garbage (not unusable, but some are pretty close). Even the more expensive sticks are not built to run at design speed. There are a few sticks that do run near design speed, but they are very expensive, and I find it difficult to justify even thinking about them. Watch the specs closely, or you can waste your money. If they don't tell you the specs, it is probably not as good as they lead you to believe. "Expensive" doesn't always mean faster, and/or more reliable.

FWIW, my newest enclosure is a Vantec NexStar 6G device. That one is USB (3) only. The one that has e-Sata, and USB (3) is a Vantec NexStar 6G too. They are both for 3.5 inch disks. There are similar models for 2.5 inch disks, and they would be more suitable for SSD drives. It seems that e-Sata has never become popular, probably because it is more difficult to handle than USB drives. E-Sata does have the advantage that they are built closer to the e-Sata design specs, so they are more likely to work as advertised.

Andi B.

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Re: eSata
« Reply #12 on: December 13, 2020, 12:07:33 pm »
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Quote
    About 5-10 times slower.
This is almost guaranteed to be a bad USB connector. 5 -10 times slower indicates that you are connecting to the HS controller, not the SS controller. There is a tool, supplied to the Arca Noae testers, that tells you exactly how a device is connected. It seems to be essential to be able to adjust the connectors so they actually work.

No, definitely no. I clearly said in that thread that it is the same system, the same connector, the same disk and reproducible. Probably I don't even disconnected the cable/disk between rebooting/testing. And I posted the output of the tool.

We had more than enough of all that unrelated general talking about USB defects in that thread. (I don't need them I know USB is crap. But it's a fact it only behaves so slow and bad with our OS, not with others. No that's not bashing, that's telling the truth.) And David explained in that thread that we should not think that we can get any better values. It is what it is and it will not be faster in the future. I can't believe it and still hope he didn't read carefully enough what I wrote and my findings. Maybe David got lost in that thread cause you Doug used that thread for general, unrelated USB bashing and bubbling about connectors and .... Maybe sometimes it's better to stay on topic instead discuss hardly related off topic things. Sorry that I by myself didn't follow this advice in this thread. Promise that I'll do better in future.


Per E. Johannessen

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Re: eSata
« Reply #13 on: December 13, 2020, 05:28:07 pm »
Roberto,  I meant to ask for the brand/model of the disk cabinet/enclosure, sorry for being unclear.
I see now that you don't use any external enclosure at all so I'll try to get such a cable that you mentioned.

roberto

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Re: eSata
« Reply #14 on: December 13, 2020, 10:12:42 pm »
The disk I use is a 8455mb thosiba, MQ01ABD100, 2 1/2 "
But like I told you before, that is not important. As the ones I use are from old computers, they are ready to use in os2, like jfs, plug and play. If not, you will have to prepare it as when you install the system.
Saludos