eSATA has never been completely supported by any OS. that I know about. Even windows will usually refuse to eject it, until the system is shut down. For those who understand it, eSATA is a far better technology than USB, but lack of proper support makes it difficult to use.
NVME is a storage technology, related to SATA (or eSATA, which is really just SATA with a different connector), or IDE. M2 and NVME are just other interfaces to storage technology. Which one will win the race, is yet to be seen.
In years past, there was the "winprinter' controversy. Today, "winprinter" is all that is available, because people didn't understand the difference (other than price). Pay double for a computer powerful enough to do the job, and save a little on the printer. This is really no different.
Manufacturers are going to choose the cheapest alternative, and they usually don't care if that alternative even works properly (and many of the new technologies don't work all that well). The only thing that will stop that nonsense is if users refuse to buy inferior technology. Most users have no idea what technology their computers use, so it isn't going to happen.
About eSATA, as a external device port, my opinion is that is loosing on the market (or maybe already lost).
No, it is not, yet, lost. You just need to watch for the option when you buy something that can use it. You do not need a specific eSATA port, it will connect to normal SATA ports, if you have an adapter (just a cable), or even just a cable with the appropriate ends on it. The killer, as mentioned above, is lack of support for mount/dismount, and that is not unique to OS/2 (and the cost, of course).
USB 3 is definitely going to take a chunk out of the market, because speed is no longer a serious difference. If they ever get USB quality under control, it may be the end of eSATA. I don't see that happening any time soon, but if the market goes away, so will the devices.
But as part of the OS/2 community, eSATA may be working better than USB 3, today.
Not from what I see. I have two eSATA devices. One has a USB 2 connector, which is definitely slower than eSATA. The other has USB 3. Running the exact same job runs so close to the same speed, that I can't tell which is faster. USB is somewhat easier to use, because of the mount/dismount requirements for eSATA. Which is better depends on exactly what you are doing with the device.
Having said all of that, yes USB does have some problems, that are being addressed. The biggest problem is that USB is often very poor quality devices, and that makes it very difficult to make every one of them work well, with any OS.
The race is still on. It is up to the consumer to determine which technology wins. Meanwhile, we need more drivers to make some of the new things work with OS/2. I know that NVME is almost ready. Nobody is working on making eSATA mount/dismount work, although there is a half way solution, if you want to mess around with it (not worth the effort, from what I see).
