[rtdunham]

is there any word on when apple might add sata ports to the usb/fw/fw800 offerings on its laptops?

[mduell]

It'd be nice, wouldn't it? Three times the bandwidth of Firewire 800 (300MBps vs 80MBps) for a third of the price (~$25 enclosures vs ~$75 enclosures).

[kamina]

It seems strange that this has not already been implemented, and I really can't think of any reason why. Especially with the Mac Pro, it should definitely have been a feature. Apple does not usually leak any information on future releases, so nobody can give you an answer.

[MacDuff]

I would so welcome sata ports onto future macbooks and macbook pros. Let's hope we see them in the next models as I would sell my current Core Duo Macbook to buy a Core 2 Duo with sata ports and 802.11n wireless capability.

[mdc]

Are there any pc laptops with sata on them?
I've never thought about it before but it makes sense for external harddrives.

[Leonard]

Originally Posted by kamina 

It seems strange that this has not already been implemented, and I really can't think of any reason why. Especially with the Mac Pro, it should definitely have been a feature. Apple does not usually leak any information on future releases, so nobody can give you an answer.

It isn't a feature on the Mac Pro because you can always add a PCI-Express SATA controller card.

On the MacBook Pro you can also add a SATA port via an Expresscard ExpressCard/34 SATA host adapter for MacBook Pro . But it would be a nice built-in feature to have on the Macbook Pro.

[Gamoe]

Count me in as one who would be interested to see that feature come to Macs. I would hope to see even the (non-pro) MacBook have it as well. As Leonard pointed out it can be added to the Mac Pro and the MBP, but it cannot be added on afterwards to the MacBook.

[rtdunham]

shouldn't transfer rates be much higher in eSATA than fw800?

the only review i could find was one by MacObserver in which the reviewer concludes, ironically, "Unfortunately, I lost my eSATA test system before I could complete my benchmarking." He said based on other results he thought the eSATA rate would be as good as fw800 or maybe even better.

I thought the new quad-interface drives with an eSATA port would provide a speedier hard disk than any we've had before. Not so? Has anyone see a review that compares performance?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by rtdunham 

shouldn't transfer rates be much higher in eSATA than fw800?

the only review i could find was one by MacObserver in which the reviewer concludes, ironically, "Unfortunately, I lost my eSATA test system before I could complete my benchmarking." He said based on other results he thought the eSATA rate would be as good as fw800 or maybe even better.

I thought the new quad-interface drives with an eSATA port would provide a speedier hard disk than any we've had before. Not so? Has anyone see a review that compares performance?

Barefeats got 186-206MBps with a 4 drive RAID0 eSATA (PM) enclosure.
But FW800 tops out at 61-88MBps with a 4 drive RAID0 enclosure. The SATA speeds are faster in this benchmark because they're using multiple ports; the previous link for SATA only used one port with a port-multiplier enclosure.

And eSATA has more to give; they got 213-256MBps with 5 drive eSATA PM enclosure.

[rtdunham]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Barefeats got 186-206MBps with a 4 drive RAID0 eSATA (PM) enclosure.
But FW800 tops out at 61-88MBps with a 4 drive RAID0 enclosure. The SATA speeds are faster in this benchmark because they're using multiple ports; the previous link for SATA only used one port with a port-multiplier enclosure.

And eSATA has more to give; they got 213-256MBps with 5 drive eSATA PM enclosure.

The data you cite suggests eSATA could be two to three times faster than fw800. RAID enclosures aside (my interest is in eSATA usefulness for new single disc external hard drives for backups, for video work, etc)-- Is that a reasonable interpretation?

[mduell]

Mea culpa, I misunderstood what you meant by "quad interface."

On paper FW800 can do 78.6MBps (786.432Mbps with 8B10B encoding) which makes me somewhat skeptical of the FW800 benchmark I just linked to claiming 88MBps... anyway, that's right around what a single drive can push today (StorageReview puts the 750GB Seagate at 78.6MBps, and the 150G Raptor a tad higher). There is a bit of a conversion penalty with FW800, since the drive's native interface is ATA or SATA, whereas eSATA should just pass the SATA signal straight through. Either way, with one drive, the difference in performance is marginal. The big difference is cost: a good FW800-SATA enclosure is $70-100, while a good eSATA-SATA enclosure is $20-30.

[rtdunham]

Originally Posted by mduell 

There is a bit of a conversion penalty with FW800, since the drive's native interface is ATA or SATA, whereas eSATA should just pass the SATA signal straight through. Either way, with one drive, the difference in performance is marginal. The big difference is cost: a good FW800-SATA enclosure is $70-100, while a good eSATA-SATA enclosure is $20-30.

I appreciate the knowledge you're bringing to this discussion, and have one more set of questions. I need some larger capacity drives NOW, and my objective in this discussion is to decide whether to buy drives now that include an sata interface for future benefit: IF it's faster than fw800, and IF future macs will include that connection, i'd like to buy with a look ahead.

But if as you say a single drive with an sata connection will perform about the same as one hooked up via fw800, then there's no point in paying for that extra interface. (yes, i understand that in the future, if computers and drives both utilize sata interfaces, drives might become cheaper because the sata interface costs less than fw).

[kamina]

Originally Posted by Leonard 

It isn't a feature on the Mac Pro because you can always add a PCI-Express SATA controller card.

With this logic they might as well have left out the soundcard, fw800 ect.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by rtdunham 

I appreciate the knowledge you're bringing to this discussion, and have one more set of questions. I need some larger capacity drives NOW, and my objective in this discussion is to decide whether to buy drives now that include an sata interface for future benefit: IF it's faster than fw800, and IF future macs will include that connection, i'd like to buy with a look ahead.

But if as you say a single drive with an sata connection will perform about the same as one hooked up via fw800, then there's no point in paying for that extra interface. (yes, i understand that in the future, if computers and drives both utilize sata interfaces, drives might become cheaper because the sata interface costs less than fw).

A FW800 enclosure is $65-100 and the majority use IDE drives which are a bit more expensive than SATA drives (+$10 @ 750G, +$25 @ 500G). An eSATA enclosure is $20-50 and the majority use SATA drives; a Mac compatible eSATA ExpressCard is about $120. So the breakeven point today is at about 2 external drives, and if you're going to buy any more than that eSATA is the cheaper option, in addition to being faster.
In my opinion it's also better suited for the future; I think Apple will add eSATA ports to at least their pro Macs this year and I'm not convinced FW800 is going to stick around.

[Leonard]

Originally Posted by kamina 

With this logic they might as well have left out the soundcard, fw800 ect.

It's a question of of space and money. There is only so much space for ports and ports on a motherboard also cost money.