[Robert Hicks]

I'm thinking about getting an expresscard esata adapter and enclosures. Anyone using it on their MBP's ? How well does it work? Let's see what you got.

[Skip_Intro]

I've got one that I use with an enclosure, as well as with a standalone drive..

It works fine, although it doesn't seem any faster than firewire 800. One catch with mine is I can't boot from it. I don't know if that's due to the card design or OSX.

Probably OSX, now that I think of it, since you have to load drivers for the card to be recognized.

[mduell]

No, but I'm using PC Card SATA.
It works wonderfully. Faster than FW800 for a fraction of the price (especially when you have 4+ external drives).

[Drakino]

I've got this one Bytecc eSATA in my MacBook Pro, and it works great. Drive speed is faster then the Firewire 400 port my system has (don't have 800), and it works in both OS X and Windows Vista. Drives act just like any other external drive, and once the card is in the system, OS X adds a power down option in the menu bar for it.

[Robert Hicks]

Excellent.. just got the MBP delivered today and will look at the eSATA option next.

thanks a bunch guys

[mfbernstein]

Used the ApioTek eSATA card on a MacBook Pro. Simply wasn't reliable (machine would have to be rebooted to mount drives, odd kernel panics after sleeping, etc.). Performance was also very spotty: for the same large transfer I got anywhere from slower than USB 2.0 to 2.5X faster.

If I had the choice again, I'd go with FW800. While it may be marginally slower and the enclosures aren't as cheap, the potential headache factor is simply lower.