e-sata problems
June 12, 2010 12:50AM
I am having some e-sata trouble.

I have a 2.16 Macbook Pro running the latest Leopard and Final Cut Express 4.5. I also use 1TB Lacie Quadra externals. I usually hook up using firewire 800. I am editing HDV footage from a Canon HV30. I heard that connecting using e-sata gives much greater transfer speed performance. I purchased an e-sata 34mm express card from macsales.com. When I connect my Lacie drives using this e-sata method, I get periodic crashes that require a 3 second power button shut down. Also when this happens the Lacie drive light flickers untill I power cycle the hard drive. I have tried all 3 of my Lacies and they all act the same when the system crashes. The system is rock solid and never has any trouble when I connect using firewire 800.

Any ideas??

For the work I am doing I am not even sure I am benifitting from the e-sata connection conpared to the firewire 800 connection.

Thanks,

Frank
Re: e-sata problems
June 12, 2010 12:56PM
Weird. I had a similar experience with a Rocstor Esata card. Had current firmware, but would get constant kernal crashes.

Is that what you are getting? Or do the drives just freeze up?

If it is gray screen, make sure you have the correct firmware for the express card. The first card I had was a rocstor. Replaced it with a Sonnet and it was all good. I'm thinking firmware issue, as this was a common problem early on with the Leopard and express esata cards.
Re: e-sata problems
June 15, 2010 03:54AM
Try looking here to make sure your e-sata driver is up to date:

[www.siliconimage.com]

Check also in system profiler what model number your card is (i think its under sub-system id), i had a series of system crashes when using fcp hooked up to a drive via e-sata that would be fine when connected via FW800 which was happening after a clean install of my whole machine. turns out the driver i had was out of date..... hope this helps.......
Re: e-sata problems
June 29, 2010 08:34AM
Man, I have just given in to the fact that this is the nature of the beast.
What is actually happening, is you are likely bumping the card....
My sata card is a cheapo, unlike others, and it is unbelievably sensitive to being bumped.
So much so, that I am seriously considering another solution all together. The other pain in the butt, is that ANY SATA situation requires power, and FW800 does not.
Is the speed difference noticeable? YOU BET!
BIG difference from Firewire, but when that drive starts to get full it will behave about the same.

Treatment
Re: e-sata problems
June 29, 2010 12:34PM
I have similar issues with a Sonnet card that can easily disconnect in the slot of my 17" MBP.

I'm considering this:

"Sonnet Technologies introduced the Tempo SATA Edge ExpressCard/34, a new eSATA adapter for the MacBook Pro and other notebooks with an ExpressCard/34 slot. The card fits completely inside the slot, its connector edge flush with the edge of the slot, and it can safely be left in the slot when not in use. It provides a single external 3Gb/s eSATA port, supporting both single drives and multi-drive enclosures with port multipliers or RAID controllers, and according to Sonnet it can sustain data transfer speeds of up to 125 MB/sec read and 110 MB/sec write. The Tempo SATA Edge ExpressCard/34 is $49.95 and is compatible with Mac OS X 10.3 and up, including Snow Leopard, as well as Windows XP and up."

Although the card I have has two ports, and sometimes that's more important for that particular project.

deb
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