Hello!
I just bought an SSD for my laptop, and I would like to use my old HDD as an external drive, but still install programs there (those that require low bandwidth).

After installing the SSD I noticed that my laptop internal drive interface is SATA2 and not SATA3 as the SSD, so it's not running at full power but still a lot faster than before. From here I found out my HDD is SATA2 as well.

Finally, the question: I have a UBS3 port and a eSATA/USB2 port on my laptop, which one should I use to get the fastest operation from using my old HDD as external drive?

Thanks!

 

How much juice the external hd needs?

I have one external pata drive that I made when I upgraded hd in a lappy, moved old hd into external enclosure. I use cable with three usb connectors, one connector to the external hd, two connectors to the pc, I did it this way so that external hd gets juice from two usb ports, since each usb 2 port is rated for 500 mA, I am able to supply approximately 1000 mA to the external hd.

eSATA does not provide any juice to the external hd, so you must use a separate power supply to power your external hd.

USB 3 seems to be able to provide 900 mA. It may or may not be enough. If it is enough, I would say do USB 3. If not enough, use USB 2 with 3 connector cable like I did.

 

1.1A, but the USB3 enclosure has a Y cable so I can plug 2 ports and have enough power.
Assuming enough power, USB3 or eSATA?

 

1.1A, but the USB3 enclosure has a Y cable so I can plug 2 ports and have enough power.
Assuming enough power, USB3 or eSATA?

Like I said, eSATA does not have power. The question becomes: Do you want to run two cables to your external hd (data and power, eSATA setup) or just one (USB2/USB3)?

Some people might go bat crazy about the data transfer speed, but if you under power the hd and kill it, then who the eF cares about speed.

 

USB3 is faster than the eSATA available (revision 2 I think), and if I use 2 USB3 ports I get enough power, so my question is, is there any advantage on using eSATA? (I don mind the extra power cable)

 

USB3 is faster than the eSATA available (revision 2 I think), and if I use 2 USB3 ports I get enough power, so my question is, is there any advantage on using eSATA? (I don mind the extra power cable)

From reading wiki, the only advantage is that eSATA is purpose build for SATA devices. All other advantages and disadvantages are case by case specific.

If you had a bunch of usb devices or attached the external hd though usb hub, I would have said to use eSATA. Since you are not doing that, I don't see a reason to bother with eSATA.