To backup my data I bought the external harddisk Western Digital My Book Home Edition with a capacity of 1 Terabyte which provides the following interfaces:
- 2 x Firewire 400
- 1 x USB 2.0
- 1 x eSATA
As I was curious to see how big is the difference between these interfaces I did some performance testing.
This are the results:
I did the perfomance testing under Windows Vista 64bit edition with the tool HDD Speed Test Tool by Marko Oette.
Regarding the eSATA interface I would like to say that the hot plug works (connect/disconnect while windows is running) and that while working with my computer I encountered sometimes some strange problems. The whole computer was blocked especially when I used applications that show an open file dialog or something similar. As soon as I unplugged the external HDD everything worked well. I would say that eSATA does not work 100%. This may be especially frustrating when making a backup of very large files and during the backup the HDD disappears (which happened to me). I don't exactly know if it is a driver, hardware or Windows Vista problem.
Regarding the eSATA interface I would like to say that the hot plug works (connect/disconnect while windows is running) and that while working with my computer I encountered sometimes some strange problems. The whole computer was blocked especially when I used applications that show an open file dialog or something similar. As soon as I unplugged the external HDD everything worked well. I would say that eSATA does not work 100%. This may be especially frustrating when making a backup of very large files and during the backup the HDD disappears (which happened to me). I don't exactly know if it is a driver, hardware or Windows Vista problem.
