Any way to add eSATA to iMac?

[Fwiler]

Just purchased a new iMac. I have a couple of nice IcyDock external eSATA/USB enclosures and I really don't want to buy all new FW800 enclosures because of the cost.
Is there any way to add eSATA? USB just seems sooo slow after using eSATA.
Even if it means opening up and modifying a bit.

 

[goobimama]

I don't think so. eSATA is a totally different standard. I guess you might get some USB to eSATA converters but that loses its meaning.

Anyway, why don't you just use FireWire400? Its not much more than an eSATA enclosure/drive.

 

[Fwiler]

I was hoping there was some type of SATA connector inside the iMac (besides the one used for the internal drive.) I have a SATA to eSATA connector with cable already.
FW400 won't do much more than USB 2.0, a little bit, but not worth switching everything out.

 

[Geeky1]

I was hoping there was some type of SATA connector inside the iMac (besides the one used for the internal drive.) I have a SATA to eSATA connector with cable already.

I'm not honestly sure how many SATA connectors are in the Mac, but chances are EXTREMELY low that there are any extras. 's not how Apple does things, especially with the iMacs.

FW400 won't do much more than USB2, a little bit, but not worth switching everything out.

FWIW, my experience with external drives has been that Firewire is, in real world situations, *significantly* faster than USB2.

I understand that the theoretical bandwidth for FW400 is, uh, 400mbit/s and it's 480 for USB2.0, and I have no explanation for why it's the case, but I can hit a good 30-35MB/s on a Firewire drive when the same drive, on the USB2 port in the same enclosure, will have a hard time touching 20MB/s. This has been very consistent across all my machines (both PC and Mac), both with integrated USB2 controllers and with PCI cards.

 

[goobimama]

Yep. Firewire is a clear winner here. And if you really want the extreme speed, then I think you should bear the little extra cost that comes with FW800 rather than tinker with the iMac...

 

[Joe Diver]

Yep. Firewire is a clear winner here. And if you really want the extreme speed, then I think you should bear the little extra cost that comes with FW800 rather than tinker with the iMac...

I agree...I just bought an OWC external...FW800....nice and fast!

 

[Larance]

Both my iMacs have both 400 and 800 Firewire receptacles; they're two year old 24"-ers.
As for the speed difference between USB@480 and Firewire@400, it's my understanding that Firewire streams its signal, while USB sends packets at a time, thus seemingly faster is actually slower. And I, too, would like to see an adapter for eSATA, as most non-Apple stores have quit selling Mac-specific accessories. Our CompUSA sells a single Firewire housing (but bindles of USB and eSATA) that fits only IDE external hard drives. I chose the eSATA/USB housing and the eSATA match for lack of a real choice at a reasonable cost.

Oh, and I originally bought an external Maxtor 1TB already built Firewire 800... it was fast, yes, but it fried within a few months (90-day warranty I was told). Upon disassembling the housing I found two 500 GB Maxtors inside. Only one had fried, and I still use the other in a separate housing from Mad Dog. Pressing my luck? Non volatile info only.

 

[harryb2448]

Firewire is much faster than USB2. eSATA is somewhat slower than Firewire 400. For example on a Dual Core using SuperDuper Smart Backup, Firewire 400 does the full job in eleven minutes, eSATA through a SeriTek PCIE card takes fifteen minutes. Have a Firewire 800 on order and will advise times if you are interested.

 

[dtravis7]

I will just put it this way, a Stopwatch does not lie. Mine shows much faster file transfers of large files than USB 2.0.

 

[skattle91]

Yep. Firewire is a clear winner here. And if you really want the extreme speed,

then I think you should bear the little extra cost that comes with FW800 rather than tinker with the iMac...

Yeah, i have FW800 and its awesome. A little extra cost to be beard but it feels so good with FW800