3 0 Hard Drive

USB-C, USB 3.0 Ready Selecting a Backup Plus hard drive that matches your preferred interface is easy. Ultra Touch works with USB-C and USB 3.0 computers while Portable and Slim work with USB 3.0. And they all work interchangeably with Windows ® and Mac ® out of the box (reformatting may be required for use with Time Machine). If you use a USB 2.0 extension cable, then yes your speeds will drop because USB 3.0 traffic runs across a completely different set of pins compared to USB 2.0, and a USB 2.0 extension cable would not connect those pins between the hard drive and the PC.

1. Toshiba 3.0 Hard Drive Install
2. 9.5mm Hard Drive
3. Usb 3.0 External Hard Drive
4. 3.0 + Hard Drive
5. Usb 3.0 Portable Hard Drive

Summary :

Do you know the differences between eSATA and USB 3.0? Do you know how to choose between eSATA and USB 3.0 external hard drives? If you don't know, you can read this post, in which MiniTool gives you answers.

eSATA vs USB 3.0

In general, most external and portable hard drives are equipped with USB ports, and some external hard drives come with other ports like eSATA, Thunderbolt, etc. I have discussed Thunderbolt external hard drive before, so in this post, I mainly focus on eSATA vs USB 3.0.

What is USB 3.0 Port?

USB 3.0 is a USB data transfer protocol initiated by companies such as Intel, which is compatible with USB 1.1 and USB 2.0. Compared with USB 2.0 whose transfer rate is 60 MB/s (480 Mbps), the transfer rate of USB 3.0 can be up to 500 MB/s (5 Gbps).

USB interface has many physical forms like USB Type-A, USB-Type-B, USB-Type-C, Micro USB, Mini USB, etc. However, your desktop or laptop computers are mainly using USB Type-A and USB Type-C interfaces, while external hard drives are mainly using USB Type-A (this port is more commonly used in 3.5-inch drives), USB Type-C, Micro USB, and Mini USB interfaces.

USB 3.0 protocol can run on all the physical USB ports mentioned above, so does USB 2.0 protocol. Therefore, before purchasing an external hard drive, please consult customer service to make sure that the disk interface supports USB 3.0.

Further Reading:

1. USB 3.0 was ever renamed USB 3.1 Gen 1 by the USB-IF (USB Implementers Forum), and is now renamed USB 3.2 Gen 1.
2. USB interface has other faster transfer protocols like USB 3.1 Gen 2 (it is now renamed USB 3.2 Gen 2), and USB 3.2 (it is renamed USB 3.2 Gen 2x2).

If you want to know more about USB port, please read the following post:

Many users have the question 'what does USB stand for'. If you also have the same question, please read the post to find the answer.

What Is eSATA Port?

The full name of eSATA is External Serial ATA, which is an external expansion specification for the SATA interface. In other words, eSATA is the 'external' version of SATA, which is used to connect external rather than internal SATA devices. The physical eSATA port is shown like the following picture:

Like SATA interface, eSATA speed can be up to 600 MB/s (6 Gbps) at most (older versions' speed just reaches 150 MB/s or 300MB/s).

eSATA vs USB 3.0 External Hard Drive

After learning about USB 3.0 port and eSATA port, let's compare USB 3.0 external hard drives and eSATA external hard drives.

1. Speed: eSATA external hard drives usually perform better than USB 3.0 external hard drives for the following reasons:

• Interface speed will limit hard drive speed. Therefore, USB 3.0 external hard drive speed won't exceed 500 MB/s, while eSATA external hard drive can exceed that speed.
• In general, a USB external disk is composed as follows: a SATA disk, a SATA to USB PCB adapter, a matching USB interface, etc. Therefore, when reading and writing data from the external hard drive via USB port, the interface conversion (PCB adapter) will affect the data transmission speed. However, the eSATA external hard drive does not cause this problem.

2. Penetration rate: eSATA port is not as popular as USB 3.0 port.

A large number of PCs and PC peripherals use USB 3.0 interfaces. As for eSATA, it has gradually been eliminated. However, eSATA is still very popular among enterprise customers. The main reason is that the IT department will close the USB port for security reasons, only leaving eSATA ports as a means of connection.

Then, you may wonder which one you should buy. Actually, it depends on the port on your PC. If your computer has an eSATA Port, I recommend you to buy an eSATA hard drive. If your PC just has a USB port, you should buy a USB 3.0 external hard drive.

Best USB and eSATA External Hard Drive

In this part, I will recommend 4 external hard drives to you. Among them, two are USB 3.0 external hard drives and the other two are eSATA external hard drives.

1. Samsung T5 Portable SSD

Capacity: 250 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB

Interface: USB 3.1 Gen 2

Sequential Read Speed: Up to 540 MB/s

Sequential Write Speed: Up to 520 MB/s

Warranty: 3 years

Facebook for windows 10. Price: Start at $89.99 at Amazon

This SSD takes V-NAND technology and offers ultra-fast data transfer speeds of up to 540MB/s (up to 4.9x faster than external HDDs). It is ideal for transferring large-sized data including 4K videos, high-resolution photos, games, etc.

It offers optional password protection and AES 256-bit hardware encryption to keep your personal and private data more secure. However, this drive only supports Windows 7, Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks), Android 4.4 (KitKat), or higher.

This drive uses USB Type-C interface and supports USB 3.1 and USB 3.0 protocol. It can be said that this external hard drive will not go obsolete in recent years.

2. Seagate Backup Plus Portable HDD

Capacity: 1 TB, 2 TB, 4 TB, 5 TB

Interface: USB 3.0

Speed: Up to 120 MB/s

Warranty: 2 years

Price: Start at $55.99 at Amazon

This drive supports Windows and Mac computers. Its big capacity can satisfy your need to back up and archive files. In addition, if you buy this drive, you can get a complimentary two-month membership to the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan.

It's very cheap and has a too big capacity. I cannot rule out this possibility that it is a SMR drive, so I recommend you to just use it to archive files.

3. MiniPro eSATA USB-C Portable HDD/SSD

This drive features an aluminum body for maximum protection and heat dissipation. It is compatible with Windows and Mac computers, and has eSATA, and USB 3.1/3.0/2.0 ports. Furthermore, the SSD has no moving parts, which allows it to perform ultra-silent operation and withstand high impact (1500GS operating shock).

4. Fantom Drives External Hard Drive

Capacity: 1 TB, 2 TB, 3TB, 4 TB, 5 TB, 6 TB, 8 TB, 10 TB, 12 TB, 14 TB, 16 TB

Interface: USB 3.0/eSATA

Speed: Unknown Setup download windows 10.

Warranty: 1 year

Price: Start at $74.95 at Amazon

This drive is compatible with USB 3.0/2.0 and eSATA. Its only advantage is the large capacity, so its vendor hasn't even mentioned its speed. Certainly, it's a SMR disk and you can use it to store a huge number of photos, music, and videos. SMR disks always do well in archiving files. But please do not run programs or games on it.

The guide on how to use an external hard drive is displayed in the post. An external hard drive is useful in many aspects such as files storage and data backup.

Prepare the Drive in Windows PC

After getting an external hard drive, you should prepare it to make sure that you can use it smoothly. As for disk management tool, I recommend MiniTool Partition Wizard to you, which can make your operations simpler.

Here is the tutorial on how to prepare the external hard drive in a Windows PC:

Step 1: Connect the drive to your computer and then it will appear in your PC.

Step 2: Click the above button to download MiniTool Partition Wizard and then launch it to get to its main interface. Right-click the partition on the external hard drive and then choose Format.

Step 3: Choose a proper file system and then click OK button. If you want to use the external drive to boot your computer (make a portable Windows, a Windows installation media, etc.), you should format it to FAT32. If you just want to use it to store data or do something like that, you should format it to NTFS. Click FAT32 vs NTFS to know more.

Step 4: Click the Apply button to execute the pending operations.

Apart from changing the file system, you can resize the partition size, split or create partitions with MiniTool Partition Wizard freely. Just have a try!

Bottom Line

Has this post answered all your questions about eSATA vs USB 3.0? Do you have difficulty in preparing a hard drive on Windows PC? Have you encountered any hard drive problems? If so, please leave a comment or email us at [email protected]. We will reply to you as soon as possible.

eSATA vs USB 3.0 FAQ

Those looking to get a headstart on their archiving and backup needs have a great opportunity with 10-12TB drives coming down in price, and now with 14TB options starting to do the same. One of these is Western Digital's (WD) new 14TB Easystore, an external USB 3.0 with more than enough space for your modern needs.

This isn't the perfect drive for just anyone as the average consumer doesn't require this much capacity. However, if you are a professional who depends on this kind of space for their editing, storing, and archiving of files, or even an enthusiast looking to build the ultimate media server, this is a perfect option. With this kind of space, you can store so much content and keep up with modern formats like 4K.

Toshiba 3.0 Hard Drive Install

The overall design of the drive is a copy and paste of their smaller capacity models (both USB 3.0 and 2.0 varieties) within the Easystore lineup. Black in theme and with the WD Easystore logo and access LED on the front. On the rear, you have the USB connection (cable included), power input (cable included), and a lock slot to insert a normal Kengsington-style laptop lock (or similar) to secure the drive with (lock not included of course).

9.5mm Hard Drive

Navegador safari para windows. It comes formatted (NTFS) so that it will immediately work with any modern OS or alternative solution and you can, of course, rip it open and use the drive in your favorite NAS setup (the one inside our was helium) if you so choose (although a WD Black drive would be better for that).

The highest transfer speeds during our tests fell around 180MB/s and 190MB/s, which isn't bad at all for an affordable spinning drive solution. Depending on what we were transferring, or which test was being performed, speeds ranged anywhere between that and 110-190MBps. When moving data to and from various SSDs, we sometimes experienced small spikes here and there. We have been running it hard for the last few days on a system that never shuts down, and the drive seems to be holding up well. We will update this story if we find any changes to our results.

This drive would make a great solution for those looking for mass content or backup storage. Clearly, this wouldn't be good for your main OS drive as you'd want to use an SSD (preferably NVMe if your system supports it) for this purpose and run this drive in addition to it for everything else. Connect it to a router for network-access storage for all users or, as mentioned, build one of the greatest (personal) media/content servers for accessing all of your owned content using something like Plex.

It's still up there in price, although it has come down since its original release. It will grow more acceptable in price (as always) as time goes by. Especially as the average sold drives grow in capacity. However, recently (10/29/2020) Best Buy dropped its price for a day, to the lowest we've seen yet ($189), causing a mad rush on them. Speaking to some of their associates, many stores watched as the drives flooded out the door until nothing was left.

Usb 3.0 External Hard Drive

Now, they have been getting in more inventory and you can bet there will likely be something just as exciting around Black Friday or Cyber Monday, so keep an eye out!

You can find capacities from 8TB to 18TB within the current Easystore series. So if the 14TB model is a little more than you need (or not enough), there are plenty of options to pick from.

The only thing we could find that we didn't like about the drive, was the protective film wrapped around the glossy plastic. In our experience, it resulted in a lot of static when we peeled it off. Obviously, static and electronics don't go well together, so we were kind of put off by that. If you have a way of grounding yourself when peeling that off, it would be advised. You are likely just fine either way, but we like to play it safe just in case.

3.0 + Hard Drive

Last Updated (11/04/2020)

Our Conclusion

Thus far in our tests, this drive has proven to be both reliable and durable. We have copied a lot of information to and from the drive over a great deal of time resulting in nothing but success. Things can, of course, change as the months go by, but so far it has been doing quite well. Transfer speeds are right where they should be for a quality spinning drive, making it perfect for mass content and backups alike (falling around 180-190MB/s on average). This is an incredible amount of space for serious users in need of it.

*Average price is based on the time this article was published
**Note: The model via Amazon is a similar model under a different model number

Additional Images:

Specifications:

Usb 3.0 Portable Hard Drive

• Formatted as NTFS
• Windows® 10, Windows 8.1 or Windows 7
• Reformatting required for macOS.

• Desktop hard drive
• USB cable
• AC adapter
• WD Discovery™ software with WD Backup™
• Quick install guide

Are you a manufacturer or distributor that would like us to test something out for review? Contact us and we can let you know where to send the product and we will try it out.

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