Internal drive with eSATA VS external drive with USB3?

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Santos Yali

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Jun 22, 2015
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Hello,

So I want an external hard drive for my laptop. The way i see it i can
-buy a normal external hard drive using USB 3.0,
-buy an internal drive, and get an encasing with it so i can use eSATA (my laptop has eSATA).

My question is: Is there a notable difference using eSATA? Purely performance-wise.
I want to use it mostly to save stuff on, and eSATA seems like a nice opportunity to use the hard drive as if it were a normal internal drive. I also always assumed it ran faster.

I've been searching around, but there's a lot of technical jargon out there and it honestly made me more confused to begin with. I really don't know all that much about storage.

I hope someone can help me out with this!
 
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A
We have found virtually no performance difference between eSATA & USB 3.0. As you may know since the advent of USB 3.0 eSATA has become a dying technology. Fewer & fewer motherboards are being manufactured with eSATA capability and fewer & fewer PCs are so equipped.

Now there's nothing inherently wrong or negative about using eSATA connectivity when your equipment has (as your laptop has) eSATA capability. In a sense, it's six of one - a half-dozen of another, when compared with using USB 3.0 (in terms of performance). There is one potential advantage of eSATA over USB connectivity - a HDD/SSD containing a viable OS connected via eSATA is a bootable device, while the same drive connected via USB may not be. Since you've indicated you...
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ArtPog

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Sep 17, 2014
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We have found virtually no performance difference between eSATA & USB 3.0. As you may know since the advent of USB 3.0 eSATA has become a dying technology. Fewer & fewer motherboards are being manufactured with eSATA capability and fewer & fewer PCs are so equipped.

Now there's nothing inherently wrong or negative about using eSATA connectivity when your equipment has (as your laptop has) eSATA capability. In a sense, it's six of one - a half-dozen of another, when compared with using USB 3.0 (in terms of performance). There is one potential advantage of eSATA over USB connectivity - a HDD/SSD containing a viable OS connected via eSATA is a bootable device, while the same drive connected via USB may not be. Since you've indicated you plan to use a HDD "mostly to save stuff" that may not be an important consideration for you.

And as kanewolf has indicated you can purchase an external device that contains both USB 3.0 & eSATA capability. (Although there too fewer & fewer such devices are being currently manufactured).
 
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