MaximumPC 2001 11

http://www.maximumpc.com|JAN 2011 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC| 17

And the Winner Is...

ROUND 3

EASE OF USE It doesn’t get much easier to

use than USB: just plug in and go. Every operating

system has incredibly robust USB drivers, and

will automatically recognize and mount storage

volumes on USB. USB 3.0 devices can also function

just fi ne plugged into USB 2.0 ports—though, of

course, they won’t be as fast. eSATA is fl akier.

Though you can hotplug eSATA devices, there’s no

guarantee that they’ll show up until after a restart.

And performance can be very chipset-dependant.

WINNER: USB 3.

ROUND 4

PERFORMANCE The theoretical throughput of USB

3.0 is 5Gb/s, which is nearly twice the current eSATA spec

of 3Gb/s, so we expected USB 3.0 to trounce eSATA in the

benchmarks. But we were wrong. Really wrong. We tested

both interfaces with the same SSD and test rig, using eSATA

and USB 3.0 docking stations from the same product line, and

3Gb/s eSATA trounced USB 3.0. Not by a little bit, either: eSATA

read speeds were half again of the USB 3.0 equivalent, and

write speeds doubled on eSATA versus USB 3.0. As the USB 3.

spec matures, expect that gap to narrow, but by then 6Gb/s

eSATA will be out. WINNER: ESATA

USB 3.0 cable

Best scores bolded. Our benchmark uses the onboard eSATA and USB 3.0 ports on a Gigabyte GA-H55N-USB3 motherboard with an Intel Core i5-655K CPU and 4GB of

DDR3/1800. USB 3.0 test used Thermaltake BlackX 5G HDD Docking Station; eSATA test used Thermaltake BlackX Duet HDD Docking Station. Drive used was 100GB Patriot

Inferno SSD; benchmarks taken with HDTune 4.01.

Patriot Inferno Patriot Inferno

with USB 3.0 with eSATA

BENCHMARKS

HDTach 3.0.1.

Avg Sequential Read (MB/s) 126.8 184.

Avg Sequential Write (MB/s) 111.0 207.

Burst Speed (MB/s) 131.5 231.

Random Access (ms) .2.

CPU Utilization (%) 4% 4%

W

e gotta give it to USB 3.0. Even though eSATA has the clear

edge in performance—and the added benefi t of faithfully

passing through native SATA commands—nearly all mass storage

devices still use mechanical hard drives, and both USB 3.0 and

eSATA are more than capable of throughput that exceeds the fast-

est mechanical drives on the market. USB 3.0 has the edge in ver-

satility and ease of use, too—you can plug thousands of diff erent

devices into a USB 3.0 port. While eSATA off ers great performance

and SATA fi delity, it just can’t do as much. And its driver set is not

as robust.

Furthermore, eSATA ports aren’t becoming any more prevalent:

In this month’s case roundup, 60 percent of the cases had front-panel

eSATA ports and 80 percent had USB 3.0—even without an internal

motherboard header spec for USB 3.0. With a fi nalized internal header

spec just around the corner and native USB 3.0 integration in the next

generation of motherboard chipsets, we think the winner is clear.