Fastest Express Card (eSata) for MacBook Pro?

[Shane Ross]

CalDigit FASTA card. Never had an issue with it.

https://www.caldigit.com

Shane

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[Jeremy Garchow]

The Sonnet Tempo Sata PRO (different from the regular).

https://sonnettech.com/product/temposataproexpress34.html

Jeremy

[Jim Glickert]

Hi John. I use the CalDigit FASTA card with a CalDigit S2VR DUO RAID drive and MacBook Pro, and it works great. All of my video work is in HDV. As to whether it’s the fastest card available, I don’t know, but it’s fast enough for me.

Jim

[Ed Dooley]

As Jeremy said, the Sonnet:
Barefeats.com says that the Sonnet Tempo Pro is faster than all others because it uses the Marvel chip instead of the more common SI chip.
Ed

https://www.sonnettech.com/product/temposataproexpress34.html

This from barefeats.com:
The Sonnet Tempo SATA Pro ExpressCard/34 is unique among SATA ExpressCards in that it is the only true SATA adapter. Other brands say “SATA” but are actually using USB protocols. The result is that the Sonnet Tempo Pro produces much higher transfer rates. For example, when we connected the OCZ Vertex SSD to various SATA ExpressCards, the Sonnet Tempo Pro was 55% faster reading and 103% faster writing compared to the fastest alternative SATA ExpressCard

[Rafael Amador]

The tests of the Sonnet are almost three years old.
I think most of the eSATA Express cards are 1.5 Gbps, while the FASTA Cal-Digit, pointed by Shane, is 3 Gbps.
So in theory it could reach double speed of any of his competitors.
Cheers,
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Rafael Amador] “The tests of the Sonnet are almost three years old. “

No sir, they have a new card out. The Pro version which is here:

https://sonnettech.com/product/temposataproexpress34.html

Their regular (slower and less RAM friendly) version is here:

https://sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_express34.html

The barefeats test of those drives is from July 6th 2009, here:

https://www.barefeats.com/note06.html

The note that Ed included is from that page:

(* The Sonnet Tempo SATA Pro ExpressCard/34 is unique among SATA ExpressCards in that it is the only true SATA adapter. Other brands say “SATA” but are actually using USB protocols. The result is that the Sonnet Tempo Pro produces much higher transfer rates. For example, when we connected the OCZ Vertex SSD to various SATA ExpressCards, the Sonnet Tempo Pro was 55% faster reading and 103% faster writing compared to the fastest alternative SATA ExpressCard.)

Jeremy

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Jeremy,
Thanks for the update.
Up to those tests I have to recognize that it runs like a 50% faster than my LaCie with my Caldigit VR and a 25/15% with the LaCie LittleBigDisk. All this with a MBP 2.4 Ghz.
Would be interesting a test comparing directly both cards (Sonnet/Caldigit).
Cheers,
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com