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Best eSATA/USB 3 PCIe card in a Thunderbolt 2 enclosure?

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Medavoym

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Hi!

I have the Magma 3T Thunderbolt Chassis and I am thinking of adding an eSATA/USB 3 PCIe card inside.

Which one would give me the best speeds over Thunderbolt?
I read that the Caldigit one is quite slow (Caldigit FASTA-6GU3 Pro).

Any other faster options?

Thanks!
 
Is that the fastest option in a Thunderbolt 2 chassis?
 
Have not tried it in a Thunderbolt chassis, but CalDigit has a newer version of their 6GU3 card that is supposed to be a lot faster. Dual 6Gbps eSATA and dual USB3.0 on one card. I have the older version and it does have some speed issues, but it is quite handy. Have not tried the HighPoint card. Their SATA cards have always worked great for me, though.
 
The eSATA are on a shared lane, as are the usb3. If you run one eSATA or usb3 port it will run 6/5 Gb speeds, if you run x2 eSATA or x2 usb3, then the lanes run 3/2.5 Gb speeds. At least that was the case with the first gen eSATA/usb3 combo cards.
 
Hi Shiblon,

Any similar eSATA/USB3 card that doesn't have this limitation?

Has anyone tried the new 6GU3 PRO (the newer Caldigit version) that Jeff has mentioned? Does it have the same limitation?

Thanks!
 
Interested in buying a eSATA/USB 3 PCIe card as well.

Shiblon, on the new 6GU3 PRO, are the eSATA ports on a shared lane as well?
What does the "Pro" stands for, compared to the old version?

EDIT:

It seems the new "Pro" version has "2 Lane PCI Express 2.0 interface". That means the two eSATA ports don't share a lane anymore. Check this link, and go to "Key Features":

http://www.caldigit.com/Fasta-6GU3pro/
 
Last edited:
George A. said:
It seems the new "Pro" version has "2 Lane PCI Express 2.0 interface". That means the two eSATA ports don't share a lane anymore. Check this link, and go to "Key Features":
Click to expand...


Be careful with assumptions. 2 lanes of PCIe v2.0 is the equivalent of 1000MB/s or 8.3Gbps. However it may be a PCIe v2.0 X4 card and it seems they have given the SATA host a 2-lane allocation and the USB host a 1-lane allocation. Hopefully that's the case, but I'm not sure and haven't tested one out myself. If that latter assumption is true, and what I believe may be the case based on the relatively vague and incomplete, even misleading, specs listed on the CalDigit site, then it seems each USB3 port could run at full speed (since USB3 is really 4.8Gbps max with a 2 bit overhead) and the 4 SATA ports would share enough bandwidth to run two of them concurrently at almost full speed.

Looks to be a step up from the prior generation with UASP support for the USB3 and hopefully not trying to share all ports into extremely limited bandwidth. It's bootable on both Mac and PC. Could be real handy for those with a Mac Pro tower looking to add an internal SSD as the 6Gbps is double the speed of what the Mac 5,1 and prior towers offer internally. But we have to recognize that the SATA port bandwidth on this card is shared amongst the ports in one way or another.
 
I haven't used the new Caldigit esata/usb3 combo card, I just have the old version. It works very well as long as I'm not running two G-Raids off the shared esata or shared usb3 ports, and even then it still transfers half speeds at 110-120 MB/s.
 
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HighPoint and ATTO have much better and faster options for SAS/SATA. The HighPoint 4-port USB3 card provides full bandwidth to each port, but I don't think it has UASP support. If you want a hybrid card with both, this CalDigit is probably your best bet.
 
Mike Nagel said:
What do u guys think of the Highpoint RocketU 1144E ?

2 x USB 3.0 + 2 x eSATA External Connectors

supports UASP mode, they state each device port has a dedicated controller

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_RocketU1144E-series.htm
Click to expand...

Does it mean the eSATA ports don't sit on a shared lane? Same with USB3?

It would definitely be an advantage over the Caldigit card, which has two shared lanes for 4 ports. If the Highpoint has 4 separate lanes for 4 separate ports, then I'm sold.
 
George A. said:
Does it mean the eSATA ports don't sit on a shared lane? Same with USB3?

It would definitely be an advantage over the Caldigit card, which has two shared lanes for 4 ports. If the Highpoint has 4 separate lanes for 4 separate ports, then I'm sold.
Click to expand...

I just wanna add that somebody mentioned a while ago in another thread that a Highpoint card with eSATA ports had problems with the eSATA version of the RED mag reader... not sure if this applies to this card as well or not...
 
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