Esata for RED Station on M1 Mac Mini?

[Mike Krumlauf]

So im trying to figure out how to use the eSata port of my Red Station 1.8 that I use to offload material from my scarlet to my M1 Mac Mini. I got a usb to esata cable off amazon but no luck. I was able to get power via an AC adapter, but the computer is not mounting the red mag. The only configuration ive gotten to work is Firewire via a thunderbolt adapter. Id really like to take advantage of the faster transfer speeds in eSata, question is, am I able to accomplish that?

 

[Mike P.]

I think the first thing to do would be to try Mag Reader's eSata connection on a computer with an eSata port directly, just to make sure it's actually working (I have a reader whose firewire and eSata work, but USB doesn't). Then introduce the different adapters/cables.

Similarly, if you can try another eSata device/drive with the usb>eSata cable to make sure that cable works with the Mac Mini (I've had mixed results even with reputable/expensive brand adapter cables).

Before getting a REDmag Reader Mini, I was using a eSata>USB3 converter dongle on an OG Reader that would indeed transfer as eSata>USB3 speeds (~200mb/s), but it was quite finicky and would sometimes connect at USB2.0 speeds (45mb/s). Granted that was with the cheapest eSata>USB3 adapter on eBay... like $9 or something.