PlugComputer Esata port performance

[Guai888]

Hi Guys,

Has anyone tested the Esata port performance on the OpenRD board? I read it somewhere that data transfer is twice of USB under Samba.
I wonder if there is any difference between 3.5" and 2.5" drive.

[MarkF]

It is more like 3-4x, not just 2x.  I didn't run benchmark tests; though, I wish I had now.

EDIT: Here is a link to a thread about a plug with esata enabled.  See the last post (for now) for performance numbers.
http://plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=927.0

Looking at the page I used for comparison (http://www.computingplugs.com/index.php/SheevaPlug_Performance#Update_USB_throughput_on_v2.6.30-rc3_kernel_with_mmc_patch), it appears a later kernel fixed some of the USB slowness.

Write performance, now, appears to be ~2x and read performance appears to be ~2.5x.  This is good news.

Post to the first thread to get him to try 2.5" vs 3.5", if you want those numbers.  If I may ask, why do you think the form factor will influence the performance?  I do realize that the form factor can infuence the raw drive numbers (smaller platter means less distance to seek); but, wouldn't the drive's raw numbers (seek, read, write) actually determine the performance?