It's a Pentium-M based laptop with a 33Mhz 32bit Cardbus slot. By my
reckoning that should be around 1Gb/s.
I'm pretty sure that even the 16bit slots are significantly faster than
1MB/sec, but it's been many years since i've worked in that hardware
space. I'd have thought that since PCMCIA seems to support ATA pretty
much natively, it'd have a very low command translation overhead.
USB's endpoint based architecture is quite a departure from the way the
hardware oprerates so i'd expect it to be slower.
This will be primarily for WIn XP Pro, although might be occasionally
used in Linux.
Perhaps I can find a dual mode enclosure that will run both USB2 and
SATA, that way I can fall back on USB if the SATA doesn't pan out.
grahamsz:
Let me add a few thoughts for your consideration...
Assuming there are no connectivity issues involving the PCMCIA SATA card
with the SATA HD (not that there should be but I haven't as yet worked with
that specific type of card)...
There are considerable advantages in utilizing a SATA HD as an external
device for your laptop. I'm speaking here, of course, in terms of a direct
SATA-to-SATA connection as would be the case with the SATA HD connected
directly to the PCMCIA SATA card.
1. The data transfer rate would be significantly faster as compared with a
USB/Firewire device.
2. The system will treat the SATA HD as an *internal* HD so that if you use
the SATA HD as the repository of a clone of your laptop's internal HD (using
a disk imaging program, e.g., Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acronis True
Image), which I assume is a primary objective of yours, the SATA HD will be
bootable - unlike a USB/Firewire external HD. Perhaps I should say "may be
bootable" in this case. Now that I think about it I'm uncertain as to
whether the connection to the PCMCIA SATA card would permit a boot from that
device. Would you have this information/documentation available?
But even assuming that boot capability did not exist, in my view that would
not negate the desirability of using this approach because of the
considerably superior performance of the SATA drive vis-a-vis a USB/Firewire
external HD.
3. In virtually every case, the SATA drive will be "hot pluggable" - similar
to that of a USB/Firewire EHD.
Should you go this route, you will, of course, need an enclosure for the
SATA HD that provides for a direct SATA-to-SATA connection as well as
provides power to the drive. There are a number of these enclosures on the
market, many (if not most) of which are combo units, i.e., provide both USB
& SATA connections. A Google search should point you to a number of vendors
carrying this type of equipment.
I'm assuming your current laptop's HD is a PATA drive, so that there would
be no pressing need for you to purchase a 2 1/2" HD since it could not serve
as a possible replacement for your laptop's internal HD. Presumably you
would obtain a 3 1/2" (desktop PC) HD I would think, although if you might
consider a 2 1/2" SATA HD for some not-yet-anticipated future needs
obviously the enclosure would have to be designed for that component. I
would guess those are currently available as well although all the one's
I've come across have been designed to accommodate 3 1/2" drives. No doubt a
Google search will turn up something.
Anna
