New SATA-II EC adapter for MacBook Pro

FireWire Depot has introduced its eSATA-EC, a new Express Card adapter for the MacBook Pro that adds 3.0Gbps SATA-II technology to achieve a superior level of high disk performance for mobile professionals. The eSATA-EC controller has two external, 3Gb/s, SATA-II ports, and plugs directly into a MacBook Pro (15-inch or 17-inch). It allows users to connect up to 10 drives (using port multiplier based 5 drive enclosures) for high-performance applications, such as Apple's Final Cut Pro. With the company's qBox-P or sBOX-P attached in a RAID 0 array, the eSATA-EC can achieve sustained disk write and read speeds of 130MB/sec and 140 MB/sec, respectively -- about five times as fast as USB 2.0 or three times as fast as FireWire connections (using the same drive setup). With the eSATA-EC PC Express Card installed, users can connect a Mac laptop to SATA peripherals such as the SATA HUB, an External RAID, and eSATA storage Devices (CDROM, CD/RW, MO, HDD, ZIP etc.). It requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

Filed under: upgrades/storage