Difference Between eSata and External Hard Drives

[kuroteckie]

Good afternoon techies,

I currently doing some research on storage devices and wanted to know if I should consider getting an external drive and eSata drive. However, I don't really know the difference between the two as I thought they were the same thing. I do know the eSata have a dedicated port for them and that external HDDs can be connected via USB. What is the difference between the two?

 

[SkyNetRising]

External drive is device. Esata is interface.
External drive can be connected via USB, esata, firewire interfaces (depending on wich connection is available on external drive and pc).

 

[USAFRet]

eSATA vs USB is simply a different connection type.
external SATA. It was meant to be able to see the same performance as an internally connected SATA drive. It never really caught on.

eSATA is probably a bit faster. But requires an eSATA port on your motherboard. Somewhat rare.
USB is common....it would be hardto find a board without multiple USB ports.

Depending on what you use it for, you'll not see any difference.

 

[kuroteckie]

External drive is device. Esata is interface.
External drive can be connected via USB, esata, firewire interfaces (depending on wich connection is available on external drive and pc).

That makes sense, with a picture to go along with the explanation. I've always thought eSata was nothing more than another external HD