Western Digital adds eSATA to external hard drives

 

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Posted on 6 Feb 2007 at 10:34

Western Digital has unveiled a new member of its range of My Book external hard drives. It is one of the first of its kind to use the eSATA interface for data transfer, claims the company.

Available with either a 320GB or 500GB hard drive, the My Book Premium ES Edition also includes a USB 2.0 port, with eSATA included both in order to support faster transfer speeds than USB (and for that matter, FireWire) and because Western Digital believes that it will soon become the standard connection for external drives.

'Customers tell us that, while the digitisation of photos, music and video greatly enhances their ability to collect, manage and share their personal content, they fear that the fast-moving evolution of technology could make it more difficult to access their content in years to come,' said Jim Welsh, general manager of WD's Branded Products unit. 'This content often is precious to consumers, and with USB 2.0 and eSATA, they can rest assured that their digital content today will be accessible using tomorrow's computers.'

While most computers support SATA for internal drives, few yet come with support for the external version. However PCI cards that add the necessary controller and port are slowly becoming available for both desktop Macs and PCs, as are Cardbus and ExpressCard adapters for portables.

Although eSATA provides faster data transfers - Western Digital claims 300MB/sec for its drive - it does have drawbacks that mean there will still be a place for USB and FireWire. USB because of its near-ubiquity and FireWire's predominance in consumer electronics to name but two reasons. Both also allow for longer cable distances than eSATA's 2m maximum, while FireWire has the added advantage of enabling devices to be daisy-chained to each other.

The drive includes Western Digital's SmartPower intelligent drive management system that automatically powers the device on and off with the computer and its Safe Shutdown feature to ensure data is saved before shutting down. Note that this only works via the USB connection.

My Book Premium ES Edition will be available from UK resellers later this month.

Author: Simon Aughton