Is T61 e-SATA capable

[Bajpai]

External 2.5" Hard Disks come as IDE and SATA. Both seem to be limited by USB transfer capabilities. However, it appears that computers that are capable of e-SATA could possibly support higher transfer speeds.

I am wondering if T61 can take advantage of e-SATA capabilities. What would be the difference in performance, if any.

[goretsky Community Moderator]

Hello,

I have seen numerous ExpressCard (both /34 and /54) and CardBus to e-SATA adapters, so I would imagine any of these would work with a ThinkPad T61, but I have not tried one myself.  Last year I was looking for an e-SATA to ExpressCard adapter that did not use a dongle and had the e-SATA connector embedded in it so it was flush with the ExpressCard slot when installed, but never found one.  If I ever do get such an adapter, I would hope that it would sit flush so I could leave it permanently installed in my ThinkPad without having to worry about the dongle sticking out from the side of the computer.

It certainly would be useful if Lenovo were to add e-SATA ports to future models of ThinkPads.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[billbolton Community Moderator]

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Bajpai wrote:

I am wondering if T61 can take advantage of e-SATA capabilities.

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I have been occasionally using a Condor Express-card, 2 x eSATA controller with a T61 and the results have been very good.

The sustained eSATA transfer rates to 3.5" 7200 rpm SATA drives under Vista Ultimate x64 (with SP1 RC) are pretty close to the best rates I get from SATA on-board connections on my Desktop PC, and easily double the sustained USB attached drive transfer rates for the same drives.

However, on a T43 using Windows XP SP2, the results have been only about half as good with the same card and drive.  Whether this is due to the T43 architecture, 32 bit software environment or just Windows XP drivers, I can't say.

The message is that I think the eSATA results are likely in the laptop system area to be quite dependent on mutliple factors, so you need to make up your own mind on whether its worth trying on not for your particular circumstances.

Cheers,

Bill

Message Edited by billbolton on 01-27-2008 02:53 PM

[Bajpai]

Billl and Aryeh,

Thanks very much. I will explore the possibility of getting the e-SATA card.

I need the ability for quick transfers due to the backups which I make. The back-up creation on USB drives takes a lot of time, and restoring from them -- as I discovered recently -- could take 8 hours or more.

A question that comes to my mind is whether Acronis when booted through the Disk, is able to load the drivers for e-SATA.

I too would have prefferred a card that I could leave in the T61 permanently rather than a dongle that I have to keep inserting in and out.

Anyway, what can't be cured needs to endured.

[nito_pereira]

I reciently received a Lenovo T61 7659-A71. My previous machine was a T41 which I used a eSATA card from Vantec (UGT-ST350CB)

On my older machine it was great. The eSATA transfer speed was the same as with my desktop (benchmarked both) But when I tried with the Lenovo T61 the transfer speed was slower than USB.

Through USB I would get roughly 30MB/s

Through esata on t41 i would get 40-45MB/s

Through esata on t61 i would get 15MB/s

I am using an external 2.5 esata enclusure from vantec with a seagate 120GB hard drive running at 5400rpm

I sent a message to vantec the manufacture of the esata card and they pointed to lenovo. I had done some searching and had seen a post where someone else noted the same speed.

I tried upgrading the bios all drivers and still did not improve performance.

Has anyone got a esata card to work?

[maseone]

Hi Lenovo Message Board!

I have a new T61 laptop and very happy with the choice.  However there seem to be some issues with the Ricoh hardware/drivers with XP Pro SP2 installed with the latest drivers.

When using an eSATA PC Card plugged into the PCMCIA slot on my laptop, the connected external hard drive receive a poor speed rating with 'HD Tach' benchmark software.

My Findings:

- My new T61 (XP Pro SP2, latest Lenovo Drivers) = 13 MB/s
- Old HP laptop (XP Pro SP2, latest HP Drivers) = 48 MB/s
- Old T42 (XP Pro SP2, latest IBM Drivers) = 48 MB/s


There seems to be an issue here and was hoping there was some help and others who faced similar issues.

[maseone]

Hi nito_pereira!

I have the exact same issue with my T61 and e-SATA through a PC Card (PCMCIA)!!!

Have you found a solution to this?

I've tried multiple e-SATA PC Cards and multiple drivers with XP SP2 and they are all limited to less that 15 MB/s throughput.  It's almost as if I bought a laptop thinking it was going to have a PCMCIA slot that works how PCMCIA slots work!  Lenovo's changing the game!

Thanks

[goretsky Community Moderator]

Hello,

I would think that an ExpressCard-based adapter would be faster than a CardBus one.  Have you tried using an ExpressCard to e-SATA adapter instead of a CardBus-based one?  If so, did that make any difference?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[nito_pereira]

I have not been able to get it to work.

What I suspect is that the cardbus on the T61 is only I/II and my card is Carbus III .

I think its rediculous that my old laptop (T41) that was over 3-4 years old had a better cardbus. I may also be wrong. It may come down to the driver. Levovo did not release a cardbus driver fo the T61 where they did provide one for the T41.

I had to use my USB connection on my external enclosure. I am very dissipointed that not able to use esata card. There doesn't seem to be any esata cards from lenovo either. The only option is to remove CD/DVD and get enclosure for that bay. Which defeats the purpose for having external drive.

As for Express card. The slot is taken up by a SDCARD slot. Which also is a poor design.  If anywone finds a card that would work i'd be appreciated. Or I may hold out until next year when USB 3 comes. In that case It may be the same as Esata.

Poor design Lenovo.

[erik Community SuperMod]

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nito_pereira wrote:

As for Express card. The slot is taken up by a SDCARD slot. Which also is a poor design.  If anywone finds a card that would work i'd be appreciated. Or I may hold out until next year when USB 3 comes. In that case It may be the same as Esata.

Poor design Lenovo.

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if you have a slot below your cardbus slot then you have a smartcard reader and no expresscard slot exists on your machine.   that's not a poor design -- instead, you've unfortunately purchased the wrong configuration.   models with expresscard slots have what looks like a type III cardbus bay except the top slot is expresscard/54 and the bottom is cardbus.   there are two gray eject buttons marked with an 'x' and a dot respectively.   this image shows the expresscard+cardbus slot on T60 and T61 models.

if you do have the expresscard+cardbus slot then an expresscard adapter should mount without issue under XP 32/64 or vista 32/64.   addonics makes great expresscard/34 eSATA adapters.