External Hard Drive For Pc Usb 3 0

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Summary :

Do you know the differences between eSATA and USB 3.0? Do you know how to choose between eSATA and USB 3.0 external hard drives? If you don't know, you can read this post, in which MiniTool gives you answers.

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eSATA vs USB 3.0

In general, most external and portable hard drives are equipped with USB ports, and some external hard drives come with other ports like eSATA, Thunderbolt, etc. I have discussed Thunderbolt external hard drive before, so in this post, I mainly focus on eSATA vs USB 3.0.

What is USB 3.0 Port?

USB 3.0 is a USB data transfer protocol initiated by companies such as Intel, which is compatible with USB 1.1 and USB 2.0. Compared with USB 2.0 whose transfer rate is 60 MB/s (480 Mbps), the transfer rate of USB 3.0 can be up to 500 MB/s (5 Gbps).

USB interface has many physical forms like USB Type-A, USB-Type-B, USB-Type-C, Micro USB, Mini USB, etc. However, your desktop or laptop computers are mainly using USB Type-A and USB Type-C interfaces, while external hard drives are mainly using USB Type-A (this port is more commonly used in 3.5-inch drives), USB Type-C, Micro USB, and Mini USB interfaces.

USB 3.0 protocol can run on all the physical USB ports mentioned above, so does USB 2.0 protocol. Therefore, before purchasing an external hard drive, please consult customer service to make sure that the disk interface supports USB 3.0.

Tip: If the interface is a USB 3.0 interface, the plug and socket are both 9-pin. If the interface is a USB 2.0 interface, there are only 4 pins. You can check the number of pins after you get the drive.

Further Reading:

  1. USB 3.0 was ever renamed USB 3.1 Gen 1 by the USB-IF (USB Implementers Forum), and is now renamed USB 3.2 Gen 1.
  2. USB interface has other faster transfer protocols like USB 3.1 Gen 2 (it is now renamed USB 3.2 Gen 2), and USB 3.2 (it is renamed USB 3.2 Gen 2x2).

If you want to know more about USB port, please read the following post:

Many users have the question 'what does USB stand for'. If you also have the same question, please read the post to find the answer.

What Is eSATA Port?

The full name of eSATA is External Serial ATA, which is an external expansion specification for the SATA interface. In other words, eSATA is the 'external' version of SATA, which is used to connect external rather than internal SATA devices. The physical eSATA port is shown like the following picture:

Like SATA interface, eSATA speed can be up to 600 MB/s (6 Gbps) at most (older versions' speed just reaches 150 MB/s or 300MB/s).

eSATA vs USB 3.0 External Hard Drive

After learning about USB 3.0 port and eSATA port, let's compare USB 3.0 external hard drives and eSATA external hard drives.

1. Speed: eSATA external hard drives usually perform better than USB 3.0 external hard drives for the following reasons:

  • Interface speed will limit hard drive speed. Therefore, USB 3.0 external hard drive speed won't exceed 500 MB/s, while eSATA external hard drive can exceed that speed.
  • In general, a USB external disk is composed as follows: a SATA disk, a SATA to USB PCB adapter, a matching USB interface, etc. Therefore, when reading and writing data from the external hard drive via USB port, the interface conversion (PCB adapter) will affect the data transmission speed. However, the eSATA external hard drive does not cause this problem.
Tip: Due to the simple structure of USB external hard drives, some users like to compose their own mobile hard disks by buying a SATA hard disk and a SATA to USB 3.0 adapter.

2. Penetration rate: Adobe premiere autotune. eSATA port is not as popular as USB 3.0 port.

A large number of PCs and PC peripherals use USB 3.0 interfaces. As for eSATA, it has gradually been eliminated. However, eSATA is still very popular among enterprise customers. The main reason is that the IT department will close the USB port for security reasons, only leaving eSATA ports as a means of connection.

Then, you may wonder which one you should buy. Actually, it depends on the port on your PC. If your computer has an eSATA Port, I recommend you to buy an eSATA hard drive. If your PC just has a USB port, you should buy a USB 3.0 external hard drive.

Best USB and eSATA External Hard Drive

In this part, I will recommend 4 external hard drives to you. Among them, two are USB 3.0 external hard drives and the other two are eSATA external hard drives.

1. Samsung T5 Portable SSD

Capacity: 250 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB

Interface: USB 3.1 Gen 2

Sequential Read Speed: Up to 540 MB/s

Sequential Write Speed: Up to 520 MB/s

Warranty: 3 years

Price: Start at $89.99 at Amazon

This SSD takes V-NAND technology and offers ultra-fast data transfer speeds of up to 540MB/s (up to 4.9x faster than external HDDs). It is ideal for transferring large-sized data including 4K videos, high-resolution photos, games, etc.

It offers optional password protection and AES 256-bit hardware encryption to keep your personal and private data more secure. However, this drive only supports Windows 7, Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks), Android 4.4 (KitKat), or higher.

This drive uses USB Type-C interface and supports USB 3.1 and USB 3.0 protocol. It can be said that this external hard drive will not go obsolete in recent years.

2. Seagate Backup Plus Portable HDD

Capacity: 1 TB, 2 TB, 4 TB, 5 TB

Interface: USB 3.0

Speed: Up to 120 MB/s

Warranty: 2 years

Price: Start at $55.99 at Amazon How to run parallels on macbook pro.

This drive supports Windows and Mac computers. Its big capacity can satisfy your need to back up and archive files. In addition, if you buy this drive, you can get a complimentary two-month membership to the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan.

It's very cheap and has a too big capacity. I cannot rule out this possibility that it is a SMR drive, so I recommend you to just use it to archive files.

3. MiniPro eSATA USB-C Portable HDD/SSD

HDDSSD
Capacity: 1 TB, 2 TB, 4 TB, 5 TBCapacity: 500 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB, 4 TB
Interface: USB 3.1 Gen 2/eSATA 6GbpsInterface: USB 3.1 Gen 2/eSATA 6Gbps
Speed: 7200 RPM for 1 TB, 5400 RPM for Other SpecificationsSpeed: 500MB/s
Warranty: 3 yearsWarranty: 3 years
Price: Start at $119 at AmazonPrice: Start at $119 at Amazon

This drive features an aluminum body for maximum protection and heat dissipation. It is compatible with Windows and Mac computers, and has eSATA, and USB 3.1/3.0/2.0 ports. Furthermore, the SSD has no moving parts, which allows it to perform ultra-silent operation and withstand high impact (1500GS operating shock).

4. Fantom Drives External Hard Drive

Capacity: 1 TB, 2 TB, 3TB, 4 TB, 5 TB, 6 TB, 8 TB, 10 TB, 12 TB, 14 TB, 16 TB

Interface: USB 3.0/eSATA

Speed: Unknown

Warranty: 1 year

Price: Start at $74.95 at Amazon

This drive is compatible with USB 3.0/2.0 and eSATA. Its only advantage is the large capacity, so its vendor hasn't even mentioned its speed. Certainly, it's a SMR disk and you can use it to store a huge number of photos, music, and videos. SMR disks always do well in archiving files. But please do not run programs or games on it.

The guide on how to use an external hard drive is displayed in the post. An external hard drive is useful in many aspects such as files storage and data backup.

Prepare the Drive in Windows PC

After getting an external hard drive, you should prepare it to make sure that you can use it smoothly. As for disk management tool, I recommend MiniTool Partition Wizard to you, which can make your operations simpler.

Here is the tutorial on how to prepare the external hard drive in a Windows PC:

Usb 3.0 External Drive

Step 1: Connect the drive to your computer and then it will appear in your PC.

Step 2: Click the above button to download MiniTool Partition Wizard and then launch it to get to its main interface. Right-click the partition on the external hard drive and then choose Format.

Step 3: Choose a proper file system and then click OK button. If you want to use the external drive to boot your computer (make a portable Windows, a Windows installation media, etc.), you should format it to FAT32. If you just want to use it to store data or do something like that, you should format it to NTFS. Click FAT32 vs NTFS to know more.

Tip: In general, you can't format a partition to FAT32 if its capacity exceeds 32 GB. But with MiniTool Partition Wizard, you can format a partition to FAT32 as long as it doesn't exceed 2 TB.

Step 4: Click the Apply button to execute the pending operations.

Apart from changing the file system, you can resize the partition size, split or create partitions with MiniTool Partition Wizard freely. Just have a try!

Bottom Line

Has this post answered all your questions about eSATA vs USB 3.0? Do you have difficulty in preparing a hard drive on Windows PC? Have you encountered any hard drive problems? If so, please leave a comment or email us at [email protected]. We will reply to you as soon as possible.

eSATA vs USB 3.0 FAQ

eSATA is an external expansion specification for the SATA interface, which is used to connect external rather than internal SATA devices. But it can provide the same speeds as SATA ports.
You can't plug SATA into eSATA directly because they have different port appearance. But you can connect a SATA drive with the eSATA port just via a SATA to eSATA adapter.
In general, you can't, because a USB cable can't be inserted into an eSATA port. However, if the port is an eSATA USB port, you can use that as a USB port or an eSATA port.
eSATA USB port is a port combines eSATA with USB. It allows you to plug an eSATA or a USB drive into it directly. However, the eSATA USB port only supports USB 2.0 protocol, which means that the speed is only 60 MB/s (USB 2.0) even you have inserted a USB 3.0 drive.
USB 3.0 is a data transfer protocol whose speed is up to 500 MB/s at most. However, SSD is a type of storage device whose speed is determined by many factors, including port, master control, etc. In general, an external USB 3.0 SSD can't exceed the speed of USB 3.0. As for other SSDs, the answer is not certain.

How to Speed Up a USB 3.0 External Hard Drive in Windows 10/8/7

If your hard drive is slow, you are in the right place. This page walks you through the way to speed up and increase a USB 3.0 external hard drive for data transferring or file copying in Windows 10, 8, or 7, etc. If you are having one of the problems listed below, you'll need to find a way to improve the performance and speed up your external hard drive:

  1. 1. Copying files stops halfway
  2. 2. External hard drive transfer speed slow
  3. 3. File copying slow on USB 3.0 flash drive or external hard drive
  4. 4. The computer gets stuck while copying or transferring files to USB 3.0
  5. 5. PC freeze on copying files from USB 3.0.

To increase the transfer speed of the external hard drive, we listed the five best methods for fixing this issue, and you can apply any one of them for a try:

Workable SolutionsStep-by-step Troubleshooting
1. Optimize the PerformanceConnect your external hard drive to your PC. Open Windows File Explorer.Full steps
2. Convert USB 3.0 Drive to NTFSInstall and launch EaseUS Partition Master on your computer.Full steps
3. Fix Corrupted System FilesPress Win + X to bring up the Power User menu and select Command Prompt.Full steps
4. Clean Up Junk FilesDownload EaseUS Tools M for free and install it on your computer.Full steps
5. Format External Hard DriveConnect your external hard drive to a Windows 10 PC. Open File Explorer, locate and right-click.Full steps

Tip 1. Optimize External Hard Drive Performance to Increase Speed

When the storage devices get slow, one quick way to improve the device's performance is to change the device hardware settings. Follow the steps below to speed up your external hard drive.

External Hard Drive For Pc Usb 3 0 Port

Step 1. Connect your external hard drive to your PC.

Step 2. Open Windows File Explorer, locate and right-click on your external hard drive, choose 'Properties'.

Step 3. On the Hardware tab, click 'Properties', and choose 'Change Settings' on the General tab.

Step 4. Click the 'Policies' tab, choose 'Better performance', and click 'OK' to confirm all the changes.

Then, you can check if your external hard drive has become fast in speed.

Tip 2. Convert USB 3.0 External Hard Drive to NTFS to Speed It Up

The file system type affects the external hard drive transfer speed deeply. Storage devices with NTFS work faster and more efficiently for file copy and file transfer. Thus, the most useful way to increase USB 3.0 external hard drive speed is to convert the USB 3.0 external hard drive from FAT32 to NTFS.

Professional partition magic software - EaseUS Partition Master can help. It enables you to convert the external hard drive to the NTFS file system within three simple steps. This disk management tool has many other highlights:

  • Migrate OS to SSD or HDD
  • Resize partition size to increase C drive space
  • Format a hard drive or partition for free

Download this software and convert FAT32 to NTFS without losing data:

Step 1: Install and launch EaseUS Partition Master on your computer.

Step 2: Select a FAT32 partition, right-click on it and select 'Convert to NTFS'. If you need to convert a storage device such as SD card or USB flash drive to NTFS, insert it into your PC first and repeat the previous operation.

Step 3: Click 'OK' on the pop-up dialog box to continue.

Step 4: Go to the upper left corner, click the 'Execute 1 Operation' button and you will see the operation details. Click 'Apply' and 'Finish' when the process completes.

Tip 3. Fix Corrupted System Files to Increase External HDD Speed

If the USB 3.0 external hard drive contains corrupted system files, the file copying or data transferring speed will slow down naturally. SFC command line can efficiently help find and repair the corrupted system files on your external hard drive. Here are the steps to run SFC/SCANNOW.

Step 1. Press Win + X to bring up the Power User menu and select 'Command Prompt'.

Step 2. Type: sfc /scannow and hit 'Enter'.

Also read SFC finds corrupted files but unable to fix if anything goes wrong.

Tip 4. Increase Transfer Speed of External Hard Drive by Cleanup

Hard

You can clear and remove useless junk files on PC that make your USB 3.0 slow for file transferring. After using the computer for a long time, many useless junk files are taking space on the hard drive. And the best way is to apply a simple free way to clean and remove useless junk files that slow down your USB 3.0 external hard drive for transfer files and data.

To make things easy for you, we'd like to recommend you try EaseUS Tools M for help. You can free download it here and follow the steps below to clean up junk files in Windows 10/8/7 now:

Step 1. DOWNLOAD EaseUS Tools M for free and install it on your computer.

Step 2. Launch EaseUS Tools M in Windows PC. Select 'Large File Cleanup' on the main screen.

Step 3. Select the drive and click 'Scan' to let the program locate, find all large files on your disk.

Step 4. Identify and select useless large files and click 'Delete' to remove those files from your PC or laptop. A message pops up and tells you this process will permanently delete the files. Click 'Yes' to start the process.

Tip 5. Format USB 3.0 External Hard Drive to Speed It Up

Another efficient way to quickly fix the slow external hard drive issue on Windows PC is to format the USB 3.0 external hard drive to NTFS. Format a partition could cause data loss. If you have essential data on the device, copy, and extract crucial data to another hard drive first.

To format the external hard drive to NTFS File System:

Step 1. Connect your external hard drive to a Windows 10 PC.

Step 2. Open File Explorer, locate and right-click on the drive, select 'Format'. Bluestacks application for windows 7.

Step 3. Set the NTFS as the target file system, tick 'Quick Format' and click 'Start' to start the formatting.

Additional Tip - How to Back Up External Hard Drive Files

Although these methods can help you fix the slow USB 3.0 external hard drive issue, some may also cause unnecessary data loss errors on your drive. To avoid unnecessary data loss issue, you should copy and extract important data on your USB 3.0 external hard drive to your PC or another secure storage device in advance.

You can either choose to copy and paste existing files from your slow external hard drive to a new device at a very slow speed or prefer a more efficient and fast alternative tool to back up and extract all your files from the external hard drive to a new device at one time at high speed.

External Hard Drive For Pc Usb 3 0

If you choose the latter option, you may turn to EaseUS Todo Backup Free for help. It is easy and risk-free to back up files from your external hard drive with a small space occupation on your target device.

Usb 2.0 External Drive Download

Step 1: Open EaseUS Todo Backup and select 'File' as the backup mode.

You may have a large amount of vital data to be protected as time goes on, such as documents, pictures, music, and videos, etc. It is always a good habit to have a backup on a regular basis. File Backup is one of the best choices for you to get over unexpected data loss.

Step 2: Select the files that you want to back up.

Tick the option at the top left corner named User Defined, you can browse to back up one or some specific file types on your computer or external storage device.

Step 3: Select a destination to save your backup file.

You'd better create the backup file in some other storage media or in some other drive. If not, there may be a risk of the backup file getting corrupted or destroyed.

3.0 External Hard Drive

Step 4: Click 'Proceed' to execute your operation.

Conclusion

Whenever you are faced with external hard drive slow transfer speed, you can try these solutions above. These tips should help you increase your transfer speeds. EaseUS Partition Master plays a vital role in solving your slow issue. Besides, this software can help you with disk management, partition clone, and system migration. You can always try this product to enjoy extra features.





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