Re: How I love Time Machine :)

In article <ha5kcr$vco$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
John Slade <hhitman86@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

ZnU wrote:
In article <ha2ufm$22r$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
John Slade <hhitman86@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Lloyd Parsons wrote:
The external eSATA is a horse of a different color. The quality of the
implementation is all over the place. This enclosure will work with
this box, but not another. Reports are all over the 'net if you'd
bother to look.

It is a minor issue that's easily resolved much like the
USB and Mini USB issue.

Huh? Some port multiplier enclosures don't work with some drives and
some controller cards, and it's difficult to get reliable up-to-date
information about this.

This is totally irrelevant. You're talking about mass
storage enclosures that house multiple HDs. This is a
proprietary controller problem. Not a port compatibility
problem. That means that each individual has a not standard
controller for multiplexing SATA drives when SATA was not meant
for multiple HDs to be connected to one port. You are showing
you do not know the specification of SATA. SATA is not like USB
or Firewire or EIDE. An EIDE connector can handle two HDs. A
SATA port is meant for one drive each. Maybe you don't know that
there is no master or slave jumpers on SATA HDs? Please read up
on this subject you do not know what you're talking about here,
trust me.

The Serial ATA International Organization (that's "the group responsible
for developing, managing, and driving adoption of the Serial ATA
specifications") would be fascinated to learn that port multiplication
is not standardized, I'm sure.

You can contact them here: http://www.sata-io.org/contact.asp

But you might want to take a look at this page on their web site first:
http://www.sata-io.org/technology/port_multipliers.asp

Just in case anyone isn't following along here: eSATA port
multiplication *is* standardized, but interoperability tends to be
inferior to what exists with FireWire or USB because of implementation
quality issues that would be considered unacceptable for mass-market
consumer products. Vendors can get away with this because these products
are mostly purchased by penny-pinching computer performance enthusiasts
who are willing to tolerate it. (eSATA RAID systems were making inroads
into some higher end markets with a need for fast direct-attached
storage, like pro video, but SAS has gotten so cheap these days that has
mostly stopped.)

This is not a trivial problem for eSATA, and it
certainly imposes much more of a burden than needing to keep a couple of
types of USB cable around.

Like I said this is an issue of the connector and that is
easily fixed. You're going way off into left field into
proprietary controllers that try and use eSATA for something it
was never designed to do.

Seriously, Slade, you should really stop posting about storage-related
subjects. You manage to make yourself look like a complete idiot every
time. I mean, you do that normally, but it's especially obvious whenever
you try to discuss storage.

[snip]

--
"The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to
anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it
must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes
.

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