How important is a USB 3 connection? How about eSATA?

[matt6789]

For a home-use NAS, how important should a USB 3 connection be?

USB 3 has been out for quite a while, but there are still quite a few newer NASes without it. I plan to use the USB mostly to make weekly backups using a 1TB portable drive. Maybe a little file transferring from smaller (16GB) thumb drives.

Along with that, how about other ports like eSATA and a 2nd ethernet found on some units?

This is my first NAS, so I don't know if I really need all that now. I was thinking I need to get my feet wet first and figure things out. I don't want to under-buy, just to list the thing on C's-list a few months later. This forum and site already saved me form overbuying!!!

My fist choice right now is the DS214se, but it only has USB 2.

 

[stevech]

For a home-use NAS, how important should a USB 3 connection be?

USB 3 has been out for quite a while, but there are still quite a few newer NASes without it. I plan to use the USB mostly to make weekly backups using a 1TB portable drive. Maybe a little file transferring from smaller (16GB) thumb drives.

Along with that, how about other ports like eSATA and a 2nd ethernet found on some units?

This is my first NAS, so I don't know if I really need all that now. I was thinking I need to get my feet wet first and figure things out. I don't want to under-buy, just to list the thing on C's-list a few months later. This forum and site already saved me form overbuying!!!

My fist choice right now is the DS214se, but it only has USB 2.

On a small 2 or 4 bay NAS, I'd go USB3 rather than eSATA. I use USB3 and let the NAS format/use linux format, not NTFS - that makes a big difference in write speeds. I have a freeware utility for Windows that will mount/read the linux formatted drive via USB3.
I decided to not go eSATA as it's a PITA in terms of hot/plugging drives, fat cables, length vs. signal degredation, spin-down, etc.

I emphasize USB3 because of the size of the backups I do, and the NAS tends to scan all the files to properly synch. So USB2 or NTFS formatted drives are too slow for me. My daily backup (update) takes about 15 minutes, runs at 11:30 PM daily. I also backup VIP files to a 32GB SD card in my NAS, daily or more. And the VIP files go to a one-bay drive via the LAN, and the drive it out of sight of thieves.

 

[thiggins]

It depends on the NAS. USB 2 usually tops out at mid 20 MB/s for backup. There are some high-end NASes that can go faster.
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-charts/bar/22-backup-usb-ntfs

USB 3 and eSATA can go much higher, but how much higher depends on the NAS processor and format drivers.
There are drivers that make NTFS as fast if not faster than FAT32 or EXT3 formats. But again, not all NASes spend the money to include the drivers (they are not open source).

 

[stevech]

Do you know what make/model NASes have a >much< better than open source USB/NTFS writer?

For me, the freeware ext3/4 reader driver for Windows lets me avoid the issue and use the native linux file system format on the USB backup drive. I'd only use that Windows utility if NAS pooped out.

 

[thiggins]

Do you know what make/model NASes have a >much< better than open source USB/NTFS writer?

For me, the freeware ext3/4 reader driver for Windows lets me avoid the issue and use the native linux file system format on the USB backup drive. I'd only use that Windows utility if NAS pooped out.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-charts/bar/80-backup-usb3-ntfs

Synology had it first, if I remember correctly. Then other manfs followed.

 

[stevech]

My Synology did improve in NTFS write speeds about 1 or 2 OS (DSM) revisions back. But today, at DSM 4.3 (the latest), it is still very much slower than if the USB3 drive is formatted with Linux native ext.

 

[matt6789]

Thanks for the help.

Ya'll have helped me tremendously. I've got my list down to a few, but that is a different post....soon as I get done with one more manual.

 

[matthelm]

My $0.02.

1. eSATA (3Mb+) is faster than USB. (at least at USB 3.0 and older) USB 3.0 is almost there, but IMHO still looses out slightly over eSATA (even 3Mbps eSATA) Now if you have the need to hook up things other than file storage, USB rules.

2. USB 3.0 is MUCH faster than USB 2.0. (anything over about 10GB will start see a large time difference)

3. The speed you need is dependent on how much and WHAT you are going to copy. Lots of little files takes a lot longer than 1 big one. (directory creation and such)

 

[Razor512]

It depends on the CPU on the NAS. If it is using something like an Intel Atom, or core i3 then USB 3 is best as it is a better connector. If it is using a low end SOC, then eSATA is usually better as many have native support for the interfase, and they will often have a much smaller CPU overhead, this allows for higher read and write speeds.

 

[stevech]

I see a trend away from eSATA, and it can be buggy to hot-swap drives, unlike doing it with USB3.