eSATA on Apple M1?

[reichman]

I have a 4-bay tower of 3.5” spinners that I use for archive and backup. Best way to connect to it is via eSATA. Unfortunately, the newertech driver for my PCIe eSATA card is too old to run in Monterey. Any recommendations from the brain trust here to allow my Mac Studio to connect to eSATA? Is Darryl Ramm here?

Thanks in advance.

[Darryl Ramm]

You rang?

So you have an external Thunderbolt expansion chassis already?

How many eSATA connections do you need to your drive chassis?

I'm not sure which NewerTech card you have, or why some of them wont' work on the M1 system in expansion chassis. Some of them are driver free on Intel Macs, and I'd be curious why they don't work on M1 systems (could be some good reasons). You might want to call them and ask.

You could look around for other PCIe cards that claim to support Apple silicon and recent OS versions. I expect the Apple Silicon is the large issue. eSATA has died off fairly fast and I could believe that vendors are likely to not port old drivers, or fix firmware, or even want to do much testing until there is a Mac Pro.. and even then they are probably not going to sell many cards so maybe it will never happen.

Where I suspect you might make more progress is to look for a USB 3.x to eSATA or better a Thunderbolt to eSATA adapter or just find a modern Thunderbolt 3 chassis for SATA drives. Like from OWC and others.

For example like this one: https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-.../dp/B079H56RNW. But only single SATA III port.

I've been happy with many StarTech products but I have no idea how good this specific adapter is, I have never used one. But also at ~$60 cheap enough to just try. And this does not require drivers on a Mac, so hopefully should just work on Apple Silicon Macs. You could also ask StarTech about their eSATA PCIe card support on M1.

And I sure like the idea of archiving to a HDD, and ideally you can remove those drives from the rack/computer connection and move some offsite. And SATA III large HDD are sure attractive for large archives sets. I'd just avoid the crappier Seagate drives, and maybe use at least two different brand/model of well regarded drives.

---

Oh and while I'm here. Be aware of USB 3.x performance issues on these systems. See https://9to5mac.com/2022/04/18/m1-ma...ts-speed-tests and many other reports. BTW this known problem is an issue for folks say with the nice little Samsung T7 SSD that do NVMe over USB 3.x at 10 Gbit/sec... but if connected to Thunderbolt 4 ports on these Macs will have degraded performance, and would not be a problem with a single USB SATA III adapter, but I'd still look for a Thunderbolt ones not USB ones.

[reichman]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

You rang?

So you have an external Thunderbolt expansion chassis already?

How many eSATA connections do you need to your drive chassis?

I'm not sure which NewerTech card you have, or why some of them wont' work on the M1 system in expansion chassis. Some of them are driver free on Intel Macs, and I'd be curious why they don't work on M1 systems. You might want to call them and ask.

I have a Thunderbolt 2 PCIe expansion chassis with an old Newertech 4-port eSATA card in it. This was a great solution for they year 2014. Ran flawlessly. The 4-bay tower has an eSATA port multiplier board in it, so I really only need (1) eSATA connection to get in there. Mine has always needed a driver, and Monterey took that driver, gave me a funny look and spit it out.

And I sure like the idea of archiving to a HDD, and ideally you can remove those drives from the rack/computer connection and move some offsite.

Exactly. I have probably (40) 3.5" spinners on sleds that are compatible with this tower. Way too much investment to toss right now.

I'm going to risk $66 on this IOGear. Very similar to the Startech you linked. Really appreciate the consult Darryl. You need to start a storage blog, or get a regular column with Ars Technica!

[Darryl Ramm]

...Ars Technica!

Ha, I'm too lazy, and although I like Ars a lot, I really like AnandTech for their SSD reviews. I'm lucky enough to know/get to work occasionally with folks who really know their storage stuff, like who: worked on the first PCIe SSD at fusionIO, develop NVMe over fabric technology, worked with Samsung on exotic capabilities in some of their SSD, who hack on U.2 and M.2 drive firmware customization, etc. I wish *they* would write some storage blogs

[reichman]

Just following up with more data: that $66 IOGear TB3 to eSATA device is terrific. I'm getting the exact same speeds I was getting with an eSATA card in a PCIe expansion chassis. This lets me use my ancient eSATA drive tower for backups with the Mac Studio. Spinner investment preserved.