Product Description

Sonnet's Tempo SATA Express 34 ushers in a new level of higher disk performance capability for the mobile professional. Whether you capture and edit video content in the field, the studio, or home, Tempo SATA Express 34 sets the bar high for mobile storage products.The Tempo SATA Express 34 controller has two external, 3Gb/s, SATA II ports, and plugs directly into a MacBook Pro (15" or 17") or Windows notebooks with an ExpressCard/54 or ExpressCard/34 slot.Imagine connecting up to 10 drives for high-performance applications, such as Apple's Final Cut Pro. With two external SATA drives attached in a RAID 0 array, the Tempo SATA Express 34 can typically achieve sustained disk write and read speeds of 100 and 110 MB/sec, respectively, which is about three times as fast as USB 2.0 or FireWire connections to the same drive setup.Offering native SATA speed in a compact mobile package, Sonnet's Tempo SATA Express 34 redefines the definition of disk speed for the creative person on-the-go.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9737 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Sonnet Technologies
• Model: TSATAII-E342P
• Platform: Windows
• Format: CD
• Dimensions: 2.00 pounds

Features

• Two eSATA ports
• 3 Gb/s per SATA II controller port
• FIS-based Port Multiplier-aware to support up to 10 disk drives
• Bus Interface ExpressCard/34
• External Connectors - Two eSATA

Customer Reviews

Works as promised, but nothing extra
Bought this card to use with my Macbook Pro to see if I could wring any more performance out of my drives using eSATA rather than Firewire800. Target device was a Lacie Quadra d500. Performance was slightly improved in sequential performance, but close to nothing in random reads and/or writes, which is more typical of average usage.

Drivers work fine in both Leopard and Tiger, but the continuously running background monitoring program is a little klunky in terms of design; why run if the card isn't present ? Also, the card doesn't come with a carry case, making storage when not in use difficult - I ended up hacking the original packaging and using that.

In summary, the card delivers what it says - eSATA connectivity via ExpressCard34. Is it significantly faster than Firewire 800 ? Not on a 7200RPM 2.5" drive, or a 10000RPM 3.5" drive, no, it isn't.

Buy this card if you don't have Firewire800 and/or you want to ensure that you can always connect to storage.

For the price, I honestly expected more.

Gathering dust because it doesn't work with Seagate and WD
I purchased this to use the eSata interface on my external drives from Seagate. When I started to notice some issues with my MacBook Pro with respect to accessing the drive and file permissions, there was a small note at the bottom of the Sonnet web site stating that there were driver issues with OS X and that the next release should remedy them.

A couple months later, the site was updated to state that there is a known incompatibility with a certain Oxford Semiconductor chipset used by Seagate and Western Digital. It is odd that this card has issues with the #1 and #2 makers of drives.

I am not saying it's Sonnet's fault, but you will be SOL if you're using those FreeAgent Pro or MyBook drives.

When it works, it works well, but it is not dependable.
I have a brand-new MacBook Pro, and purchased this unit at the Apple store together with the computer. When I have my camera on the Firewire 800 port, capturing via FinalCut Pro and saving to the external drive connected to the card, my machine constantly crashes--the screen goes gray from top to bottom, and then a box pops up in four or five languages telling me I have to do a hard reboot. When I don't have the camera installed, or when i have saved to my hard drive, transfer of files from my internal drive to the external goes very smoothly. However, when I power off the card, I often get the same crash scenario.
I'm not sorry I bought it, but it is disappointing that an Apple-sponsored product is so undependable.