New external storage interface creates multiple device options

Implications: * USB 2.0 provides external data rates of 480 Mbps sustained.  eSATA, an external version of the SATA interface currently provides data rates of 3 Gbps sustained  * Next generation USB will have 5 Gbps and next generation eSATA will have 6 Gbps data rates * Recently several laptop and external storage companies, many based out of Taiwan, have introduced so-called 2-in-1 connectors that support both USB 2.0 and eSATA connector devices Using the space saving 2-in-1 connections customers can use popular USB 2.0 devices or very fast eSATA connections  * This will assist in the growth of eSATA external storage devices

Analysis: USB devices have become ubiquitous.  Thumb or flash drives seem to proliferate like mice in a cheese plant.  Everyone is giving these things away, often with catalogs or other company information on them.  These devices have become the de-facto way to transfer files and data from one electronic device to another.  Likewise for backup and other higher capacity storage applications external hard disk drives with the USB interface are very common.  USB interfaces are found on almost all commercial and consumer electronic devices in the market.  The current USB 2.0 interface provides data rates up to 480 Mbps.  

eSATA is an external version of the SATA interface that is used in desktop and laptop computers as well as in many consumer devices and an increasing number of disk drive storage arrays.  The eSATA interface provides data rates up to 3,000 Mbps (3 Gbps), roughly 6X faster than the USB 2.0 interface (actual data rate differences are different due to the overhead used in each interface standard as well as the peculiarities of the particular application).  The high data rates of the eSATA interface provide an ideal interface for video editing, backup and other data intensive applications where the a slower interface speed would limit the performance of the user experience.  A faster data rate allows high resolution video frames to be streamed off the external storage device without interruption.   

The eSATA interface has such a high data rate that several streams of content can be handled at once across the interface (the number of streams depends upon the resolution and compression of the content).  For this reason most new Digital Video Recorder (DVR)-capable set top boxes used in cable and satellite TV as well as stand alone DVRs now include an eSATA port that can be used to expand the internal storage capacity of the DVR device.   

USB 3.0 has been announced for implementation in the next several years with a data rate of 5 Gbps but and would be a new interface with backward compatibility to the existing USB 2.0 connectors.  The next generation eSATA would provide 6 Gbps data rates and will probably be available before USB 3.0 connectors.  Such high speed interfaces can provide even greater capability to handle rich content and multiple stream content.  

The eSATA port has required special connectors to implement and this can add to the cost of implementation and has limited the number of devices that provide this very fast interface.  The recent rash of devices using the so-called 2-in-1 connectors that support both USB 2.0 and the current generation of eSATA.  Although not an official standard interface this hybrid connector allows a low cost, space saving capability that gives users the choice or ubiquitous USB or blazingly fast eSATA external storage devices.  At the recent Computex conference in Taiwan there were a plethora of laptops and other popular consumer devices sporting these hybrid connectors.  

The 2-in-1 USB/eSATA connector looks to be a hit in the computer industry and I expect these combination interfaces to proliferate.  The growth of these connectors supporting both USB and eSATA will also help the external eSATA interface get more traction in a broader market.  This will help to drive the adoption of eSATA and promote growth of companies that support eSATA including Silicon Image, Marvell, Oxford Semiconductor and Intel.