PNY ESata Express Card and WD Mybook on Mac Book Pro....

My Mac Book Pro has an express card slot, and my Western Digital MyBook 500GB Hard Drive has an Esata Cable connection.... lets take a look at what these two features are and how they can be combined to provide for some pretty impressive transfer speeds.

Things you'll need:
ESata Cable
Esata Expresscard(Unless of course your computer has an Esata port built-in)
Hard Drive with Esata connection

Just like any other piece of technology, you can find Esata Express Cards at many different resellers and there are a number of available brands. They range anywhere from $15-$100(and probably more in some cases). Being that I'm forced to eat Top Ramen 6 days out of the week, I opted for the cheapest card I could find - The PNY Express Card eSata II - 2 Port. I purchased this card(pictured below) for $20 at a local Best Buy - happened to be the last one on the shelf, not a regularly stocked item according to the salesperson.


The packaging is VERY misleading. It says absolutley nothing about being compatible with Mac OS X and lists system requirements as being Windows XP or Vista only. Thats a 'lie'... In fact the included CD comes with a driver - in a folder labeled as being Mac OS X. Why they don't note this on the packaging is beyond me. (Alternatively the driver is available at Silicon Image's site.) The driver from SI and the driver that comes on the PNY CD are exactly the same! I would recommend checking SI's site just in case they update the software and release a new version though.

If you are running OS X 10.5.1 its ideal that you upgrade to 10.5.2 as Apple has made some changes which effect how the express card slot and corresponding device(s) communicate. If you've already got 10.5.1 upgrading to 10.5.2 will be free as its just an updat e- not an upgrade. This is not completely necessary but I highly suggest it. If you are unsure as to what OS you've got click on the Apple in the upper left hand portion of your screen and click on "About this Mac...", A dialog box will pop up and tell you what OS version you've got. Additionally, on the same Apple menu if you click 'Software Update' it will allow you to view and install the latest updates.

As of February 2008 Western Digital released an updated driver for the MyBook Hard Drives that address some compatibility issues with Leopard. In short, people who were using eSata connections were getting transfer speeds comparable to USB 2.0. The new driver patches this problem and is available for free download from their site. Click here for Driver. NOTE: not all hard driver manufactures have updated drivers avaliable. If you are having problems and not using a WD drive check the maker's site for new drivers or Google it

Okay, now that we've got our driver's up-to-date we are ready to start plugging hardware in. Slide the Express Card into its corresponding slot on your Macbook Pro. (Left side of the computer, oval shaped opening with a door that flips down.)

Push the card all the way in, it will click into place - (To remove the card press it inward and it will release, allowing you to pull it back out - Remember to power the card off before removing!)

With your card inserted you'll notice a little icon pop-up on your top toolbar tray(next to the time/battery info/etc). Click on it and it should read something similar to: "Silicon Image, Sil 3132 Satalink controller", and gives you an option to power it down. If it says 'unknown' you need to reinstall your driver or check to make sure that you've got the latest version.

Now you can plug your Esata cable in- I also purchased this item from Best Buy, for about $10 , also PNY brand, 6' long- to the back of your Hard Drive. The cable only goes in one way. Once you've got it hooked up to your Hard Drive, you can plug the other end into your express card, either slot will work.

Your Hard Drive should power up once you've plugged in the Esata cable, if it doesn't just turn it on manually.

Thats it! If you've got the correct software installed and the connections snug you're ready to start getting some real use out of your hard drive.

What good would it be if I just posted pictures and wrote about how cool this eSata/Express Card combo is? Probably not very... So I've bench tested the new setup and also tested a few other storage devices(labeled accordingly in image below).

The results are pretty self-explanatory(click image for larger view). Its like using a completely different Hard Drive, quieter than it was before and the speed is outstanding. Browsing folders with lots of pictures/videos/etc - even in 'cover-flow' style finder - is just amazing. Night and day difference and makes backing up and archiving a quick task. ... of course it works awesome with time machine in case you were wondering! -(Click here See how I partition the same HD for use with two mac's - both running time machine)

Well worth the ~$30, not to mention Best Buy came in handy for once!

Please feel free to leave comments, questions and suggestions.