If I want to attach an external dual drive dock to my Mac Pro 5.1, like this Startech USB 3/eSATA dual drive dock:
... and want to access both drives (i.e. both drive icons pop up on the Finder desktop); what would I need and what would work best at the Mac end? The drive dock will be used for backups.
Those docks come with USB3, eSATA or both. I'm in the midst of deciding on a PCIe USB-3 solution but don't know if I should use USB3 for memory card readers and the occasional external hard drive transfer, then leave the "heavy transfers" with a dock attached to a PCIe SATA-3/eSATA card. If I'm not mistaken the thing to keep in mind is buy one with a "port multiplier" function, or else I'll just get to see one drive on the desktop. Is this correct, and will this be a better solution than attaching a drive dock to a USB-3 interface?
I figure that with a multiple port eSATA card I could benefit from attaching my internal boot SSD to get SATA-2 speeds, and possibly also my main HDD (7200 PRM) in addition to the external dock -in that case, would I need 4 ports with a port multiplier function? Will the dock use 2 ports from the interface even though it just connects with a single eSATA cable?
... and want to access both drives (i.e. both drive icons pop up on the Finder desktop); what would I need and what would work best at the Mac end? The drive dock will be used for backups.
Those docks come with USB3, eSATA or both. I'm in the midst of deciding on a PCIe USB-3 solution but don't know if I should use USB3 for memory card readers and the occasional external hard drive transfer, then leave the "heavy transfers" with a dock attached to a PCIe SATA-3/eSATA card. If I'm not mistaken the thing to keep in mind is buy one with a "port multiplier" function, or else I'll just get to see one drive on the desktop. Is this correct, and will this be a better solution than attaching a drive dock to a USB-3 interface?
I figure that with a multiple port eSATA card I could benefit from attaching my internal boot SSD to get SATA-2 speeds, and possibly also my main HDD (7200 PRM) in addition to the external dock -in that case, would I need 4 ports with a port multiplier function? Will the dock use 2 ports from the interface even though it just connects with a single eSATA cable?