Sonnet Technologies " Tempo SATA E2P Controller"

"Things like this should be installed, and you should never have a problem with them, ever. Tempo is a great company with a great rep - just do it."

"I purchased this product to work with my eSATA G-Drives and G-RAID hard drives. I edit high definition video, so any extra speed I can add to the system is helpful.



Installation was very simple, although the directions are not very specific. I know the inner workings of my machine fairly well (Mac Pro) so I had no trouble installing the device.



Installation of drivers was simple and straight forward.



After that it's literally plug and play. I noticed an instant improvement in read times when quickly shuttling through HD timelines.



Overall I'm very satisfied with the device. It's a cheap speed upgrade and well worth the time and cost."

"I have two Mac Pro 2010 Dual Quad Core Towers that I use for Digital Photography and Digital Video, one at the house and one at my office. Both have 4 2TB drives filling up the drive bays. I use one internal drive for MacOS 10.6.8 and applications, one for stills photography raw files, one for digital video files including video original, transcodes, mp4, and video edits, and the final one for digital audio and scanner files.



Both machines are similarly configured and I attempt to keep the applications and databases in sync, not an easy task. I use Photoshop and Lightroom for the stills files, Final Cut Pro and iMovie for the video with a Lightroom 3 data base for all the video originals and edits, and Nikon, Epson, and Silverfast for the film and print scanning.



As near as I can tell, FCP does not directly import AVCHD video from my Panasonic GH2, but iMovie 11 imports the files from the camera card and converts to .MOV files. I can't speak to Final Cut X. Also, Lightroom 3 does not import AVCHD files either, apparently.



I also use legacy FW400 and FW800 drives to maintain multiple backup and archives of the various image, audio, and video hierarchies on the drives. If you feel safe with one backup (or even 2) you are likely to be disappointed in the foreseeable future.



The problem that the Sonnet Tempo card addresses is the transfer of gigabytes of data between the two systems and the Time Machine backups. eSATA is significantly faster than Firewire and every shoot requires at least 2 external backup copies at both sites in addition to the 2 copies on the two Mac Pro computers.



To keep the LR data in sync, the files are imported into one or the other systems, key-worded, down-selected, and rough edited. Then that folder is exported as a Lightroom Catalog and imported into the other system.



I have been using these cards since August of last year with a 4Drive Raid tower and 4 external drive enclosures that allow me to repurpose the 1TB drives that I took out of the computers when the 2TB drives were installed. These external drive enclosures are triple I/F units (USB/FW/eSATA) making them ideal to use in the field (FW) with a laptop, then in the office/home environment with the eSATA I/F.



As Macintosh users are aware, Apple does not directly support eSATA. Sonnet has been providing missing features for Mac users for as long as I can remember and I have yet to have a problem with any Sonnet product I have used. These eSATA cards are no exception. (Note: I started with a Radio Shack Model I computer and have owned and operated Macs since the 512K 'Fat Mac'.)



The only caution I have to offer is to power up and mount the eSATA drives before any FW external drives. I have not extensively tested this, but it appears to me that the FW drive chain will drop off line if the eSATA drives are powered and mounted after the FW drives.



I bought the 2 port adapter instead of the 4 port card primarily because the 2 port card was significantly cheaper than the 4 port card, I have PCI slots to burn, and I needed 2 cards (one for each computer system.) If you are slot challenged, the extra expense of the 4 port card may appeal to you.



Not only would I recommend these cards to a friend, I may wind up buying two more for my systems. You can buy 4 2-port cards for the price of one 4 port card, so if you are not using your slots, the 2 port card is the way to go, particularly if you use multi-drive towers or RAID enclosures that only require one port.



There is one caveat and that is more an Apple problem than a Sonnet problem, but the net result is the same. Some controller cards in external drives and drive enclosures are not compatible with eSATA cards installed in Macintosh computers. I am not that much of a techie and being a Mac user I have ALWAYS bought FW drives. That usually means a FW/USB or a FW/USB/eSATA drive or inclosure and as far as I can tell, the triple I/F drives and enclosures work fine, at least all of mine do. It is likely that a USB/eSATA drive will not work. If this is what you as a Mac user have then you are likely using it as a USB drive and want the speed upgrade of eSATA. Before you take the plunge you will need to verify with either the drive vender or Sonnet that the controller chip is compatible."

"I originally wanted to go with the PRO Version of this...Due to this is connected to my BEAST @ Home. Although I just couldn't find it in me to spend $300 after getting the other products for my laptop. The speed is surprisingly fast! I was impressed and able to transfer all my files and I am talking Hundreds of GIGS in no time. I would suggest this product for an MAC user. Install was quick and simple, Downloaded the latest driver straight from Sonnet's website and after the Restart....Let the Transferring begin!"

"I have a (mid-2010) Mac Pro Quad and I edit corporate and documentary on FCP7. Normally, I work with external hard drives for each client. To get a faster turnaround time, it's important to have a quick data transfer. I'm also extremely poor, so the eSATA adapter is the way to go. Faster than Firewire 800 and so far, it hasn't failed on me yet. .. .although, it probably will now that I jinxed myself."

"I was looking for a eSata pci card for my MacPro to connect to my two g-tech drives. I had purchased an esata Sonnet express card for my laptop and was happy with the support of Sonnet gives. I would recommend this product to anyone looking purchase an esata card."

"I transfer files to external disk using my Power Mac G5 2.3 GH dual core.

With the E2P and a Newer Technology Docking station I get transfer speeds

equal to max speed for a SATA setup. 3Gb/s"

"I've installed multiple E2P's in Mac Pros and they work well alongside Avid MC and Unity fiber cards. 2-3 times faster than FW800, I got actual transfer speeds of 140MB/s with LaCie drives. Hot-swapping works too!"

"Very easy to install in my MAcPro. Downloaded latest driver, plugged it in and voila, it works. Speedy connection to my Drobo S. And a second port in case I want to hook up to another drive."

"I use this card to add a very fast SATA connection to my MacPro. Very easy to install and works seamlessly with SnowLeopard 10.6.4!"