eSata on iMac 2011

Hello,
I'm editing in FCPX on an iMac 2011 i5 3,1GHz, 8GB RAM and AMD 6970M. My internal HDD is 1TB Sata Disk. I have several Iomega external hard disks that connects to my FW800 port. It's not fast when projects gets bigger and full of effects.

So I'm trying to find a solution for this. Since I own several external hard disks that are working fine, I'm not planning to buy any thunderbolt drives right now. That's not an option at the moment.
All Iomega drives have eSata ports, so I was thinking: How can my iMac connect thru eSata?

Lacie's eSata hub seens to work only with Lacie's hard drives. Another option is Sonnet Echo Pro ExpressCard/34 Thunderbolt Adapter, but I'm not sure if it works as I think it would.

Do you guys have any advice for me?

Best.

the Lacie eSata hub will works with eSata drive enclosures. I've a OWC Mercury Elite raid unit plugged into mine.

frandu,
LaCie and Sonnet hubs will work with eSata drives. Why would you use an express card interface unless you already have the card? Another option is to get a TB to USB3 adapter and dock, saves you a little $$. Honestly, if you need the additional speed, you first need to decide if you need multi drive raid or not. USB3 and TB I/O's are both capable of supporting full data transfer of any single drive. Are you really seeing FW800 bottle necks, or is it the drive itself?
Hope this helps, Greg

Thank you for the tips.

something in Lacie's website that makes me wonder if it would work with IOMEGA hard drives:

LaCie will not be held responsible for low performance achieved by products not contained in the above list.
Here's the list:

Optimized products*
d2 Quadra USB 2.0
d2 Quadra USB 3.0
2big Quadra
4big Quadra
Big disk Quadra
Little Big Disk Quadra
Rugged XL
Hard Disk MAX by Neil Poulton Quadra

Compatible with limitations**
d2 Quadra Entreprise Class
2big Quadra Entreprise Class
4big Quadra Entreprise Class

VidGreg, all my Iomega drives are not in Raid and does not have any USB3 ports. I think the bottleneck is the FW800, how can I check this?

Inomega is not a name you hear of much anymore. Have a zip drive from them in my junk box somewhere. So right off the bat, I am suspicious of the drives you want to use. I can be wrong, but I thought INOMEGA went out of business or was sold off a long time ago in terms of computer and drive advancement. As to answering your question, I would start with drive model, RPM and cache amounts to see if I could find any info on data transfer rates. Are you sure your drives are Sata and not Pata?
As to finding out how fast your drives are transferring data, the easiest way is to download a speed testing app like BlackMagic Disk Speed Test (free in the App Store) and then hook up your drives and target them (under file) and hit the Start Button.
Hope this helps, Greg

VidGreg, I have 5 of theses: go.iomega.com/en/products/external-hard-...x-plus/?partner=4735

All of them with 4TB of capacity.

BTW, I just send an email to Lacie's support and they told me that the hard drives should work with the eSata Hub. I think 3GB/s over FW800 could benefit my workflow a lot...

I have two of the LaCie TB<->eSATA adapters and I have used them successfully with eSATA drives from LaCie (a 4Big, some d1 Quadras), Western Digital, GTechnology and Vantec. No problems with any of them.