We have seen a lot of gimmicky external hard drives over the years. Some companies have made their external drives able to handle being dropped, while others have made them in crazy colors with lights all over the place. But the one thing they have all had in common is that they were slow as molasses. The great savior to USB 2.0’s slow speed was supposed to be eSATA, but the interface and technology never caught on like the industry hoped. eSATA could have been a worthwhile successor to USB 2.0 for storage devices, but USB, like the name implies, is universal and has even broken through to the consumer electronics market. With the high adaption rate, USB has been a huge success and that pretty much meant that eSATA never had a prayer for anything outside of the enthusiast market.