Pros: With USB along you're limited to the USB 2.0 transfer speed of about 24 MB/s. eSATA is fast enough that you're limited to the physical drive speed, about 62 MB/s. This gives a 2.6x performance gain. USB provides enough power for a 2.5" HDD, but eSATA along does not. So eSATA only cables require separate power adapters. The beauty of this device is that if you have the special combo port, you get the benefits of both, eSATA transfer speeds and self-powered via the USB port. p.s. MB/s is megabytes per second (not bits). Speeds reported were sequential read times measured on the same Western Digital 2.5" 320GB HDD with CrystalDiskMark v3.0.

Cons: There is no drive case, so without additional protection the drive just hangs out there. There are other cables just like this that come with a silicon slip for the drive which are handy.

Overall Review: First you must know that this is a unique cable for computers with a SHARED USB+eSATA combo port. That means that the same port supports both USB and eSATA. The cable uses the USB portion to provide power and the eSATA portion for data transferring. Your computer (like my Dell XPS Laptop) must have this special type of combo port.