What are e-sata cables for?

JonJ678

JonJ678

JonJ678

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I'm currently running three hard drives, 3/4 of a raid 5, outside my case using normal sata cables threaded through a spare pci backplate. There isn't space in the case to hold them.

That esata exists makes me wonder if I should be going motherboard sata to esata to sata to get to the drives, instead of just running the cable externally.

Also curious as to whether sata dvd drives will work with an esata cable.

At a bit of a loss as to what they're used for, that's all. Cheers.
 
They seem to be wired the same as internals though. Certainly I have a pci cover here with an esata socket on it which has a normal sata lead soldered into the back, which goes to any available sata port on the board.

The ports are different shapes, but otherwise the cable seems to be the same thing :s
 
sata onboard , esata outside different connection cable on the esata though, looking at my external esata cable more solid, roboost than the internal's and esata or truely plug and play.
 
eSATA is no more plug and play than SATA. Both require AHCI to be enabled for plug & play.
While AFAIK they are the same wiring, having a normal SATA lead solded onto an eSATA lead means very little. You can use a Molex to power a SATA power cable, even though a SATA power cable has a 3.3V lead in addition to 5V and 12V, and a Molex has just 5V and 12V.
 
well using a extension bracket for the sata does allow the machine to be switched on with a sata hard drive plugged in, once pc is powered up on trying to unplug the external sata drive then there is problems,

alternative esata either built into one off my motherboards or on my adpatec esata card then esata hard drives just simply plug and play like my external usb hard drives.
 
AHCI is controller dependent. So while many onboard controllers won't be AHCI by default, for legacy support, dedicated eSATA cards (and even SATA cards) would almost certainly be AHCI enabled, and thus plug & play.

Dunno why there'd be problems unplugging an eSATA drive :confused:
 
esata is just sata but with power going through the cable too. So you can have a 3.5" hdd in an e-sata caddy and just plug it into your motherboard, no messing inside the case each time.
 
clocka said:
esata is just sata but with power going through the cable too. So you can have a 3.5" hdd in an e-sata caddy and just plug it into your motherboard, no messing inside the case each time.
Click to expand...

Eh? eSATA doesn't have power through the cable. eSATA caddies still have to have an external power supply. Unless I misunderstand what you're saying?
 
wel I have a external 2.5 hard drive in its case and it requires power from a usb socket also so does the usb as well "it has 3 connectors one power from usb, one data to usb, and esata"
 
USB can provide a certain amount of power.. 5V 200mA is standard I think but don't quote me, and I think it can go higher current if the controller supports it. This is sometimes sufficient to power a 2.5" HDD - I have two portable 2.5" HDDs that run off one USB port for both data and power.
Some 2.5" HDDs require more power than a single USB port can provide, so sometimes you need to plug the drive into two USB ports, only one of which will be used for data.
eSATA provides no power. But in your case siege2, your drive gets power from the USB port, then uses either the USB data cable or the eSATA data cable. Many (most) eSATA drives are 3.5", and those require external power adaptors, as do regular USB external 3.5" drives.

If that clears anything up? It's probably what you were saying, siege2 :p
 
Hi mini
I was replying to Jon's etc what I do have etc and the setup etc , I dont have problem with the setup "lol" thanks for the info though. :-)
 
miniyazz said:
AHCI is controller dependent. So while many onboard controllers won't be AHCI by default, for legacy support, dedicated eSATA cards (and even SATA cards) would almost certainly be AHCI enabled, and thus plug & play.

Dunno why there'd be problems unplugging an eSATA drive :confused:
Click to expand...

Found yesterdya on the Asus sites, some of their x58 bioses are still somewhat buggy, and can lose main boot drive recognition on the next reboot if an e-sata is unplugged. No clue why, and hopefully they'll sort it, but I found after unplugging my e-sata (while machine was off) the C: was lost, had to unplug replug it, to get it working, and then redect in bios and then change boot drive order to get the PC functional.

Initially thought I just had a loose lead until I repeated the situation to test, quite irritating actually.
Running a P6TDeluxe V2 under 506 BIOS. If I left the e-sata attached and powered on with each boot, then there wouldn't be an issue, its removal seems to cause the issue.
 
siege2 said:
Hi mini
I was replying to Jon's etc what I do have etc and the setup etc , I dont have problem with the setup "lol" thanks for the info though. :-)
Click to expand...

Fair enough :)

Hikari Kisugi said:
Found yesterdya on the Asus sites, some of their x58 bioses are still somewhat buggy, and can lose main boot drive recognition on the next reboot if an e-sata is unplugged. No clue why, and hopefully they'll sort it, but I found after unplugging my e-sata (while machine was off) the C: was lost, had to unplug replug it, to get it working, and then redect in bios and then change boot drive order to get the PC functional.

Initially thought I just had a loose lead until I repeated the situation to test, quite irritating actually.
Running a P6TDeluxe V2 under 506 BIOS. If I left the e-sata attached and powered on with each boot, then there wouldn't be an issue, its removal seems to cause the issue.
Click to expand...

Hope they get that fixed before I go i7 then :p
 
Hmm. A lot of that was rather offtopic, but nevermind. Always good to tell people about ahci vs ide.

I believe the conclusion here is that they're the same cable, but esata cables are physically a bit tougher. Yep?

People seem to be happier using it than using an internal sata cable. I don't understand why.
 
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