adapters for SATA 2 E.SATA?

tomos · 2 Nov 2006 at 22:20

have just received a p5b deluxe as a replacement to the DS3 that was weird and noticed it has an esata port.

can you just get an adapter of some kind to use a normal drive externally if needs be?

also, if i use that external port, does it take the place of an internal port? i.e if i plugged a drive into that port, can i still use all 7 internal ports as well?

rpstewart · 3 Nov 2006 at 10:15

The external port is separate, the board has 8 ports - 7 internal and one external.

You should be able to get a cable to connect to a normal SATA disk but I think the idea of eSATA is to use external caddies with a SATA connection rather than USB/firewire

tomos · 3 Nov 2006 at 12:11

i was thinking of using it to connect an internal drive as i dont have any external drives anymore. managed to fit them all internally. i figured a long cable with it coming out the back would do the trick. otherwise it would just go unused

rpstewart · 3 Nov 2006 at 12:26

Power is the issue then, you'd need to run a molex out of the back of the PC or get some kind of external PSU with a molex output.

Simple option would be to get an eSATA enclosure and dump the drive in that, the package should include a PSU and an eSATA cable.

tomos · 3 Nov 2006 at 13:42

cant i just connect a molex internally and connect the sata2esata cable to the back of the pc and feed it inside?

cant see a need for an enclosure since the cable should be long enough to reach the external port