eSATA

Brum Man · 30 Sep 2010 at 20:36

So I've just built a computer, with a farily old motherboard in a new case.

The case has an external eSATA port on it but the motherboard, a DFI NF4, does not. I'm wondering if it is simply a case of pluggin directly in to the SATA ports on the motherboard?

I see that newer motherboard seem to come with eSATA ports on them, and am wondering what the difference is given that they have similar connectors on the motherboard connector?

Brum Man · 3 Oct 2010 at 14:43

No one?

smilertoo · 3 Oct 2010 at 15:04

My eSata connects to a normal sata port on the motherboard.

Surveyor · 3 Oct 2010 at 15:08

I think this would phsically work but any disk connected to the eSATA would be seen as an internal disk and "hot plugging" or "hot-swapping" capability may not be present.

You also need an power supply for the external disk as eSATA does not provide power.

Brum Man · 3 Oct 2010 at 16:46

OK cheers. So essentially if I were to plug in, for example, an external hard drive I'd have to reboot for it to be recognised? Would it damage anything plugging one in while the computer was powered up?

Daniee · 3 Oct 2010 at 16:50

I plug in my external drive into an e-sata adapter, which plugs into the sata ports on my motherboard.

When I turn on my external drive I just go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, and Computer Management, go to disk management in there, at the side there is an option "More Actions", go to that and then "Rescan Disks".

It then finds the drive and you can use it like any other drive.

Brum Man · 3 Oct 2010 at 17:03

OK, thanks for the tips