Networking via eSATA?

blackninja · 26 Mar 2008 at 13:23

Just curious as I have eSATA on my laptop & main rig .... is it possible to connect these via eSATA to get a 3Gbps network

I could really make use of that for my VMs!

errata · 26 Mar 2008 at 13:45

not saying its can never happen but I believe its not been done so far presumably because sata links data storage devices to computers and does not have the software or hardware abstraction or protocol layers to 'network' IP addressible devices. Range would be an issue as well (max sata length is 1m ish)

worthingsaxovtr · 26 Mar 2008 at 15:04

I have seen network usb software about

to share a usb drive over a network

platinum87 · 26 Mar 2008 at 15:21

proper dual gigabit network is fast enough, considering HDD write/read speeds are slower than the ethernet

J.B · 26 Mar 2008 at 16:29

Dont think the protocol stack would exsist to communicate like that, im sure from a H/W point of view its possible though

HEADRAT · 26 Mar 2008 at 21:27

Vista's TCP/IP stack is more than able to do 10Gbps.

errata · 28 Mar 2008 at 12:33

the multi purpose USB is not the same type of interface as sata or esata so no comparison should be drawn between the 2

bringing things back to physical mattes the max cable length for esata is impracticable for networking.

TrX · 28 Mar 2008 at 13:44

HEADRAT said:
Vista's TCP/IP stack is more than able to do 10Gbps.

I don't think J.B meant the protocol itself would not be able to cope with 3Gb/s, I think he just meant there is no current implementation for sitting the stack on top of the eSATA Transport. (And if this was not what you were getting at, feel free to ignore the top section of this post

)

FiberChannel can do IPoFC (IP over fiber channel) at 1,2,4,8 and 10Gb/s but you look to be out of luck with eSATA

Why not just bind 3x 1Gb/s ethernet cards for the same effect? (SATA has max throuput of 3Gb/s if i remember correctly)

//TrX