Esata?

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WiseCrack

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On my Asus P5K Deluxe/Wifi mainboard there is two Esata ports at the back.

What are they for? What is the advantages over USB.

I presume they are there to plug in an external drive?
 
WiseCrack said:
On my Asus P5K Deluxe/Wifi mainboard there is two Esata ports at the back.

What are they for? What is the advantages over USB.

I presume they are there to plug in an external drive?
Click to expand...

Correct, they are for external HDD's. eSATA runs at the same speed as internal SATA - much faster than USB.

* USB 1.1 – 15 Mbps
* USB 2.0 – 480 Mbps
* SATA 1.5 – 1.5 Gbps (and eSATA 1.5)
* SATA 3.0 – 3.0 Gbps (and eSATA 3.0)
 
WiseCrack said:
On my Asus P5K Deluxe/Wifi mainboard there is two Esata ports at the back.

What are they for? What is the advantages over USB.

I presume they are there to plug in an external drive?
Click to expand...
:confused: are there power ports in addition to the SATA ports, IOW how does one provide an external SATA HDD with power, or are external SATA HDDs expected to have their own transformer power supply?
 
ic said:
:confused: are there power ports in addition to the SATA ports, IOW how does one provide an external SATA HDD with power, or are external SATA HDDs expected to have their own transformer power supply?
Click to expand...

The latter, you'll find eSATA connectors on a whole range of external hard drive enclosures - these all come with their own power supplies.
 
ic said:
Yes, but some external USB HDD enclosures draw power from the PC's USB hub - I have one of those.
Click to expand...

Doesn't it depend on the size of the drive inside the enclosure?

I have a 2.5" enclosure and anything over 80GB needs external power or another USB port to power up.
 
ive got a sata hdd in a coolermaster x-craft 350 enclosure....and with esata speeds are insane!!..
 
feo said:
I have a 2.5" enclosure and anything over 80GB needs external power or another USB port to power up.
Click to expand...

i have a 100gb sata 2.5" hdd and even with 2 usbs connected in some computers it was giving problems...send vizo an email and they sent me the power adapter for it all the way from tokyo :D...but now its less portable
 
USB can supply 0.5 amp @ 5volt and most 2.5" hard-drives just happen to need 0.5 amps @ 5volt to run which is why it runs without external power, eSATA & SATA on the other hand supply no power so it's up to the designer to decide how best to approach the power issue.
 
So if I understand this right I need to buy a Sata II drive that has a transfer rate of 3Gb/s and a eSata compatible HDD enclosure to take full advantage of eSata's increased transfer rate.
 
WiseCrack said:
So if I understand this right I need to buy a Sata II drive that has a transfer rate of 3Gb/s and a eSata compatible HDD enclosure to take full advantage of eSata's increased transfer rate.
Click to expand...

Well, it doesn't HAVE to be SATAII, there is basically no difference between SATA I and SATA II.

If you have a SATA drive laying around somewhere you could use that. It's what I did. Took out my old 250 gig and put it in a Vantec eSATA enclosure. Works extremely well.

WiseCrack said:
Something like this?

http://www.take2.co.za/product.php?id=2660053

and

http://www.take2.co.za/product.php?id=3234932
Click to expand...

That'll work 100%.
 
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