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#1
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eSATA
It has been long time since I built my last computer. In those days
SATA was not common on main boards, therefore I have no experience whatsoever with SATA. The case of the computer I am building now has a connection for eSATA. The main board, GIGABYTE GA-H55M-S2H, has six internal SATA connectors, labelled zero thru five. Does it matter to which of those six the eSATA cable is connected? Is there any reason to prefer connecting the eSATA cable to any specific SATA internal connector? This main board also has an IDE internal connector, For the time being I intend to use only my current IDE hard drive to be connected to this connector. I am planning to add SATA hard drives later. Thanks in advance for any advice. |
#2
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eSATA
On Sun, 6 Mar 2011 18:54:52 -0800 (PST), Aharon Lavie
wrote: It has been long time since I built my last computer. In those days SATA was not common on main boards, therefore I have no experience whatsoever with SATA. The case of the computer I am building now has a connection for eSATA. The main board, GIGABYTE GA-H55M-S2H, has six internal SATA connectors, labelled zero thru five. Does it matter to which of those six the eSATA cable is connected? Is there any reason to prefer connecting the eSATA cable to any specific SATA internal connector? This main board also has an IDE internal connector, For the time being I intend to use only my current IDE hard drive to be connected to this connector. I am planning to add SATA hard drives later. Thanks in advance for any advice. I'm no expert, but from my limited experience, it doesn't seem to matter what connector you use for the eSATA. In fact, on an old HP computer that doesn't have an eSATA connector, I bought a SATA-to-eSATA cable from Monoprice, and use it by simply running it outside the case to an eaternal drive for backups. I also use the internal IDE for an occasional hard drive (I have several old drives around), and also for a CD RW drive. |
#3
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eSATA
Aharon Lavie wrote:
It has been long time since I built my last computer. In those days SATA was not common on main boards, therefore I have no experience whatsoever with SATA. The case of the computer I am building now has a connection for eSATA. The main board, GIGABYTE GA-H55M-S2H, has six internal SATA connectors, labelled zero thru five. Does it matter to which of those six the eSATA cable is connected? Is there any reason to prefer connecting the eSATA cable to any specific SATA internal connector? This main board also has an IDE internal connector, For the time being I intend to use only my current IDE hard drive to be connected to this connector. I am planning to add SATA hard drives later. Thanks in advance for any advice. Well, first you might be interested in a port that supports AHCI as a setting. AHCI includes in its feature set, support for hot swapping, so the hard drive will be recognized when the cable is plugged into the computer (sort of how USB works). Without a working hot swap driver, you plug in the ESATA drive before you boot, so it can be detected during the boot process. (Note that, AHCI is not the only way to get hot swap. There have been SATA chips that supported hot swap before AHCI came along. But with your Intel motherboard ports, AHCI is where it's at. The first person to have working hot swap, was someone who broke the connector on their hard drive, and noticed every time they held the broken connector to the drive, it was detected :-) That's how they safely retrieved all the files off the drive, before throwing it away.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahci An Intel motherboard, might split the ports into two groups. A group of four ports, and a group of two ports. Sometimes the properties of the ports are controlled separately. If you'd decided to use a non-AHCI mode for your boot drive, and your boot OS was an older OS (where it's hard to change the driver mode), then the easiest thing might be to look at the port groupings in the BIOS, and use a port on the other group, so you can change the mode without affecting your ability to boot. Now, I downloaded your manual, and it doesn't seem to separate the six ports into groups. They all seem to be controlled by one setting (AHCI or IDE). All I can say at this point is, either you'll get lucky, and you built the system up with the thing set to AHCI, or you'll be unlucky, and end up having to connect the drive before the system boots. While Vista and Windows 7 make it relatively easy to change disk modes (simply change one or more registry settings to "re-arm" the OS), an older OS like WinXP makes it in your best interest, to get it right from the very beginning. ******* The second issue, is a relatively minor one. SATA and ESATA have slightly different electrical requirements. Basically, the ESATA launch amplitude and receiver sensitivity, are designed so a longer cable will work. Either the motherboard maker leaves all the ports electrically in an ESATA mode all the time, and a longer cable works anyway, or, the alternative, is you connect an ESATA interface, and only a short (1 meter) cable works. Now, I don't own any ESATA enclosures, but if I was buying one, I'd have no incentive to own a 2 meter cable, and would simply buy a short cable. By investing in a short ESATA cable, it saves me from having to worry about my receive sensitivity etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esata#eSATA Other issues, include all the variations provided by manufacturers. Some turkeys, in years past, provided ordinary SATA ports on an adapter plate, and pretended that was ESATA. A real ESATA connector has more metal in the housing, and a real ESATA connector can take something like 5000 insertions and removals. The days of using the wrong connector are probably behind us. (There was even one product, that didn't even use a SATA or ESATA connector for the external drive!) There is a new version of ESATA connector, called ESATAp, and it's backward compatible with the old (metal) connector. The idea is, when a computer has an ESATAp connector, the computer can send power to the hard drive. If you had an ESATAp assembly, and an ESATAp hard drive housing, you'd no longer need an external power adapter. But the odds of that working out for you at the moment are pretty slim. Again, defensive purchasing says to buy a traditional ESATA enclosure with its own adapter, as that is always going to work. ESATAp would have been fine, if some genius had thought of it from Day One. But introducing it now isn't very useful (customers will have a mix of equipment, and never know what to expect). HTH, Paul |
#4
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eSATA
On Mar 6, 9:54 pm, Aharon Lavie wrote:
Thanks in advance for any advice. I use USB2 connectors in an external SATA docking station. Not too swift transfer rates, but for the time being I don't mind. Very convenient. One docking station came free with a drive purchase and the other, I just got. The packages have changed but they're identical Rosewil units made as Newegg's "brand" (looked to be based on Thermaltake units). The unit I just ordered, one model below including an ESATA connector, was on sale $12 with free shipping. With both USB ports hooked up now for up to 2T drive support on each unit, it's easy to run out or into a drive-maze city (the joys of partitioning). |
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