Anyone use their eSATA port on their motherboard?

[Eeqmcsq]

While looking through my 2 motherboard manuals, I discovered that both of my motherboards have an eSATA port in the back. I then remembered that I chose these motherboards because they had at least 1 eSATA port, thinking I might find a use for them some day.

But in the few years that I've used these 2 computers, I have yet to come across a need to use the eSATA ports. I know that you can put an internal HDD into an external enclosure and connect the enclosure to the eSATA port, but is that all you can do with the eSATA port?

So my question is, has anyone put their eSATA port to use? What have you used them for?

 

[IGemini]

Yup, I keep my media compiled on an external. It makes it way easier to transfer stuff than over most networking conditions, even my old HTPC board gets 60MB/s transfer rates over eSATA, versus ~3MB/s for ethernet. Makes a huge difference when transferring 100s of gigabytes. For the $5 bracket and a $30 enclosure, it was a bit more cost-effective than rewiring everything in the house for gigabit (the board would also need a new controller).

I guess one could also use an enclosure for an external blu-ray drive if they didn't want an always-on internal. There were also eSATA flash drives floating around just before USB3 started getting adopted, but they're expensive.

 

[DarkRogue]

My motherboard doesn't have any eSATA.
However, I have 2 eSATA external enclosures for backups and whatnot.

I had to use an internal SATA > eSATA adapter thing.

 

[Coup27]

Never used eSATA in my life lol. Use USB3 a fair bit though, USB3 and SATA 6Gbps were two major reasons for upgrading from Clarkdale to Sandy Bridge.

 

[iluvdeal]

For transferring data to external drives, eSATA blew the pants off USB2. When I bought enclosures, I made sure they had eSATA connectors. If you are backing up GBs of data to an external drive and you are using USB2, it's worth using the eSATA port or if you don't have one converting one of the internal SATA ports to eSATA and using that instead.

 

[mikeymikec]

I used eSATA for a while, but it seems to handle dying/dodgy hard disks worse than USB 2.0*. As I fix computers for a living, that definitely is a factor for me. Sometimes when a disk seems to be working ok, I'll reconnect it via eSATA and get the faster transfer speed out of it.

My system has USB 3.0 as well, but I haven't yet bought a USB 3.0 enclosure.

* - could be due to a crappy eSATA controller on my board. I've had a BSOD or two, but more commonly communication via eSATA just freezes up until I disconnect and reconnect... which sometimes causes a BSOD Up-to-date drivers. It could also be the enclosure I guess.

 

[corkyg]

My motherboard doesn't have any eSATA. However, I have 2 eSATA external enclosures for backups and whatnot. I had to use an internal SATA > eSATA adapter thing.

Exactly my scenario. I use eSATA regularly for external backup data drives on 2 computers. They run at close to USB3 speed without having to buy a new computer.

 

[hclarkjr]

i have an external enclosure that has eSATA and use it for backup

 

[Red Squirrel]

I used it on my server for my backups. I got a esata drive dock, works quite nicely.

 

[Gillbot]

Exactly my scenario. I use eSATA regularly for external backup data drives on 2 computers. They run at close to USB3 speed without having to buy a new computer.

i have an external enclosure that has eSATA and use it for backup

Yep, eSATA is much easier when moving large amounts of data. I use mine often for the same reasons, external drive via eSATA port.

 

[MoInSTL]

I have eSATA on my laptop. Much faster that USB 2. I also have it on the back of my motherboard. I use a Kingwin drive dock that supports 2.5" drives as well as 3.5". I back up a lot on my Hitachi 1TB and various other SATA drives.

I need to compare it to USB 3 which is on my board both front panel & back. Only have a 16GB USB 3 flash drive for now.

I just finished a clean install an hour ago and getting ready to back up the image via eSATA now.

 

[IGemini]

* - could be due to a crappy eSATA controller on my board. I've had a BSOD or two, but more commonly communication via eSATA just freezes up until I disconnect and reconnect... which sometimes causes a BSOD Up-to-date drivers. It could also be the enclosure I guess.

I've had similar problems with separate ASUS boards, enclosures aren't usually to blame. Isn't yours a JMicron controller? I thought the BSOD issues got fixed pretty early since they haven't updated the drivers in almost a year. Only other thing I can think of that might help is a slight bump to your southbridge voltage.

ftp://driver.jmicron.com.tw/SATA_Controller/Windows/

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

The only bad thing about eSATA is that you're obligated to use an external power brick since it cannot supply power. If you have a 1TB 2.5" HDD because you value portability, you're doomed. 3.5" Hard Drives haven't even gotten to 5TB as of yet, so unless you absolutely need that much space and don't value portability I'd say a 1TB 2.5" HDD and a USB 3.0 enclosure is the sweet spot.

 

[professorman]

I am a photographer. eSATAp (powered) was the magical answer to my photography dilemma. How can I edit pictures on an external hard drive, with 23megapixel files and have good file speed. eSata used with Adobe Lightroom solved all my problems. I can plug this hard drive into any computer and it have all my work flow. I go to mydesktop and I plug it in, and I am up and running. I am on the road, I plug it into my laptop, my exact same workflow. If my computer crashes, I just find any computer, plug it in, and I have all my work ready to go.

My laptop had eSataP which is a powered eSata port and USB combo and the cable took the power from the USB section to power the hard drive. The desktop did not, so I had to order a separate cable with usb & esata one one end and eSataP on the other end.

I LOVE eSata.

 

[Zap]

I use mine on occasion. I have a small sheet of anti-static foam on top of my case, and use an eSATA I to L data cable like this one. I port power to the outside of my computer and use an extension cable. The drives I've hooked up are just normal internal SATA drives sitting on top of my tower.

 

[Cerb]

My IDE burner died in, I think early 2008. At the latest, it was the summer of '08. I replaced it with an eSATA/USB enclosure, and it has been mighty handy. It sits on my desk in a nice spot for regular use, and I use it as an external USB optical drive for other computers on occasion. I have used eSATA for imaging and diagnostics of internal HDDs removed from other PCs, too.

Note: I've used both the Jmicron and ICH9R ports for eSATA, on my GA-P35DS3R, and have had no issues (almost every HDD plugged in eSATA has been faulty), but have only used MS' or the Linux kernel's choice of drivers for whichever mode it is in (always AHCI for the Intel ports, sometimes IDE for the Jmicron, with old non-native SATA drives that don't like AHCI mode).

 

[mikeymikec]

I've had similar problems with separate ASUS boards, enclosures aren't usually to blame. Isn't yours a JMicron controller? I thought the BSOD issues got fixed pretty early since they haven't updated the drivers in almost a year. Only other thing I can think of that might help is a slight bump to your southbridge voltage.

ftp://driver.jmicron.com.tw/SATA_Controller/Windows/

Thanks for that, I'll give it a try.

Yes, ASUS board, M4A89GTD PRO/USB3.

 

[wpcoe]

The only bad thing about eSATA is that you're obligated to use an external power brick since it cannot supply power.

I bought a eSATA/USB2 combo enclosure for the 2.5" HDD that I removed from a notebook. I cursed the fact that I couldn't use eSATA without an external power supply, and none was provided with the enclosure.

So, a year or so later, I finally got around to e-mailing the manufacturer of the enclosure on what type of power adapter to buy so I could actually use the drive on eSATA.

"Did you try using the double-USB2 cable as the power supply?" OOPS. If I plug in the eSATA to the back of my computer, and the double-USB2 cable to two USB ports, it works fine. I *never* would have guessed that!

 

[pauldun170]

Once I started using an external drive equipped with an eSata port I shelved my usb2 externals. eSata is awesome. There was a short period where having it hooked up caused windows to hang on shutdown but not anymore.

Haven't compared it to usb3 yet.

 

[GrumpyMan]

I use it for back up with my Black-X hard drive dock. Works great. I also have USB 3 but don't use it as much yet.

 

[jhansman]

Never have; wanted to, 'cause it was there, but never found a device I needed that would use it. Besides, USB 3.0 on my external drive moves data plenty fast for my needs.

 

[corkyg]

Nice! But USB 3 is not an option w/o buying a new machine.

 

[notposting]

I just realized the only e-SATA port is on my wife's computer (which, along with our printer, is on the non-Gb lan in the home) and mine doesn't have one. I have one of the docks but I haven't even plugged it in yet since I would be stuck with USB 2.

Sigh, lol

 

[mikeymikec]

Nice! But USB 3 is not an option w/o buying a new machine.

A desktop can have a PCIE card, and I saw a cardbus USB 3.0 card earlier today.

 

[corkyg]

A desktop can have a PCIE card, and I saw a cardbus USB 3.0 card earlier today.

Not worth it for an old P4. It would have to be PCI, not PCIE. And the gain over eSATA is too trivial to bother with. USB 3 will c ome, probably next year. A new machine is due.