Can I connect an eSATA port to a SATA 3 port?

[nipplefish]

My case has an eSATA port - could I run it to an internal SATA 3 port with a SATA 3 cable and have it work at that speed?

 

[Ratman6161]

My case has an eSATA port - could I run it to an internal SATA 3 port with a SATA 3 cable and have it work at that speed?

Sure. But there is a qualifier. True eSATA is hot swappable. So if need it to be hot pluggable (i.e. you don't have to restart the system to connect or disconnect a drive) you have to go into motherboard's bios and configure that port on the motherboard. This options is called different things by different manufacturers and your motherboard may or may not have this option depending on the chipset and how old it is.

Even if your motherboard does not have the option to configure the port as a true eSata port, it can still work. I used to have an eSata enclosure hooked up to my old Intel P35 based board and the drive worked just fine this way. Its just that the system will see the drive as an internal drive and you would have to shut down to connect or disconnect it.

Then again if your board is new enough to have a SATA3 port, it probably does have the options you need.

 

[Cr0nJ0b]

I'm not sure but I think that most SATA ports are Hot-Swappable as long as you choose AHCI or RAID as the options for configuring those ports in the BIOS. I could be wrong here, but I think that's in the spec.

 

[Ratman6161]

I'm not sure but I think that most SATA ports are Hot-Swappable as long as you choose AHCI or RAID as the options for configuring those ports in the BIOS. I could be wrong here, but I think that's in the spec.

No. not necessarily so. Particularly if you are talking about an older motherboard. For example the 2008 vintage P35 chipset board I was using until a couple of months ago with my Core 2 Quad Q6600 did not do this. Even on current generation boards you have to configure the port for hot swap in the bios and I'm not sure 100% of even new ones have that feature.

 

[corkyg]

Agree with Ratman6161. eSATA is a different connector, and if linked to a normal SATA port, it is seen by the system as another INTERNAL drive, and cannot be separated from write caching. But, as long as you don't need to hot swap it, it should work OK.

 

[Shmee]

I was wondering something, may be sort of a stupid question, but would be great if this were possible...can a computer with Esata be hooked up to another computer via its esata port and an esata to esata cable, like a usb transfer cable?

Would be awesome for those computers with esata but not USB3 if you need to transfer stuff fast.

 

[nipplefish]

Thanks, guys. I don't really have any need for hot-swappability. I'm just thinking of picking up a large SATA3 drive to get an external eSATA enclosure for to leave it plugged in all the time. That 3TB Hitachi on Newegg for $109 looks awfully tempting.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Just as a thought for the OP and any who happen to be looking in:

More recent BIOS' should have the hot-swap property configurable in BIOS.

In the event that this isn't so, look into the possibility of a StarTech hot-swap SATA bay-and-caddy and the free StarTech "Swap Manager" software from their web-site.

I say this because they've produced such products (the best SATA models can be had for maybe $30+ each) for both IDE and SATA drive interfaces.

If the disk controller and the OS allow for native hot-swap, you wouldn't use the software and only would need the product for the convenience of the caddies and ease of swapping.

I have tried consistently to avoid situations where a complete shutdown was necessary to disconnect any other drive than my boot-disk. Some users of the cheaper StarTech bays complain that they must do exactly that to replace a drive. Take that with the salt of reliability on customer-reviews.

 

[Old Hippie]

can a computer with Esata be hooked up to another computer via its esata port and an esata to esata cable

Works just fine.

 

[Ratman6161]

I was wondering something, may be sort of a stupid question, but would be great if this were possible...can a computer with Esata be hooked up to another computer via its esata port and an esata to esata cable, like a usb transfer cable?

Would be awesome for those computers with esata but not USB3 if you need to transfer stuff fast.

No. It doesn't work that way. Besides onboard gigabit ethernet is pretty common these days. Gigabit ethernet in each machine + a cheap gigabit switch and you are in business.

 

[Ratman6161]

Thanks, guys. I don't really have any need for hot-swappability. I'm just thinking of picking up a large SATA3 drive to get an external eSATA enclosure for to leave it plugged in all the time. That 3TB Hitachi on Newegg for $109 looks awfully tempting.

Then you will be just fine. I was doing this exact thing with my old rig. The external enclosure I bought came with a bracket with an eSata connector. Inside the box that connector had a cable that went to one of the motnerboard's internal SATA ports. I had a 640 GB drive in there I was using as a backup drive and everything worked just fine with the drive in the external enclosure seen as another internal drive. Then the enclosure would also work with USB, so if I ever lost my main system, I could just plug the drive into a usb port on my laptop (or any other system) and get at my data.

 

[Old Hippie]

No. It doesn't work that way.

I have connected my P6T MB via eSATA with my WHS machine via an eSATA expansion card and transferred files from the WHS to another drive on my P6T.

If I'm missing his point, so be it, but that worked just fine.

 

[dac7nco]

I have connected my P6T MB via eSATA with my WHS machine via an eSATA expansion card and transferred files from the WHS to another drive on my P6T.

If I'm missing his point, so be it, but that worked just fine.

That's news to me. How does the P6T see your WHS? As a drive?!

 

[Old Hippie]

That's news to me. How does the P6T see your WHS? As a drive?!

You got me curious after I told you that so I hooked everything back-up to how I thought I had eveything configured but I can't get it to work. LOL!

It's pretty much driving me nuts. :biggrin:

I'm gonna hafta poke around but I'm pretty sure I didn't dream this....but ya never know. LOL!

EDIT.....I just got done playing with that configuration for another hour......there's NO freaking way I could have done it......Therefore I must have dreamt it!

 

[dac7nco]

LOL - if you dream about computers, you're in the right place.

Daimon

 

[corkyg]

Hey, Rick . . . that reminds me of an ad I saw today . . . "You dream it, we'll build it!"

Keep dreaming, amigo.