Dumb Sata > eSata question

[thatsright]

Hi All,

I have a ANCIENT 6 year old Abit IC7-G P4 motherboard. There are 6 SATA slots on the mother board and I use none of them. I am going to buy a external HD with eSata and wondering if I can just buy a eSata riser connect to the motherboard slots?

Will this be a problem connecting a eSATA II drive through the riser card if the mobo is SATA gen 1??

 

[PCTC2]

well, the eSATA protocol is slightly different and your board has to support it, and hotswapping, otherwise you might run into problems.

 

[lopri]

Try with an internal SATA disk before getting an eSATA? You may have to use a jumper on the disk because the board probably supports first generation SATA only. (ICH5? 6?)

It's tricky to get hot-plugging to work. The chipset, the disks, and the OS all should co-operate. To be frank I very much doubt you can use eSATA on that system natively. (But you never know)

You can always try:

- HotSwap!
- a cheap PCI eSATA card (~$15 if you look around)

 

[thatsright]

Not trying to hot swap.

If I have to gt a PCI eSATA card how much of a speed hit will I take? IF I connect a Sata 3G drive to a PCI eSATA card, how much the transefer speed drop down to?

Would I just be better off using USB?

 

[Ratman6161]

I have one of these:

VANTEC NST-360SU-BK 3.5" eSATA + USB2.0 Aluminum External Enclosure - Retail

It came with a bracket with an eSATA port on it and a cable that goes to a regular SATA port on the motherboard. I'm using it on a rather ancient FoxConn socket 939 motherboard and it works great. The only issue is as others have mentioned: True eSATA supports hot swapping where this setup does not. But I didn't really care about that as its OK for my usage if I have to shut down the computer to disconnect the drive.

 

[thatsright]

Ok, so does anyone think I'll have problems if I try to use the internal SATA I port to eSATA II bracket to a external SATA II HD?

 

[Ratman6161]

Originally posted by: thatsright
Ok, so does anyone think I'll have problems if I try to use the internal SATA I port to eSATA II bracket to a external SATA II HD?

See my post above. It works fine for me but I don't have the same motherboard or even chipset as you do. But I'd say its 90% sure it will work, If it doesn't you can always get one of these: PCI Card

 

[lopri]

If hot-swap isn't an issue, why not just use an internal SATA drive? There is no room inside the case?

I'd think that'll give you the least hassle and most performance, if portability isn't an issue. You'll still have to use a jumper (basically changing SATAII to SATAI). But performance drop from that is negligible.

If portability was the concern, then yeah USB might be better for long-term. PCI eSATA will be faster (not that much, though), for sure, but USB will give you much less headache down the load.