Hi,
I'm kinda confused about eSATA enclosure/drives. My experience in external drives is limited to USB2.0, which requires a bridge chip to translate between the USB and PATA interface. With eSATA though, I've read that no such translation is needed? Does that mean that the only difference between eSATA and SATA is the cable/connector? i.e. an eSATA connector from the PC requires an eSATA cable, which plugs into the enclosure's eSATA connector, which then runs another cable or PCB trace to a regular SATA connector, where a regular SATA HDD is plugged into? Are any ICs required in between?
According to wiki and the eSATA white paper, there are differences between the signal levels of SATA and eSATA, and a passive enclosure like the one I've mentioned above would limit cable lengths to 1m. Is that true? If it is, what kinda IC is required for the signal level shifting/compensation?
Also, since eSATA is a signal only specification providing no power, how do external 2.5" drives/enclosures normally draw their power? 3.5" enclosures would have no problem since they require an AC adapter anyway, but 2.5" enclosures are usually USB bus powered. Would 2.5" eSATA enclosures still rely on USB power via a Y-cable?
I'm kinda confused about eSATA enclosure/drives. My experience in external drives is limited to USB2.0, which requires a bridge chip to translate between the USB and PATA interface. With eSATA though, I've read that no such translation is needed? Does that mean that the only difference between eSATA and SATA is the cable/connector? i.e. an eSATA connector from the PC requires an eSATA cable, which plugs into the enclosure's eSATA connector, which then runs another cable or PCB trace to a regular SATA connector, where a regular SATA HDD is plugged into? Are any ICs required in between?
According to wiki and the eSATA white paper, there are differences between the signal levels of SATA and eSATA, and a passive enclosure like the one I've mentioned above would limit cable lengths to 1m. Is that true? If it is, what kinda IC is required for the signal level shifting/compensation?
Also, since eSATA is a signal only specification providing no power, how do external 2.5" drives/enclosures normally draw their power? 3.5" enclosures would have no problem since they require an AC adapter anyway, but 2.5" enclosures are usually USB bus powered. Would 2.5" eSATA enclosures still rely on USB power via a Y-cable?