What does eSATA support really require? (ASRock m/b, Akasa Omega case issue)

[monsieurrigsby]

I'm confused re eSATA support. On the one hand eSATA and SATA seem to differ only by connector design: 'SATA to eSATA' kits seem to be just a cable (with PCI slot housing for the eSATA end) with no built-in electronics.

Yet, on the other hand, some mobos have specific 'eSATA support' with eSATA specific SATA slots, suggesting that some explicit mobo support is needed. (I think eSATA has some slight electrical differences, but the fact that the adapters are just cables would seem to suggest this doesn't matter, unless it's the mobo which needs to support some slightly different voltage spec. or something.)

In my situation, I have an ASRock K10N78 mobo with an Akasa Omega case. The case has a built-in eSATA front panel connector with internal cable to attach to a SATA port. (This thus seems identical to the kind of standalone kit that, indeed, Akasa sell.) Yet the connector doesn't work when I attach it to a SATA port (when using it for a Sharkoon HDD dock; have to use this USB 2 instead of eSATA because of that).

There is a variant K10N78-1394 mobo with Firewire and two dedicated 'eSATA' SATA slots, and a cable to connect one of these 'special' SATA ports to the backpanel eSATA connector. This suggests that some form of mobo support is needed for eSATA.

Any advice/information? I am assuming that buying a 'SATA to eSATA kit' is pointless because that's exactly the same as what the case already has.

I *did* have some problems with some of the SATA ports a while ago so maybe I've been very unlucky and plugged into a dead port. But just wanted to understand from you guys what *should* work and what shouldn't. (Even if I get it working, I'm interested anyway!)

Many thanks in advance.

Stuart
(monsieurrigsby)

P.S. Extensively googled it, but couldn't find any definitive answers :'(

 

[VirtualLarry]

eSATA isn't powered, so if you are using an external enclosure, you need to make sure that the enclosure has a separate power supply.

 

[mikeymikec]

Boards with eSATA ports on the I/O panel tend to use a separate controller, at least in my experience.

 

[monsieurrigsby]

@VirtualLarry: yes, sorry, I should have mentioned that to be clear I knew. The HDD dock is powered, and works fine with USB 2.

@mikeymikec: OK, interesting. I'd like to understand *why* though, given that the 'SATA to eSATA kits' seem to be just a cable (with no electronics) and, even if there *are* some electronics there, my case has such a kit built-in and it doesn't work. I'll try different SATA ports tonight...

 

[mikeymikec]

I guess it's to maximise system reliability. The last thing you want is instability in the SATA department for the sake of a bit of removable storage.

 

[Cerb]

Boards with eSATA ports on the I/O panel tend to use a separate controller, at least in my experience.

I never saw one with a separate controller handling eSATA on the back, except in product photos , but I've only ever purchased one motherboard with an added SATA controller at all (my GA-P35-DS3R, which came with a bracket for eSATA). If you got more expensive boards, that had add-on controllers, they'd use those, because they were slower--why waste a faster Intel or AMD port on eSATA? The cheaper boards would use one of the chipset ones, so the board would have 3 or 5 internal SATAs, rather than 4 or 6--I bought and used at least a dozen like that, between ~2007 and ~2012 (with eSATA being unpowered, USB 3.0 rightfully killed it off).

They tightened up voltage and current requirements for eSATA, to better account for losses in the connectors on the way, and added a buffer. Pretty much anything from the last several years will work, whether advertised to or not. Basically any board with an ICH9 or newer, or SB7xx or newer, should be fine. That motherboard is rather old, though, and an nV chipset, so I'm not sure if it would support eSATA or not. A PCIe SATA card with eSATA ports might be a better option, to make use of it (Marvell or Silicon Image non-RAID, preferably).

 

[Micrornd]

@VirtualLarry: yes, sorry, I should have mentioned that to be clear I knew. The HDD dock is powered, and works fine with USB 2.

@mikeymikec: OK, interesting. I'd like to understand *why* though, given that the 'SATA to eSATA kits' seem to be just a cable (with no electronics) and, even if there *are* some electronics there, my case has such a kit built-in and it doesn't work. I'll try different SATA ports tonight...

I've never had a board with a separate chipset for eSATA.
(All HPs are a good example, as their eSATA ports are directly from their onboard SATA controller)

Any SATA port can be an eSATA port IF the chipset fully complies with the SATA spec.
Almost all do or are "close enough".
And if the chipset fully complies, then hot plugging of the data cable is also possible, hot plugging of power however is determined by the enclosure.

The only caveat is to make sure you have quality eSATA cables and plugs, that fit tightly and securely, as this is the cause of 90% of eSATA problems in my experience

 

[monsieurrigsby]

Thanks for all the replies. It was a dodgy SATA port; changing to another one caused eSATA to work fine. (But I'm running the SATA controller in IDE mode because of previous issues with AHCI---presumably flaky mobo support---which makes it less useful, though still blazingly fast compared to USB 2.)

Yes, the comment about a separate controller for 'eSATA' ports makes sense.

 

[corkyg]

eSATA is primarily for the purpose of faster access to external HDDs, about 5X faster than USB 2. The cables differ from SATA cables in that they have side locking latches. My T510 notebnook has a combo eSATA and USB2 port. Using an eSATA cable automatically gives me the higher speed for my backup HDD. My desktop has no eSATA on the mobo, but I get it with a PCI card. Same use.