I needs me some eSata goodness

pepiman · May 16, 2008, 01:05 PM

so my motherboard basically doesn't support eSata even though it is relatively new (Asus M2N-E)

I'm looking into adding eSata through a PCI-E1 port (or PCI-X1 however you read it)

Any suggestions? I will only need 1 esata port ... maybe 2 if the card supports it

Thanks

H3X4D3C1M4L · May 29, 2008, 12:37 AM

Even cheaper would be a SATA to eSATA bracket which just passes a cable from a bracket in the rear to an internal SATA cable and makes the connector on the end compatible with an eSATA connector.

Might do that with a P5B-E that only has 1 eSATA port because now I've got 2x 1TB Western Digital MyBooks ($240 at Costco!!) and while firewire daisy chains would be a cheaper option.... once you've gone eSATA you don't go back

procupine14 · May 29, 2008, 11:14 AM

yeah i use a passthrough like hex said....I have one front panel e-SATA on my case and one rear on my mobo

best / easiest / cheapest bet is a passthrough if you have extra sata ports open

pepiman · Jun 3, 2008, 09:10 AM

I already have that, but what I'm asking (the PCI thing) is due to the fact that my mobo doesn't seem to support eSATA at all
Think of it as a mobo with USB 1.1 and you're adding a 4-port USB 2.0 PCI card ... I need an eSATA PCI card...

my case has a from eSATA port. I've connected that port to a free SATA plug on my mobo but that doesn't work...

H3X4D3C1M4L · Jun 25, 2008, 01:03 AM

It should work. It might require that you boot the system up after the drive is on, because the motherboard doesn't support hotplug very well (and to be honest most motherboards that first came with eSata don't do it terribly well either).

procupine14 · Jun 25, 2008, 12:24 PM

yeah sometimes the system has to detect the device plugged in on startup once to get it installed properly and then it should work. My DFI Infinity board in my specs works great with eSATA. The only drawback is that all of my SATA devices show up under the "removable devices" menu. But thats not bad. And on the bright side i can disconnect my storage drives while the computer is still running (not that i reccomend that)

Judas · Jun 25, 2008, 12:37 PM

with windows Vista.... i've never had a problem even with the first incarnation of esata... windows XP however has been a different story alltogether.

Strange that your running vista ultimate x64 and haveing issues where as i haven't had any at all..

I've got a Seagate FreeAgent 750gb PRO external drive that uses both usb/esata/firewire.

using only the esata.. i can hotplug using a much older board (Asus A8N32-SLI) with windows vista.... while the board isn't actually "eSATA" it has an port on the back for sata which works just fine.

And this is from an Nforce 4 ultra x16 board.. which i class as being one of the worst boards on the market at the time lol.

but non the less, that's using i beleive a jmicron chip for the sata external port.

however i had similare results while using a passthrough cable on that same board.... on that ran to the front of the case which worked in the same manner no grief.