eSATA Connectors

buffalocheese writes "Since the introduction of the Serial ATA 1.0a specification in 2002, many manufacturers have introduced PCI and CardBus cards with both internal and external SATA connections. At first these internal and external connectors were completely identical, but later, external connectors started to appear which were still fully compatible with the internal sockets but featured added extra screening for external use. With the introduction of the SATA II specification in mid 2004 a new external SATA connector was defined. These new external (eSATA) connectors are not compatible with the original internal SATA connection. Currently there are add-on cards and drive housings available which feature both types of SATA connection for external use. Gradually the older types will disappear and all new SATA cards will feature the eSATA connector for external drive connections."

Comments

Any advantages over having only one connector?

[What the Frag]

I really don't see the advantage in having 2 types of connectors doing the same thing for internal and external use.

Except they want to sell me another cable - or did I miss anything?

Re:Any advantages over having only one connector?

[greg1104]

By standardizing the interfaces, end users will be far less confused

Clearly you've never actually worked with end-users. The fact that the major connectors are physically different, and therefore won't fit in the other holes no matter how hard you push, is the only reason they're sometimes plugged into the correct spot now.

adverstory

[alta]

Errr, is someone pushing their product here?

Mod Parent Up!

[Anonymous Coward]

He correctly used "loose"!

In the classroom

[Nom du Keyboard]

I felt like I was in the classroom listening to the instructor drone on as I read this article summary. While this may be worthwhile to know, it's unexciting to the point of boring. The slownewsday tagger was correct.

Re:Marketing

[TheRaven64]

I'd rather see drives with native FireWire controllers than SATA or eSATA. Sure, SATA gives more bandwidth, but only in theory. A single hard drive comes nowhere near close to being able to saturate a FireWire 800 link, let alone [e]SATA. On the other hand, you can plug multiple devices into a FireWire chain. I have two FireWire 800 hard disks on a shelf, and I can connect them to my laptop with a single FireWire cable. If I moved to eSATA then my laptop would need two eSATA ports, and I would need to plug in two cables. This doesn't exactly seem like a step forward.