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

Are they better, or just different?

[jandrese]

Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the current SATA connectors. They tend to fall off at the slightest provocation. I can't work in my case without having to check at the end that all of the SATA connectors are still in place (and at least one of them is usually loose or completely off). Because of this I've been reluctant to switch to SATA on external enclosures. If this new connector can prove itself resistant to falling off, it may in fact be a winner (I would even advocate unifying the connectors again under the new standard). I do like the fact that both the external and internal SATA connectors are currently the same, I just don't like the connector itself. It's rather nice to be able to take an old AT power supply (the kind where the power switch is hardwired to the supply) and plug in an off of the shelf SATA drive to the back of my case in a pinch. Plus, fewer connector types means fewer adapters I'll eventually have to own.