Member Avatar for jmphotog1

I have inherited a brand new pc from a friend and have a question about sata. The mobo has only one pci-e slot and that is being blocked by the video card. I need a connection to my external hdd enclosure. The mobo has a single free esata port and a couple of free sata ports. So what I beleive I need is something like, or similar to, this Click Here. But I am not sure if I must plug it into the esata port or a sata port of the mobo Or if it makes a difference. Thoughts??

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Brief answer for : use the board's external eSATA jack for an eSATA-equipped enclosure whenever possible — that connector and cable are made for external use. A few practical gotchas to keep in mind so you don't buy the wrong adapter or wonder why a drive won't show up.

  • eSATA carries only data; it normally does not provide power. If your enclosure expects power from the port (sometimes called eSATAp or "powered eSATA"), the motherboard port must be the powered variant. Otherwise the enclosure needs its own power brick.
  • Multi-bay enclosures: as noted these exist, but a single eSATA port will expose multiple drives only if the host controller supports port multipliers or the enclosure presents a hardware-RAID/combined volume. Check the mobo/controller spec before assuming multiple drives will be visible.
  • Physical wiring and speed: the external eSATA jack is usually wired to a specific internal SATA channel. That channel may be SATA II (3 Gbps) or SATA III (6 Gbps) and may sit on a separate controller with different drivers. Consult the motherboard manual to see which internal port the back-panel eSATA uses and what speed/driver it requires.

Quick checklist:

  • Confirm how the enclosure is powered and what connector it expects.
  • Use a proper eSATA cable (keep under the SATA spec length, typically ~2 m).
  • Enable AHCI/hot-plug in BIOS if required.
  • If a multi-disk box is not detected correctly, check for port-multiplier support or use an enclosure that presents a single logical drive.
  • If you must use an internal SATA header instead, use a bracket that converts the internal header to an external eSATA jack and plug that to the enclosure.

This covers the practical differences you need to watch for so the enclosure works reliably without using the blocked PCIe slot.

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Member Avatar for JorgeM

I could be mistaken but it shouldnt matter. SATA and eSATA are the same except eSATA designates that you are taking the SATA connection externally, so typically one would use an eSATA cable which is shielded.

Member Avatar for jmphotog1

Thanks so much. That's what I needed, a short and to the point answer.

Member Avatar for rubberman

Most sata/esata controllers can handle multiple devices over one connection. I do that by connecting multi-disc carriers (4 discs each) to a single port. I can configure them as JBOD (Just A Bunch of Discs), or LVM volumes, or RAID arrays. So, get a multi-disc carrier (StarTech has some good ones), plug it into the single eSata port, and enjoy your newly discovered disc capacity! All you have to do then is buy the discs... :-)

FWIW, I run Linux on my system with these arrays, but Windows should handle such devices just fine. Here is a link to their disc enclosure page: http://www.startech.com/HDD/Enclosures/

Edited by rubberman
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