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Dougie 0 Junior Poster

I've been looking at buying an external hard drive to back up my main internal drive. So many different interfaces, USB2, firewire etc.

My MOBO is an ASUS P5B-Deluxe and has an external SATA plug at the back ( am I to assume that this plug is what is referred to an an eSATA? ) I see online some drive enclosures that have an eSATA interface. This plug looks different than the other SATA plugs on the MOBO. Is this eSATA have to do with RAID or is it a seperate thing?

Also I have an extra unused Seagate Barracuda 320 gb SATA drive I'm not using and would like to use it if at all possible. My main internal HDD is also a Seagate 320 gb SATA. I would obviously need an enclosure that accepts a SATA drive but I'm still confused about the eSATA interface. Is there any advantages for the eSATA or should I just use the USB2 or firewire?

Thanks;

Dougie

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Dani AI

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For : eSATA is simply the external form of the SATA bus — the same protocol and transfer modes as your internal SATA ports, not a RAID connector or special filesystem. The external jack looks different because it uses a ruggedized shell for outside-the-case use. Important practical point: standard eSATA cables do not carry power, so desktop (3.5") drives require an enclosure or dock with its own AC adapter; some boards/supporting cables expose an eSATAp (powered eSATA) variant that can supply power for small 2.5" drives.

Performance and compatibility: USB2 and FireWire are limited by their bus speeds and protocol overhead (real-world USB2 is often well under 40 MB/s). eSATA gives native SATA throughput and lower CPU overhead, so large backups and disk clones will complete much faster and with better sustained rates. Hot-plug and features like NCQ work over eSATA only if the controller and OS drivers support AHCI/hot-swap.

Practical recommendation and quick checklist: if speed matters, buy a powered 3.5" SATA enclosure or dock that offers eSATA (many also include USB for compatibility). If portability or universal plug-and-play is more important, USB enclosures are easier but slower. If the drive is not seen over eSATA, check the motherboard manual to confirm the rear jack is true eSATA/eSATAp, enable AHCI/hot-plug in BIOS, connect the enclosure power, try a known-good cable, and look in Disk Management to initialize the disk. For future-proofing, note that modern systems now favor USB 3.x / USB-C or Thunderbolt for similar performance with broader compatibility.

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