Question regarding SATA -> eSATA brackets

Alun

I've just got one of the Lidl Targa 250GB external drives, and I'm wondering about trying to connect it up using the eSATA connector instead of the USB 2.0 port for extra speed.

Now I've not got any eSATA ports in my mobo, but I have got a few spare SATA ports, and I've seen that there are simple SATA to eSATA "converters" available, i.e. brackets with one or two eSATA sockets and a short cable that connects them to the SATA ports on the mobo. They're pretty cheap, only a few euro, but I'm wondering what the consequences are of using something like that as opposed to a "proper" eSATA controller.

I.e., will Windows see a drive attached in this way as an external or internal drive, or will it treat it just as an internal one? And what consequences will this have if I either hot swap it or just switch it on or off with the PC running?

Any ideas?

Anti

There is a driver that come with them, so all should be fine.

And the drives are hotswappable.

Alun

Anti wrote:

There is a driver that come with them, so all should be fine.

The things I'm talking about are AFAIK effectively just cables, converting from the L-shaped internal SATA connector to the I shaped eSATA connector, so how can you have a driver for them?

Do you have one of these "adapters" yourself?

Stephen

The only real difference between SATA and eSATA (as far as I'm aware) is the connector - it is designed to be much more robust than the SATA one, as being external it will have to cope with more stress and force than an internal one when somebody walks into it

All SATA drives are hotswappable so it shouldn't matter if windows sees it as external or not.

Alun

Stephen wrote:

All SATA drives are hotswappable so it shouldn't matter if windows sees it as external or not.

So, how do you safely switch off a drive connected in such a way, if it's seen as an internal drive? One of the differences as far as Windows is concerned between an internal and external drive (assuming you have it set for write caching) is that you get a "Safely Remove Hardware" entry for it in the appropriate system tray applet. It's one thing for the drive to be physically hot swappable, but another thing for the swapping to be properly handled by both the controller and the OS, hence my question.

Googling on this subject reveals that there's a lot of confusion regarding this issue, and not a lot of what looks like reliable information.

astrofool

All Sata drives appear as removable (the one's on the motherboards connectors anyway), even c:, of course you're stopped short of removing this drive

Basically it would behave the same as if connected via USB, only faster.

el Bastardo

As I understand it, you don't need to use that little green switch on your taskbar as long as the drive is optimised for quick removal (i.e. no extra drive caching).

Alun

astrofool wrote:

All Sata drives appear as removable (the one's on the motherboards connectors anyway), even c:, of course you're stopped short of removing this drive

OK, I didn't know that .. I have the connectors but all IDE drives at the moment.

Right, so anybody know where I can get one of those things locally? I've found plenty on the net in the UK and on eBay, but I object to paying more for p&p than the item is worth itself!