Disk drive question (SATA/eSATA)

[stolzy]

I've got two unused SATA ports on my MacPro and several SATA disk drives which could gain useful employment there.

Can I just plug in SATA cables and hook up the disk drives?
Or do I need an eSATA card?

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

If your puting them inside then normal SATA is all you need. ESATA is for external drives.

 

[stolzy]

If your puting them inside then normal SATA is all you need. ESATA is for external drives.

OK, but nothing to stop me poking the SATA cables out through the box (no room inside, there's 4 disks in there already). eSATA cables are expensive.

I can get one of these, but I don't think I need it, surely just a couple of SATA cabes poked through the enclosure would do it?

 

[Slowdown]

eSATA cables are expensive.

Shop around - many places happily rip you off. I got both of mine for well under a tenner each.

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

you would also need to sort out some power to go outside as well. SATA cables dont include power connections as they come direct from the power supply but ESATA does. Everything will also be very exposed but you could make a box, put the drives in it and run the cables to the outside if you really wanted to.

 

[Slowdown]

You can buy external enclosures with sata ports on them.

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

I know you can get external boxes that will take SATA drives but I dont know of any that connect via SATA cables. They are either USB 2 or ESATA that I can see. You got any links to examples?

 

[Slowdown]

I use a sata to esata cable - I can't remember the place I got it from, but it only took a little google and was under a tenner.

The Sata end plugs into the connector on the PC motherboard and the eSata end goes into the external box.