Best to have esata on motherboard or just use esata card?

[mgjacc]

On a new build l want an ESATA port. Should l seek out a board with ESATA on board, like the Asus H87 M-PRO ?
(http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/H87MPRO/)

or Choose any motherboard l find suitable and add an ESATA card afterwards?
Example
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/temposatapro6gbpcie2.html

Is either method superior?
l know few mother boards come with ESATA so my choice will be more restricted if l go with onboard.

And yes, you can ask me why l want ESATA if you wish

Thanks in Advance!

 

[Ubrales]

Either way is fine. On my build I have both. The rear eSATA (2 ports) are integral to the motherboard. The front eSATA is part of the HAF-X case and is plugged into a motherboard SATA port. Both work well.

I like eSATA and will not ask you why you need it. To me it is faster than USB2 or 3. You can tell me anyway and thank you!

 

[mgjacc]

Thanks.
You're not using a card then, still direct off motherboard?

Which motherboard are you using? I've been having a tough time finding any with esata.

I'm curious if anyone has tried one of the PCIe esata adaptors. Very few motherboards come with esata, and I don't want to limit my choice by letting onboard esata dominate my selection The adaptor would solve that if they work well.

My preference for esata is because the drives are dumb and cheap. I put a 2Tb esata external drive on my laptop for half the price of a USB drive.
I'm sick of the USB drives coming with software that tries to hijack how I use it. I had a WD drive with encryption decide to encrypt ALL my drives. Took a night to undo. A seagate installed some little mascot that i've never completely chased away that wants to help me with files. And frequently Norton is poking around on a drive when I pull the USB plug and the whole system crashes. My esata drive: turn it on or off when i feel like it and it and windows just sit there and do nothing until I tell them to! Plus the speed!

Thanks again

 

[Ubrales]

My motherboards are EVGA and they have rear panel eSATA.

You don't need an eSATA card like the one you posted. All you need is an eSATA bracket with a SATA cable attached to it. Then you plug in the SATA cable to a SATA port on the motherboard. This is how I added eSATA to an old Dell Optiplex desktop. Of course it will not give me SATA3 speeds; it will be limited to the motherboard SATA (probably SATA2) speed. This is how the case front panel eSATA port operates (HAF-X).

Regarding the drives; I assemble my own external drive by using an enclosure of my choice and a hard disk of my choice.
Enclosure (with fan) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817173042 (has eSATA)
Hard disk: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533 (or similar).

For the reasons you mentioned and also because of cheap parts I do not buy off-the-shelf external drives. Even Sandisk flash drives have some software on them that I get rid of by formatting the drive.

Motherboards: http://www.evga.com/Products/ProductList.aspx?type=1 (some have eSATA)

 

[Ubrales]

This will work: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812816068