Differance between Serial ATA and ESATA

[K1ash3r]

Hey guys I just got my parts

I was wondering wats the differance between Serial ATA and ESATA and I notice Sata has a 'L' like socket and ESATA is straight socket.

Also my HDD has an big 'L' socket for power, a small 'L' socket for Sata and also an 8-pin socket, wats the 8pin for?

 

[Helloworld_98]

ESATA is External Serial ATA

otherwise there are no other differences unless the esata sockets are power-over-esata compatible.

 

[K1ash3r]

Yea because my mobo has SATA 'L' socket and my HDD and OP had a SATA 'L' socket as well. So I guess I wont use the Esata ones.

Also I have a WD 500Gb Caviar Black and theres an 8pin socket, wats that for?

 

[tecmo34]

The 8-pin is your hard drive master settings.... It is for nothing in your build... It was more use for back in the day with IDE drives to know which one was the master drive.

 

[K1ash3r]

oki thanks tecmo34

 

[nukemaster]

In technical sense those jumpers have NOTHING to do with the old Master/Slave/Cable Select.

They are used for some advanced drive options like enabling or disabling spread spectrum and for PM2 support.

Either way, they will never be used in your case. happy computing.