eSATA cable length and expresscard questions

[Guest]

Hello,

I'm looking to put my WD10EACS in my Cooler Master XCraft 360 casing to full potential.

I need an eSATA ExpressCard and eSATA cable.

So I was looking around eBay and found an eSATA ExpressCard adapter. My eSATA cable is only 1m long, which is not comfortable for me.

Anyway, my question today is, what is the maximum length of the eSATA cable? I've been looking around and it tells me that if my adapter is active, I can go 2m with my cable, if it's passive only 1m cable maximum.

Which bears the question, how do I tell if my ExpressCard adapter is active or passive?

Please advise

 

[andrewlang]

Hello,

I'm looking to put my WD10EACS in my Cooler Master XCraft 360 casing to full potential.

I need an eSATA ExpressCard and eSATA cable.

So I was looking around eBay and found an eSATA ExpressCard adapter. My eSATA cable is only 1m long, which is not comfortable for me.

Anyway, my question today is, what is the maximum length of the eSATA cable? I've been looking around and it tells me that if my adapter is active, I can go 2m with my cable, if it's passive only 1m cable maximum.

Which bears the question, how do I tell if my ExpressCard adapter is active or passive?

Please advise

Most people have no problem using a 2m eSATA cable. In fact, we are going to do some experimenting with 3m cables since there seems to be demand for it. They'll be coming in soon. Not only are these priced really low, but they have a lifetime warranty and we'll price match on these.

I'm not entirely sure about the active/passive adapter situation. Perhaps everyone that has bought these cables has had active adapters but I've never had a complaint about a cable not working at 2 meters. If all else fails you can always return it within 30 days... still 15 dollars less than buying a cable from best buy.

Cheers

 

[ckag]

Did you ever do the testing on 3m eSATA cables? If so, what were the results? Is it okay to use a 3m eSATA cable to connect an external hd?

 

[andrewlang]

We've test them for continuity. We don't actually test them with a hard drive though. That being said, we've been selling these for months to many different customers and haven't had a single cable be returned because it didn't work. Like I said, all CA manufactured products come with our liftetime warranty and if they stop working for any reason, we replace them at no cost to you.

 

[ckag]

Thanx for the quick reply,Andrew... Uh, this is really gnnna sound stupid, but I'm new here. When you say "we", do you mean Tom's Hardware? Or do you represent another company? The reason that I ask is that I looked here Tim'e Hardware and I don't see a 3m eSATA cable offered (unless I missed it somewhere).

And then to stretch the envelope a little, let me ask a related question. I actually need to go about 7.5ft. What I want to do is to connect a short (18"???) shielded eSATA cable to my external hd, and then a 6ft shielded eSATA cable to my computer. I then want to connect the two eSATA cables using a female-to-female adapter such as the StarTech adapter.

The reason for this is that I also need to use the same hd to connect to another computer via USB. Hence, when I want to connect the hd to the SATA computer, I can quickly just connect the adapter. A second reason for wanting to use such an adapter is that I will probably do this once a day so I don't want to wear out the eSATA port on either my computer or my hd. If I wear out the adapter or the eSATA cable connector, I can easily replace those.

IDo you think this will work?

And finally, by testing continuity, do you mean that you are testing continuity over the cable using the specified eSATA signal strength? Or are you just checking simple contiunuity?

Please advise.

 

[andrewlang]

ckag,

I mean checking simple continuity, I'm defaulting to this answer because I don't know the exact specifics of the testing we do at the factory, I'd have to talk to the engineers about this.

I work for Circuit Assembly which is a company outside of Toms Hardware. Our website is estore.circuitassembly.com.

As far as your setup, I do understand what you are doing. It's hard for me to say whether or not it will work though. Usually these female to female adapters will introduce a bit of signal degradation as opposed to running a single straight cable. If i were you I wouldn't be worried about "wearing out" the connector on your external hard drive or computer. These connectors should be designed for thousands if not hundreds of thousands of cycles. They should last you a lifetime if you bought decent quality products. Conversely a cheap female to female connector might be made with cheaper materials, less gold plating on the connectors, etc. That will probably fail in time.

That's just my personal opinion. If I were in your position I'd rather use a single longer cable than connect two short cables together. I am never concerned about wearing out connectors on my sources or sinks.

Hope this helps

 

[ckag]

Yes!.. Thanx for all your help/info, Andrew. I've also bookmarked your website for future reference.

This would be an experiment for me to try eSATA since I already have a USB connection to both computers.

I just need to debate if I want to spend the money to experiment...<grin>.. Thanx again!