Esata to sata internal via cable

[alkampfer]

My External E-Sata - USB works perfectly if I connect through the internal motherboard sata port (I use the standard cable connector that comes with my external box). The same enclosure box does not work with the e-sata of my motherboard, nor with an e-sata express card on my laptop.

This proves to me that e-sata must have some difference with normal sata. I tried everything, booting with the external HD turned on, go to the bios, check the e-sata controller of the motherboard, it told me that no drive is connected (My e-sata internal controller support AHCI and NCQ). If I use one of the 6 sata standard port of my motherboard everything works, hot swap, etc etc.

I'm actually looking to a compatible e-sata external box for a 1Terabyte 3.5 disk that is compatible with e-sata express card.

alk.

 

[techlawyer]

Here is some advice from the school of hard knocks... an eSata to Sata adapter works great with Windows XP - I've used this configuraiton for over a year with zero problems in an older AMD based HP tower. The same eSata to Sata adapter in a very new i7 Based ASUS system appears to work fine BUT, windows 7 starts popping sata controller errors and eventually results in your internal SATA drive (the C drive in my case as I only have 1 internal HDD) becoming corrupt - MFT errors etc. IF you are going to do this with a newer chipset and OS, spend the $30 for an eSATA card or just run USB 3.0. I think this is a win7 / driver issue as the same hardware config works fine with the Shadow Protect live CD, which if you do this, you will become familiar with as you will be restoring your internal HDD from a backup when it gets toasted. To the previous poster - the difference in the eSata and Sata specs may seem minimal - but for the current win7 driver - its very significant.

 

[WyomingKnott]

It actually says so right there in that wiki...

* Minimum transmit potential increased: Range is 500–600 mV instead of 400–600 mV.
* Minimum receive potential decreased: Range is 240–600 mV instead of 325–600 mV.

The difference is there

Mikrev007 is correct. The voltage spec for SATA and eSATA overlap, but it is out of spec to connect one to the other. Technically, the signal change is usually accomplished with a buffer chip in the case where the manufacturer bothers to be in-spec.

However, except for eSATA-specific controllers, the spec is frequently ignored. My Asus motherboard came with one of these SATA to eSata cable thingies.

In my experience, it usually works and sometimes fails. The convenience is not worth the occasional failure to me; when I use an eSATA cable, it is attached to a real eSATA controller and a drive in a real eSATA enclosure.

The real truth is: The out-of-spec connection usually works. There is no guarantee that it will work in any specific case, and you run the risk of lost data or a corrupted drive. I believe that a few anecdotes of failure (one of which I can provide) trumps any number of anecdotes of success.

Edit: Oh, techlawyer has provided another anecdote of failure. Thanks.