Hello!

I'm not up-to-date on the whole (e-)SATA thing and stumbled upon an issue. I have an external harddisk case with a SATA-port for L-shaped connectors and my motherboard has an e-SATA port at the back. The cable that came with the external case has L-shaped connectors on both sides so I can't use it to connect the case to my E-SATA port. I already saw that there are cables available with differing connectors (e-SATA at one side and "plain/internal" SATA at the other side. But the only explanation I found for these kinds of cables is that they make it possible to connect an e-SATA drive to a SATA2 controller. But no word on the other direction.

So, the question is: Can I use a e-SATA/SATA cable to safely connect the external harddisk box (with SATA port) to my motherboard (with e-SATA) port or would it fry some circuits by doing that?

Cheers!
SG

Do you have a true eSATA port in your PC or is it a bracket that connects internally to a usual SATA port? I am asking because true eSATA works with slightly increased voltages to allow cables up to 2m length while SATA works only with cables up to 1m. If you have a bracket only, the maximum cable length is 1m - the length of the cable that connects the bracket with the motherboard so you end up with something rather short.

Anyways, if you have a bracket, there is absolutely nothing to be worried about. If you have a true eSATA port, I am not sure if the increased voltages can damage the drive.

Yes.


That's exactly what I'm worrying about.

Cheers!
SG

I guess it shouldn't be a problem. We have several PCs at work where I tried this today and everything worked without problems. Our administrators also do this everytime a new office PC was ordered and an image has to be restored from a SATA drive (they connect the SATA device via eSATA) and until now, all drives (Deskstars) still function flawlessly.

Thanks. I suppose it's okay to connect these then. Otherwise, selling those cables without warnings would be near irresponsible and certainly not foolproof. I guess I was just paranoid.

Cheers!
SG