[RndTbl] eSATA

[Adam Thompson]

The eSATA speed should, all other things being equal, be identical to internal SATA.

Beware that unless your ports are explicitly eSATA, they likely won't handle hot plugging properly.  (i.e. You can connect your onboard SATA ports to eSATA adapter brackets - and this will generally work - but they don't magically support all the "e" aspects unless designed to do so; some are, some aren't.)

Also if you want to use any kind of multi-bay enclosure, the host ports must explicitly support SATA Multipliers (multiplexers?) or you won't be able to access any of the drives in that enclosure reliably.

-Adam

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Martin <ummar143 at shaw.ca>
Date: Mon, 31 May 2010 21:15:09 
To: MUUG roundtable<roundtable at muug.mb.ca>
Subject: [RndTbl]  eSATA

I am considering adding eSATA and external toasters to my Mac Pro, in order to maximize swapability but maintain speed.  I am thinking of making my next machine entirely eSATA / toasters, with no internal drives.

Is there any major downside to doing this?  I am assuming that I can hot swap on any *nix system (aside from the boot drive) and that the speed will be only minimally slower than internal SATA, and still faster than my drives.  I am assuming that the drives will run quietly and cool in toasters, and that my cat won't chew the cables.

Am I missing any obvious problems here?

Dan Martin
GP Hospital Practitioner
Computer Scientist
ummar143 at shaw.ca
(204) 831-1746
answering machine always on


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