What is eSATA?

There are many uses for eSATA drives that plenty of people use them on a daily basis. The usual SATA interface is integrated into almost all modern day computer hardware from laptop/notebook computers to home desktops and is mainly used for data transfer devices such as hard disks to optical media drives. This BUS system is very efficient and uses less wires in the cables than the previous ATA controllers did. This is a very nice improvement from reducing the cables from 80 wires down to 7 wires in each cable for SATA. Power cables are reduced as well but are very easy to distinguish between SATA and eSATA as the eSATA drive is in fact an external drive and will have a special power connector that is fed into the drive much like any other device that you connect directly to the outlet.

The actual acronym of eSATA stands for “External Serial Advanced Technology Attachment” and is a more modern form of disk attachment that is designed to work with most modern computers. You are even starting to see even more Laptop and Notebook computers come with eSATA BUS ports available to be able to directly connect an eSATA drive for immediate usage whereas many of the older machines will not have them because the technology did not exist yet. The eSATA drives are an affordable alternative to USB based devices and can be much faster for use with speeds almost double of what USB 2.0 has to offer. You can easily place a large file to transfer such as a 3 gigabyte file onto an eSATA drive in as little as a minute and six seconds and this is extremely fast and useful for anyone that needs to transfer large files or large amounts of files at a time. This makes it easy to backup any computer files or even make large full backups of any computer.

What you need to be able to use an eSATA drive is a compatible computer that has a motherboard which has integrated eSATA ports or a computer tower that has available PCI slots to put in an eSATA card that allows you to connect the eSATA drive through an eSATA cable. This is usually not an option for those who own laptop or notebook computers because there are no expansion slots for PCI like there are in normal PCs. There are various converters available for eSATA that allow you to connect the eSATA cable to a small device which allows for the use of the drives on a USB 2.0 interface at speeds of up to 32 Megabytes a Second. Although this essentially turns the drive into a USB drive in terms of speed, it is an efficient way to transfer data if absolutely necessary between PC computers and Laptops or between different Laptops if a local area network is not available.

There are usually limitations for eSATA drives such as the size of the drives which are starting to be broken with a few technology upgrades but will overall be surpassed at some point in the future. You can usually find drives that are very large in capacity and some even exceed a Terabyte (TB) in storage capacity. These large drives are often very convenient and can be placed anywhere near the computer you are using and can be portable. Many people use these eSATA drives as a backup solution to ensure that their files are kept safe in the event that their computer goes down due to a virus or a hardware crash. Various eSATA drives have a limit on their speeds to keep them working at a consistent rate but some do not have real set limits on the read and write transfer rates but rather the speed of the computer guides how much it actually transfers from the host data source.

Limitations for connections are often a question that many people have. The amount of eSATA drives that can be connected to a single computer is usually limited to 4 through various array structures for external use. More than 4 drives will not be recognized by any supported system without some real tweaks to the system to be able to see more drives. Even connecting more than one array of eSATA drives will usually not show more than 4 drives because of these connection limitations. In the future large drive vaults may support more than 4 eSATA drives and will eventually lead the way to even larger amounts of storage although not many normal consumers will need more than 4TB of storage. The people that would need such drive arrays would be those who do video editing or have large libraries of media and work that must be preserved in highest quality such as large 64 megapixel images or hours upon hours of HD video and directly recorded sound.

Limitations for length of cable are usually set to 2 meters for any eSATA device and that would be shortened to 1 meter with a passive adapter. You will want to surely look into the length of cable you need when using the eSATA. One workaround is through the use of a USB adapter for use on a USB 2.0 BUS. This can add in an additional 5 meters for a total of 7 meters if really needed. It is best to use a smaller cable for two simple reasons: 1. It is harder to trip on a smaller cable and damage devices or cables. 2. The integrity of the connection is better with a smaller cable and less electricity is consumed when the distance is shorter meaning much less heat production by the cables as well as less damages to the eSATA drive or USB 2.0 port being used.

Many people want to know where these eSATA drives are available. In essence, they are available at most technology specialty stores and can be easily be obtained online for lower pricing. Various technology outlets will be able to provide everything you need to be able to use an eSATA drive with your system. If your system is too old and obsolete to eSATA capabilities then getting a better computer or considering an upgrade to be able to use one is probably in order to ensure that you get the most out of your computing experience. The abilities of eSATA surpass many of the standards of today and the future only holds advancements in the technology of eSATA drives.