Power Over eSATA fans go wild over mobo manufacturer's latest and greatest cable
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted May 13th 2009 12:46PM
posted May 13th 2009 12:46PM
We guess its really a no-brainer, but it looks like quite a few manufacturers are really rather taken with the idea of powering eSATA devices over the connection itself (as opposed to a hackneyed USB power solution?). For further proof that this is something you're likely to see in the future, we submit for your approval the above cable. According to Tweak Town (not actually a legally incorporated town) who received this from "a Taiwanese motherboard manufacturer," the guy is designed to connect a single eSATA port to normal SATA power and data connectors, carrying both data and power over a single standard eSATA cable. That's all the news, for now -- but it will be interesting to see what sort of implementation this initiative sees when Computex Taipei comes 'round next month.
I've had this kind of cable in mind since I heard of and starting thinking about powered sata. You can used current sata drives and use a single cable. Then when it's really popular drives would come with a single connector.
I just wonder when mobos get 6 powered sata and a few more on the back for external sata ports, will we have to plug more power into the mobo or could the main 20 some pin power connection handle the extra load/
Bah, your living in the stone age. PC's use 24 pins + 8 these days on high end PC's :)
If its a guide, a hard drive will use 10watts MAXIMUM. They really are not power hungry devices.
Not until you have four 10K RPM connected to your on board RAID...
10W is a truckload of power. It's 4X what USB provides, for example.
Actually, during spin-up 3.5" hdds can easily use 30-40 Watts of power. Once they're going they'll drop to 10W or below. Its this initial power drain that's the real issue in power over esata.
If it was possible, why wasn't eSATA standardized this way in the frist place?
*first
Should have caught that.
Even though you're fixing a typo you're still going to get voted down for that.
Alright. Thanks for the update :)
If it WERE possible.
And you're right: It's inexcusable that eSATA was implemented in its current, asinine state.
Arg. Wrong. You were correct in the first place. I'm just so used to seeing posts that fail to use the subjunctive. It's not called for here.
Seems like a no-brainer.
I never quite understood why they called it eSATA. Its the same socket just on the outside. They should have called what we use now SATA, and named this one eSATA.
eSATA is just the same as SATA, 'cept it has a little 'e' on it, indicating it is external.
Make sense to me.
eSata cables are essentially SATA cables with extra wrapping to protect it from external interference... The cables are typically MUCH longer (1metre plus). The connections are different, and won't work between each other, even though the pinout is identical. You CAN get eSATA -> SATA cables as well.
From WP:
* The external connector has no "L" shaped key, and the guide features are vertically offset and reduced in size. This prevents the use of unshielded internal cables in external applications and vice-versa.
* To prevent ESD damage, the design increased insertion depth from 5 mm to 6.6 mm and the contacts are mounted farther back in both the receptacle and plug.
* To provide EMI protection and meet FCC and CE emission requirements, the cable has an extra layer of shielding, and the connectors have metal contact-points.
* The connector shield has springs as retention features built in on both the top and bottom surfaces.
* The external connector and cable have a design-life of over five thousand insertions and removals, while the internal connector is only specified to withstand fifty.
That is great - now they need to make sure to include longer cables. I love my GB motherboard but HATE the 8" esata cable they included - the build quality is great but wtf is with the short cable - means my hard drive has to dangle off the back of my computer!
SATA in general isn't very suitable for long runs. However, I believe the limit is about 3ft for SATA and 6ft for eSATA, so you should be able to pick up a longer cable.
Thanks - I did of course find plenty of longer esata cables but they also had a night heavy external power connector that went with it but that was very very short. I couldn't find a nice one like it.
Mmm... I would never use that cable... It could overload your board... ^.^
It's NOT a standard sata cable you use, it's the new eSATA that has powerpins/wires, so your mobo must have that new powered eSATA too and so it can't overload, if you use this with a classical eSATA connector/cable there won't be any power on the powerpart and the drive will be dead and not responding.
so this will suck power off the mobo which is good y?
yes its a nice idea but I would think it best to have power come for a PSU or some other source, considering the number of cards already sucking power off the mobo.
less cords is better, assuming that there's no risk of overloading, short circuit, etc.
It's not like these drives suck down that much power - I don't see it being an issue, if engineered properly
It's for power-over-eSATA which has extra pins/wires for power in the cable, the article mistakenly claims "carrying both data and power over a single standard eSATA cable", that should be 'a standard power-over-eSATA cable', which is not the same but is expected to become the new standard, it's a relatively new cable/connector
"less cords is better"
less != fewer
I had to look at that cable for a second before i realised what was wrong about it.
the eSATA cable is just that, a female cable, used for plugging into a jack.
The SATA end however is also a female cable.
This cable is NOT designed to create a powered eSATA jack/cable, it is infact a cable that would permit the use of a SATA device over eSATA.
This doesn't discredit the fact that a reversed version of the cable exists, or that eSATA will go powered, but the cable does not function in the way you describe it.
Epic Fail to you.
The cable plugs into an eSATA jack on your computer. The other end plugs into a hard drive (or other SATA device) providing both the data and power connections. Exactly what they said it does.
Epic fail to Engadget, actually.
"designed to connect a single eSATA port to normal SATA power and data connectors"
No, designed to plug a Power-over-eSATA port to normal SATA power and data connectors on a hard drive. Badly worded article.
Umm, that's the EXACT SAME cable Microsoft uses in their Xbox 360 HDDs to connect the SATA hard drive inside to the eSATA port on top of the 360...
Is it just me or do those connectors look burnt to a crisp?
They look to be originally blue and poorly painted black.
The blue is the flash on the black plastic.
nice
This is most likely made for laptops..where they would only have 1 esata port that also gives off power.
I dont think they ever thought of adding this to a desktop mobo where u'd have 4+ drives using this
"it will be interesting to see what sort of implementation this initiative sees when Computex Taipei comes 'round next month"
What, like this:
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13609&Itemid=1
A much better idea methinks...
As long as you can still make use of that optical audio out on the mobo. I have an OCZ throttle now but dont use it cause I lose my audio.
There's no way this cable can possibly work on a standard eSATA port. There simply isn't any power connector in there. None. A mobo manufacturer has announced it because, presumably, it's going to be a non-standard cable for a non-standard eSATA port on one of their mobos.
The strange wording in the original article lead to a strange wording and mistake in engadget's 'translation', stuff happens.
Woo Hooo! I've been waiting years for them to do this. They're been talking about how this was supposed to be part of the original spec for a while now, nice to see it come to fruition. Sucks they're probably not gonna be backwards compatible with today's motherboards.
Great all external drives should be eSata anyways, i feel they have behind the times on that part
If there was a twilight zone reference in there...nice
Hopefully they put this in the standard! eSATA is great for external storage, but it's lack of power made Firewire 400/800 the best solution.
Although in a perfect world everyone would have Firewire/3200, I hope USB 3.0 is a major technical success and we can finally have a universal cable for mainstream use.