Question 1

I am very confused about these cards.... I want to purchase hard drive enclosures that use eSata interface to connect to my computer (As supposed to USB 2/3)... I am very confused by the products out there and the reviews... I like this card since it's a good price with 2 ports but do I need something special on my motherboard for this. My mobo does not have a native eSata port on it... Someone told me that it will use up an internal SATA port; is this correct? All 6 of my SATA ports are in use. In case its necessary I have an Intel i7-4770 and MSI Z97-G55 mobo.

Thank you so much!!!

Accepted Answer

Hi Stephen,

No, you don't need anything else on your mobo, the expansion card provides the eSATA capability.  As for using up an internal SATA port, that only happens if you configure it for internal SATA instead of eSATA, and from what I see in the picture, that board doesn't have that capability.

For your enclosure, if you haven't already purchased one, I highly recommend a Sans Digital enclosure (New Egg sells them) as they're very stable and well supported by the manufacturer.  They come in 1 - 8 bay configurations.  I have three of their 2-bay  enclosures in RAID 1 (mirroring) configuration.  If you're planning for expansion or RAID, get one that has "Port Replication", that way the RAID logic is inside the enclosure, and you'd only use one of the two eSATA ports.  They can be configured as RAID 0, 1, 5 and JBOD (Just a Bunch of Old Disks; i.e. individual disks in a single enclosure)

I hope this helped.

Question 2

Does this device require power directly from the power supply?

Accepted Answer

You probably meant "do the disk drives require power from the power supply?"

Yes, they do. eSATA only provides data, just like regular SATA (the only difference is in the shielding of the cable and the sturdiness of the connector).

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