Hey all, I have a Sony Vaio with a Sata-150 (chipset?)... It has an eSata port. Is it possible to hook up a SATA 3.0 (well SATA 6 with 3.0 backwards) up to the machine through the eSata port? Thank you in advance
i think so or at least others out there do. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r25736491-hard-drive-any-SATA-6-compatible-with-SATA-1.5-controller although, you might want to include your model laptop and what hdd your considering just so we can take a look.
Hey, violetblueskies. Thanks for the response! Here's my laptop model: Sony Vaio vpcf126fm/b (I think that's the right number) The HDD is a Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200rpm 64MB cache SATA 3 (6.0GB/sec) 3.5" internal bare drive. Whaddaya think? Thanks again! Bob
okay so looking at your specs you do have an esata 1.5 port. esata can come in 1.5 and 3.0 speeds, but since your internal sata runs at 1.5 my assumption is that your external sata port will do the same. as far as compatibility with sata 6gb/s drive to a sata 1.5gb/s, i'm seeing that this drive provides jumper settings to go from 6.0gb/s to 1.5gb/s. http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5387#jumper notice how its confusing how it says "jumper settings for sata 6.0 gb/s 3.5 hdds" but at the top it says for both 3.0gb/s hdd and the WD1002FAEX. my guess is that they chose this size drive to support 1.5gb/s for popularity? there are other sizes that have 6.0gb/s and what ... do they have to succumb to 3.0gb/s speeds only? maybe someone else can take a look and see if i'm missing something. but if i'm right, then yeah this drive should support 1.5gb/s provided that you set the jumper. "Is it possible to hook up a SATA 3.0 (well SATA 6 with 3.0 backwards) up to the machine through the eSata port?" well this is a 6.0 drive so it won't work at 3.0 speeds since your esata port is 1.5 it will instead work at the 1.5 speeds when the jumper is set. there may be another issue... let just assume the drive supports 1.5 and all. "A single eSATA/USB cable can now power up an eSATA/USB capable device as compared to the original eSATA device which requires an external power source. A notebook can supply up to 5V to power up a 2.5" HDD/SSD, while a desktop can supply up to 12V to power up larger devices like 3.5" HDD/SSD or 5.25" optical drives." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESATA/USB according to wiki, your esata port will only provide 5v which is only enough to power a notebook hard drive 2.5 where as the hard drive your interested in is 3.5 which needs 12v. it would be possible to hook up a computer power supply to the wall and connect the molex power cable to the hard drive and then connect the drive to your esata port to use. i just have to ask, why are you wanting to buy a 3.5 internal drive for use on a laptop when you can just get an external usb drive?
I would totally go for an external USB (or firewire) drive if it were up to me. I'm purchasing some software that happens to come on that particular drive (they pre-install it to the drive, and then ship it to you). What is a molex power cable? BTW, I VERY much appreciate your thoroughness and willingness to help!!
Oh, by the way, it turns out that I ended up purchasing software that will come on this drive: WD10EALS. With the laptop I have, what do you think is my best / cheapest route for power and eSata? cables? a dock? an external case? Thanks again! You rock!
i couldn't find sata jumper settings for this drive. setting a jumper to 5-6 may or may not work. some people complained that this drive may not be 1.5 compatible. however, since your having a separate issue just powering the drive anyway, i think you should get a usb external enclosure. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m_re=3.5_usb_enclosure-_-17-392-002-_-Product it has usb 2.0 and esata ports on the enclosure, but i'm not sure if your going to be able to get it to work with esata. you can try it out by setting the jumper, put it in the enclosure, and trying it out. otherwise if this doesn't work then you should at least be able to use the usb interface. also at least this way you will get your ac adapter to power the hard drive as well.
Oh. Cool. Do USB enclosures typically handle the higher to lower speed conversion? or is it still a jumper setting deal?
the jumper settings are to bring the hard drive down to 1.5gb/s. the only thing is i'm unsure it will work. if you can get the hard drive to work at the 1.5, then i would suggest doing that and using the esata option on the enclosure. otherwise you will need to use the usb interface. the sata controller card in the enclosure will handle the data transferring from sata to usb interface.
Well, it seems that I ended up with a WD10EALX. Set the jumper to the 3.0 speed, hooked it up and connected via USB. It's working in Ubuntu. I'll have to report how it does in Windows.
