[Hidden-tech] SATA saga

[Roger Williams]

>>>>> Izzy Gesell <izzy at izzyg.com> writes:

  > I bought an external cd/dvd drive. It uses a SATA II cable and I cant
  > figure out how to connect it to my laptop...do I need some kind of
  > adapter?

Yes.  So far there are few, if any, notebook computers with eSATA ports.

If your notebook has PC Card slots, you can get a Cardbus adapter for ~$30
that will give you data rates of ~70MB/s.  This will require the installation
of a driver.

For a DVD drive, however, you can probably get by with lower bandwidth, so a
USB-to-eSATA adapter may be a reasonable choice.  This will be limited to
~10MB/s, but will be less than $20 and won't require a driver.

-- 
Roger Williams <roger at qux.com>
Chief Technical Officer, Qux Corporation
433 West Street, Suite 8, Amherst, MA 01002, USA
Tel +1 413 253-6400 * Fax +1 508 302-0230 * GSM +1 508 287-1420