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eSATA Connectors 222

Posted by Hemos from the feel-the-excitment dept.
buffalocheese writes "Since the introduction of the Serial ATA 1.0a specification in 2002, many manufacturers have introduced PCI and CardBus cards with both internal and external SATA connections. At first these internal and external connectors were completely identical, but later, external connectors started to appear which were still fully compatible with the internal sockets but featured added extra screening for external use. With the introduction of the SATA II specification in mid 2004 a new external SATA connector was defined. These new external (eSATA) connectors are not compatible with the original internal SATA connection. Currently there are add-on cards and drive housings available which feature both types of SATA connection for external use. Gradually the older types will disappear and all new SATA cards will feature the eSATA connector for external drive connections."
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eSATA Connectors More

eSATA Connectors

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  • Are they better, or just different? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jandrese ( 485 ) <kensama@vt.edu> on Monday March 19, 2007 @10:29AM (#18401209) Homepage Journal
    Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the current SATA connectors. They tend to fall off at the slightest provocation. I can't work in my case without having to check at the end that all of the SATA connectors are still in place (and at least one of them is usually loose or completely off). Because of this I've been reluctant to switch to SATA on external enclosures. If this new connector can prove itself resistant to falling off, it may in fact be a winner (I would even advocate unifying the connectors again under the new standard). I do like the fact that both the external and internal SATA connectors are currently the same, I just don't like the connector itself. It's rather nice to be able to take an old AT power supply (the kind where the power switch is hardwired to the supply) and plug in an off of the shelf SATA drive to the back of my case in a pinch. Plus, fewer connector types means fewer adapters I'll eventually have to own.
    • While I don't suffer from the connectivity problem, I have another gripe: SATA connectors stick straight out.

      Sure, you can spend a bit more to get a good, angled cable. But the free ones included with hard drives and motherboards are always annoying.

      • Re:Are they better, or just different? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by jandrese ( 485 ) <kensama@vt.edu> on Monday March 19, 2007 @11:24AM (#18401793) Homepage Journal
        I actually have the opposite gripe (but usually about the power connectors), the connector is usually flush with the drive but the power cables come out the top and bottom of it. If you have anything adjascent to your drive (another drive, 8800GTX, etc...) the cables have to be bent at a sharper angle than I prefer. I actually still prefer using the Molex connectors most of the time because they fit snugly, are easy to access (they're on the right hand side of the drive), and the cables stick straight out the back.

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by supercoop ( 871775 )
          Western Digital SATA drives have the regular Molex connection and that is why I will only use them. Those SATA connections are so sloppy that the data and power cable falls off. WD drives also have a kind of propriety extension on the data connection retention mechanism called SureConnect [wdc.com].

    • Re:Are they better, or just different? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Coopjust ( 872796 ) on Monday March 19, 2007 @10:49AM (#18401407)
      I have an eSATA external drive. My current mobo doesn't have eSATA built in, but I use it via a SATA to eSATA adapter card in my PC.

      Well, it's definitely more snug than a regular SATA cable, but it isn't quite as snug as USB. Still, the speed is amazing, and the cables are better IMO. The speed is definitely faster than USB.

      Only catch is if I hook up a drive while in Windows with that converter, it'll lockup. Has to be turned on before I boot the computer. This is a limitation of the adapter; from what I've read, you should be able to hot swap with a "real" eSATA port.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by TheThiefMaster ( 992038 )
        You should be able to hot-swap with "real" SATA 2.0 as well. My guess is you've plugged you're adapter into a SATA 1.0/1.1 socket and that's why you have no hot-swap.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Micah ( 278 )
        I recently got a laptop [powernotebooks.com] with an eSATA port. Then got an Icy Dock enclosure and a Samsung 500GB SATA-II drive from Newegg.

        I can hotplug the thing in both Windows and Linux. Speed is twice as fast as the internal drive (according to hdparm -t). I'm thrilled with it!

      • I have an eSATA external drive. My current mobo doesn't have eSATA built in, but I use it via a SATA to eSATA adapter card in my PC...

        Only catch is if I hook up a drive while in Windows with that converter, it'll lockup. Has to be turned on before I boot the computer. This is a limitation of the adapter; from what I've read, you should be able to hot swap with a "real" eSATA port.

        Another possible reason for your inability to hot-swap is that the SATA ports might be set to "IDE mode" in the motherboard's BIOS. This is a common setup on "home-built" computers since "IDE mode" allows pre-Vista Windows installation without the "F6 (floppy) installation method." To enable hot-swap, the SATA ports must be set to "SATA/AHCI mode" in the BIOS.

        Here's some instructions from Intel's site on changing SATA modes on their motherboards:

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by GIL_Dude ( 850471 )
      Thinking back to the old centronics cable that old printers had and some SCSI-1 connections used they had little clips on the side that you fliiped up to lock the cable into place. Maybe we need some kind of similar device for SATA cables. This would be fairly simple and wouldn't require changing the connection itself; just something that slipped over/around it or something would be sufficient. I know I just re-did my machine by moving the ports on the existing 2 250 GB SATA drives and adding 2 500 GB SATA
    • Actually, there is a product that can help with this. You might want to try it [krazyglue.com].

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Richy_T ( 111409 )
        You jest but I have the SATA connector hot-glued on my home system because it took only a little force to break the plastic bit off. Luckily the electrical connections were still good. I put the plastic bit back, slid the conenctor back on then hot-glued one big lump. (This after trying a couple of times to reglue the plastic bit. I didn't ever have much hope of that though).

        Rich
    • The bodies of the connectors are also fragile. I broke a piece off one while just trying to push some cables aside. They need to make them stronger and shorter so they exert less leverage on the board's connector.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jelle ( 14827 )
      Yet another connector hidden in the back where you have to keep fiddling to get the plug in... In this case two tries should suffice, but geesh I bet they spend millions coming up with another useless connector (how is it better than the sata version?). At the very least they could have made it very obvious from the outside which way the plug should go in, but the hole is symmetrical, but the internals of the connectors are very much not so.

      I stand by my opinion that connector people are idiots.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Blymie ( 231220 ) *

      Tell me about it. Current SATA connectors are horrible in some situations. I've actually had situations where I've had to use a glue gun to literally keep the connectors from coming off on their own.

      That's utterly horrible, and damned lame.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Penguin's Advocate ( 126803 )
      It's your cables, and not necessarily because they're cheap. As the IT person for a 100% SATA shop I've had plenty of experience with this. Some SATA cables will fall off, sometimes without any provocation, others won't come off without significant provocation. Some SATA cables even have locking mechanisms to hold them to your drives. Asus for example ships motherboards with one of two different types of SATA cables. In my experience the red ones suck and the gray ones are excellent, but which you get

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Afrosheen ( 42464 )
        Yeah the cables make all the difference. Gigabyte generally ships their boards with the nice yellow SATA cables which have locking tabs on both sides of the connector. It just takes a light pinch to remove them from the SATA socket, but once they're in, they're not going anywhere.

        If only everyone spent .05 on two pieces of tin to make all cables lock like those. *sigh*
    • They added a clip mechanism in the latest revision of the spec to solve the falling out issue. I would switch to SATA just to get rid of the damned molex power connectors, though; pain to get on and off, and the pins come from the factory loose and out of line.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by theJML ( 911853 )

      They tend to fall off at the slightest provocation. I can't work in my case without having to check at the end that all of the SATA connectors are still in place (and at least one of them is usually loose or completely off).

      Really?? I have the opposite problem. I work in a lab where we have pretty much nothing but SATA drives, and many of the most popular SATA RAID Cards (and some of the just plain expensive ones), and I frequently have to be very careful not to rip the port off of the SATA Card when removi

    • Re:Are they better, or just different? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ChrisA90278 ( 905188 ) on Monday March 19, 2007 @12:03PM (#18402257)
      "...I'm not a big fan of the current SATA connectors. They tend to fall off at the slightest provocation. I can't work in my case without having to check at the end that all of the SATA connectors are still in place..."

      This is a poor case design. The best way to use a SATA drive is to have NO CABLE. The drives are designed to they can be pushed onto a socket that is soldered to a printed circuit board. All new design computers should be designed this way, with no cable. Drive push into the computer from the front like SCSI drives with SCA connectors

      If the computer uses a cable (for power or data) then it is a retrofit, a hold over from the IDE era. Over time internal cables should just "go away". Now you see way the connector can't be totight or have a positive retention (latch.)

    • I agree with you that the first SATA connectors were brain-dead. For the life of me, I can't understand what the designers were thinking when they didn't include a latch. However, I never really had problems with the plugs falling off--it was just a source of neurotic worry, like whether I turned off the soldering iron after I used it last time. In any case, the advantages of the SATA cable (thin, greater maximum length than the old IDE cables, no slave/master foo) outweighed any worries about the wobbly c

    • Intel realized this problem very early on, and by their second generation of SATA-equipped desktop motherboards, they had implemented locking connectors on the boards and included cables. This is still a standard feature on all their desktop boards. However, only one end is locking, the drive end is normal, probably because drive manufacturers haven't completely standardized the housing of their SATA connectors.

      I see some other motherboard manufacturers are doing this with some models as well now. Ther

  • Any advantages over having only one connector? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by What the Frag ( 951841 ) on Monday March 19, 2007 @10:30AM (#18401217) Journal
    I really don't see the advantage in having 2 types of connectors doing the same thing for internal and external use.

    Except they want to sell me another cable - or did I miss anything?
    • Nope, you've got it all right.
    • Yes. The internal connectors/old external connectors are poorly suited for external use. Just brushing one of those can nudge the cable out of its socket.

      As an aside, I think the industry should really standardize on something to be a 'universal' interface, like USB or Firewire for desktop systems. Let's just remove all other types of interfaces, even VGA/DVI/HDMI cables and maybe even Ethernet. By standardizing the interfaces, end users will be far less confused, the interface decided upon will be furthe

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Surt ( 22457 )
        There is actually a range of cost in the physical connector, as there is a range in the function of those connectors.

        Universalizing also risks having people plug the wrong thing into the wrong place, unless the underlying physical and logical transport is also the same, in which case cost is an even bigger issue.
      • By standardizing the interfaces, end users will be far less confused

        Clearly you've never actually worked with end-users. The fact that the major connectors are physically different, and therefore won't fit in the other holes no matter how hard you push, is the only reason they're sometimes plugged into the correct spot now.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AusIV ( 950840 )
          I think GP was suggesting every connector should do everything. That'd be great. The place you plug in your mouse is also capable of network connections and video. Having every connector on your computer do everything would drastically simplify things, but it certainly wouldn't keep costs down.
        • The fact that the major connectors are physically different, and therefore won't fit in the other holes no matter how hard you push, is the only reason they're sometimes plugged into the correct spot now.

          You're missing the point. e.g. With a USB device, *any* USB port is the correct one. And it makes life easier.
        • I'd love to introduce you to my mother-in-law. Over Christmas a year ago, she explained that she was having trouble getting her email since she switched to cable modem service from dial-up. Upon inspection, I found that she had conveniently inserted the USB cable into her DB9 serial port, which fit quite well if you're absolutely unaware of how it's supposed to work. The computer didn't have a USB port at all, or an Ethernet port, but that's what was supported by the cable modem.

          Don't assume that all phy
          • At a former job, we had a customer screaming at us that their new computer's keyboard didn't work (after having had it at the shop for another issue).

            Turns out they plugged the PS/2 keyboard cable into a BNC/10base2 connector on the NIC. Fit perfectly :p
        • I had a user once take the power plug for her Zip drive (a standard AC to DC adapter) and plug it into the headphone jack on her iMac.

          Brilliant! Unfortunately, smoke and fire was not the result. Lesson unlearned.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MankyD ( 567984 )

        As an aside, I think the industry should really standardize on something to be a 'universal' interface, like USB or Firewire for desktop systems. Let's just remove all other types of interfaces, even VGA/DVI/HDMI cables and maybe even Ethernet.

        By keeping different cord types, they prevent different communications protocols from plugging into the wrong ports. For instance, the ethernet protocol and the USB protocol are not compatible. Therefore, the layman user won't accidentally plug their mouse port into

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by alta ( 1263 )
          It's funny about your USB/Ethernet example. A usb device will fit in an ethernet port quite easily. It will even be snug in one direction, although it will wobble the other way. On a lot of our Dells the Ethernet port is directly above a stack of 2-4 USB ports. A few times I've given one of the computers the reach-around and found i've plugged a mouse in the wrong port. Shorting all the pins on an ethernet card can't be a good thing, I think this is a bad design.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by norton_I ( 64015 )
            Fortunately, ethernet is supposed to be transformer coupled, which should protect your card from most of the unpleasant things you can do to it. I have run into a few devices that use direct logic drive, but never a NIC in a desktop computer.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Surt ( 22457 )
            Indeed. I'm of the build my own computers sort, and even I've done this a couple of times ... that USB to ethernet port fit is just too perfect. (It happened to me because I was probing blind, hoping not to have to move a desk to move the computer behind it. The USB plug fit right into the ethernet port, which of course was immediately next to the USB port on the mother board layout. Thankfully, nothing broke, but oddly enough the mouse didn't start working until I discovered the problem.)

      • As an aside, I think the industry should really standardize on something to be a 'universal' interface, like USB or Firewire for desktop systems. Let's just remove all other types of interfaces, even VGA/DVI/HDMI cables and maybe even Ethernet. By standardizing the interfaces, end users will be far less confused, the interface decided upon will be further commoditized and prices for cables and connectors and such will fall.

        You are kidding right? Average user can barely tell the difference between these cables now and you want to make them all look the same to make it LESS confusing. It will just confuse them more. You will find the monitor plugged into the ethernet port, keyboards into the video port and hard drive plugged into the wall socked and a frustrated user going "why isn't this working?!?!?!?" I mean most people cant tell the difference between VGA and 9-pin serial port, and forget about the number of people who try

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by atarione ( 601740 )
      well....... the SATA cable is kinda of a joke, (really easy to damage or knock loose)..... using a SATA cable for an external drive seems like a bad idea. But then again I'm not sure the eSATA are any more resilient

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA [wikipedia.org]

      also it appears you can go to 2 meters in length with eSATA as opposed to maximum 1 meter with regular SATA cables

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by British ( 51765 )
        well....... the SATA cable is kinda of a joke, (really easy to damage or knock loose)

        I just assembled a new system last week, and can't speak highly enough of SATA. With IDE cables, it always seemed no matter what, you always had to turn around the ribbon cable upside down to fit the hard drive or optical drive. The ribbon cable, in all its wonderful cheapness was a huge hassle to snake around a case, and had a wonderful airflow-choking design. Sometimes it's too short of a distance from the motherboard con

    • Re:Any advantages over having only one connector? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Guspaz ( 556486 ) on Monday March 19, 2007 @10:49AM (#18401417)
      The official specs for eSATA essentially say the cable is better suited for external use. Here's what they have to say about it:

      The external cable connector is a shielded version of the connector specificed in SATA 1.0a with these basic differences:

                  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.

                  To prevent ESD damage, the insertion depth is increased from 5mm to 6.6mm and the contacts are mounted further 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.

                  There are springs as retention features built into the connector shield on both the top and bottom surfaces.

      The external connector and cable are designed for over five thousand insertions and removals while the internal connector is only specified to withstand fifty.

      They make it pretty clear exactly what's different. The biggest difference is the cable is shielded, while internal SATA is not (or less so?). And obviously the connector being rated for a hundred times more insertions is a pretty big difference.

      I should note that in recent benchmarks done by MaximumPC, eSATA did not provide substantial performance benefits over Firewire800 drives. eSATA featured a higher burst speed, but more or less equivalent average transfer rates and seek times. Unless there were specific licensing issues with Firewire 800, I would rather have seen it become the preferred drive interface; I'll take a general purpose connector that I can use for other stuff over something as specific as eSATA any day, especially when eSATA provides little benefit.
      • I see, the external cables are shielded. Tha makes a lot of sense. Because, after all, there's way more EMI outside of my computer case than inside.
        • The shielding is not only to prevent interference *into* the cable, it's also to prevent the cable from generating interference for other devices. See CE certification and EMI certification etc.

          At 3GHz, it'll make a very nice antenna out of any wire - the shielding is a necessity for certification.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Vihai ( 668734 )

          Because, after all, there's way more EMI outside of my computer case than inside

          Are you really sure? Because unless you live in a microwave oven, the opposite is much more plausible :)

      • It might not be mush faster than FW-800, but it CANNOT be slower.
        (as FW just adds an additional layer of complexity, with the drive being sata anyways)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mwvdlee ( 775178 )
          That only makes sense if you assume the harddisk to be connected through FW800 must be SATA, for which there is no reason to do so.
          • In fact, it could be :
            - SATA drive with a small FW controller in the case
            - IDE drive with a small FW controller so one can reuse all those old IDE drive to make backup / data transfer bricks
            - IDE 2.4" or 16bit PC-Card or Compact Flash (basically the same stuff, with smaller mechanical connector each time)
            - some proprietary internl drive format like the iPod ('cause Apple is fed up of people buy cheaper players and swaping drives)
            - Pure FW drive
            - Flash memory with it's own protocol and controller.

            - mini serv
          • Aside from every drive controller being ATA (with PATA vanishing over time).

            There's really not a market for putting anything but commodity drives on firewire - if performance is a concern, you'll hook SCSI, SAS or FC up to SCSI, SAS or FC.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Jherek Carnelian ( 831679 )

          It might not be mush faster than FW-800, but it CANNOT be slower.
          (as FW just adds an additional layer of complexity, with the drive being sata anyways)

          You assume that the SATA protocol has equal or better efficiency than the firewire protocol.

          For example, that latency sensitivity of SATA is less than or equal to that of firewire. You might be right, you might be wrong, I don't know. You might make the same assumption about USB, in which case you would definitely be wrong - the longer your USB cable, the s

    • is compliance with EMC standards, running high speed interfaces that are designed for internal use externally will almost certainly make the system non compliant (the same applies running a PC with the lid off and to many windowed cases)

      does this matter? it depends! It doesn't if its for your own use and you don't have any sensitive gear arround or if you are a small fly by night firm or are just selling parts (generally standards are applied to the end product as a whole not individual parts) but any big v

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by CompMD ( 522020 )
      I guess you are too young to really remember SCSI...

  • adverstory (Score:2, Insightful)

    by alta ( 1263 )
    Errr, is someone pushing their product here?

  • In the classroom (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Monday March 19, 2007 @11:21AM (#18401759)
    I felt like I was in the classroom listening to the instructor drone on as I read this article summary. While this may be worthwhile to know, it's unexciting to the point of boring. The slownewsday tagger was correct.
  • I'm on the fence, I like the SATA connector, don't like the eSATA connector, preferring to use USB or Firewire connections for external drives.

    However slashdotting an ecommerce site with an article designed to do nothing more than get a very targeted audience to a location that will sell SATA and eSATA devices is superb. It makes me wonder what the real dollar value of this "news" will translate into.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 )
      I'd rather see drives with native FireWire controllers than SATA or eSATA. Sure, SATA gives more bandwidth, but only in theory. A single hard drive comes nowhere near close to being able to saturate a FireWire 800 link, let alone [e]SATA. On the other hand, you can plug multiple devices into a FireWire chain. I have two FireWire 800 hard disks on a shelf, and I can connect them to my laptop with a single FireWire cable. If I moved to eSATA then my laptop would need two eSATA ports, and I would need to
  • Related to this, can anyone tell me about the reliability of internal SATA connectors. Maybe I got shitty cables with my TYAN mobo, but if I as much as touch the cable during PC operation, the system will loose the disk and crash. The connector is flimsy. Is this a general issue or should I look for different cabbles ?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tomstdenis ( 446163 )
      That's standard, most SATA cables lack any sort of locking clip which makes them fantastically unsafe to use. My suggestion is to not move your desktop a lot. And if you do move it, check the cables first.

      In my case I spent an hour or so chasing cables that would pull out, e.g. secure it to the mobo, it would pull on the drive. It didn't help that I had 4 SATA drives at the time...

      If you're so inclined you could try gluing them into the mobo, then tape it to the drive. Bonus points for using duct tape

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Grishnakh ( 216268 )
      Ignore the other responder to your question. Your cables suck. There's better ones available. I used to do embedded software development on a system that used 4 (or 8 or 16) SATA drives, and I've gone through a lot of different cables. Some don't attach very securely, and sound like the ones you have. Others were very secure; I could pick up the drive and move it around in operation and the connector didn't come loose. I believe some of the better cables had "Foxconn" connectors. We also found that n
  • Funny how the link in the summary just so happens to point to site that wants to sell you stuff.
  • Is hotswap support for internal SATA to eSATA connections coming? I just picked up an external eSATA/USB2 enclosure. It includes an internal to external sata adaptor. Linux does not see the insertion, but has no problem seeing the drive if inserted and powered on during boot. I know managed hotswap (ie hotswap to good SATA raid) is possible... certainly hotswap support by kernel driver must be possible also. Anyone know of plans for implementation?
    • It all depends on the controller. check out www.linux-ata.org for current controller-status and capabilities.
  • I had a sata connector on my asus mb break off when I pulled a drive out
    and it hit the cable of another drive and broke off the mb connector.

  • There is no "SATA II" (Score:4, Informative)

    by imroy ( 755 ) <imroykun@gmail.com> on Monday March 19, 2007 @12:01PM (#18402221) Homepage Journal

    SATA II is the old name of the organisation that created the SATA standard (although I can't find what the acronym used to stand for). It has since changed its name to SATA-IO ("International Organisation") because everyone mistook the two I's as Roman numerals and assumed the newly created SATA 3Gb/s standard was "version 2" of SATA. It's not. It's just a new signalling rate and other features like NCQ are separate.

  • SATA is a serial connection. But is there some way to put multiple SATA drives on a single SATA connection? For example, the Playstation 3 has only a single SATA connector on its motherboard, though the SATA driver chip supports 2 drives. Can a SATA RAID driver card attach two SATA drives to the single SATA connector? Or is there a SW solution?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rthille ( 8526 )
      There are devices (I forget what they are called) that will do 'fan out', but you need support (drivers, maybe a special controler?) on the host (PC) to make them work.
      • You are correct. You can do 5 ports to one in certain circumstances...there are some bridge boards here [addonics.com] which will do this. There are some controllers which do not support the muilt-drive option.

  • Overheard at the SATA connector design meeting: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ancient_Hacker ( 751168 ) on Monday March 19, 2007 @12:54PM (#18402911)
    "Everyone please now and listen to OverLord Amphe Knoll!" AK: "You have done well, pilgrims. The connector conspiracy advances! Let us review our proud history:
    • 1938: The holy RCA Phono connector! The one that connects the center conductor FIRST and blows out the speakers with hum! Also, it has no detent so it can fall out given a light breeze! That was a goodie!
    • 1941: The Ubiquitous UHF connector! The one that connects the center pin first and either blows out the receiver, or burns up the hapless HAM or CB user! Also it seems to have a detent, but there's aq 50% chance its a false fit and will wiggle loose
    • 1961: The Japanese hollow tube power plug! 10001 different voltages and currents in one connector! Lotsa sales there of replacement radios.
    • 1972: Of the Ma Bell RJ modular connectors, we will not speak. Anybody can make a mistake and make a sturdy, usable, latching connector once in a while. Luckily our agents infiltrated the factories and made the latches prone to snag on wires and break off after five uses. A partial recovery for the forces of connector darkness!
    • 1974: 40-pin flat cable connectors: Another goal for our side! Connectors with no latching or detents, plus 180 degree ambiguity! Lots of smoke if you guess wrong!
    • 1985: The Mac AppleTalk connector! Supposedly a DIN standard, but we sneaked in plenty of gotchas, like no detent and easily confused with and smashed into the DIN 3 connector!
    • 2003: The SATA connector! A home run! No useful grounding, no shielding, and it falls out if you just look at it!
    • 2006: External SATA connector: Well,a partial win. A few improvements got sneaked in. Our hope is the users will confuse the old and new styles and break off some disk drive pins. No soup for anybody until you dream up a new SATA3 connector with more confounding features. I'm thinking: explosions, or at least melt-downs

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Richy_T ( 111409 )
      1961: The Japanese hollow tube power plug! 10001 different voltages and currents in one connector! Lotsa sales there of replacement radios.

      Not to mention comes in a dozen or so slightly different dimensions including some that are almost-but-not-quite the right size but work if you angle the plug.

      1972: Of the Ma Bell RJ modular connectors, we will not speak. Anybody can make a mistake and make a sturdy, usable, latching connector once in a while. Luckily our agents infiltrated the factories and made the lat

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Richy_T ( 111409 )
      Where does that two-pin connector that is used in AC adaptors come in? The one which lets you choose which end connector and which has absolutely no kind of retention other than friction and hope and, because it is reversible, when it does fall out, you have to hope you are plugging it back in the right way or that your equipment has reverse polarity protection (That one has to get my vote for #1 worst connector ever).

      Rich

  • I've already been bitten by a SATA controller that didn't work in Linux (2.6.16 or so at the time). I got a list of chipsets that are supported by Linux (main source tree). But that doesn't help because I'm not buying chipsets ... I want to by a few controller cards. And now they need to be ones with eSATA connectors.

  • Ok, when SATA first came out, I was told the cables were really expensive because there was a patent on the connector, and tthere were a very limited number of cable makers able to make them, and they were ALL EXPENSIVE.

    Same situation? Are these cables going to be $40 for a 2ft cable?

    Is anyone here well versed on the patents on the original one and what happened to bring the prices down?

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