Just recently, MSI showed off its new upcoming list of eight
notebooks and one motherboard sporting the new Power Over eSATA cable
specification. It has happily taken claim to the title of “world’s first”, as
the new specification made by the Serial ATA International Organization enables
both data and power to be transferred between motherboard and device through a single
cable.
Up until now, the eSATA standard has required its own power
connector. While it
can reach transfer rates triple those of USB 2.0 and FireWire 400, this has
been its major drawback. With Power Over eSATA, backwards compatibility
with existing eSATA connectors will be retained along with the current data
transfer performance levels of 3Gb/s.
Deployment plans for the Power Over eSATA standard have been
around for over a year, with the first press
release from SATA-IO dating January 2008.
The Power Over eSATA cable itself bridges from a single
eSATA port to a connector that includes the normal SATA power and data
connectors. During the start, many cables like this will be around but as time goes
on, we should start seeing standard everyday eSATA cables that can transmit
both data and power. More details are expected to be revealed very soon at
Computex 2009 in a few weeks.
Also read:
OCZ likes MSI's Power eSATA
No need for AC power anymore
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Motherboard
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