Does anyone know if drives can be taken from an external e-Sata device that uses a port multiplier and connect them to the motherboard sata ports and have the data/partition recognized?

I am sure that I could have worded the question better so here is an example of what I do NOT want: connecting a single un-partitioned drive to my Areca 1680ix raid controller and create a partition in windows - the data on this drive can ONLY be accessed when connected to an Areca controller.

I am trying to expand my backup drives from single eSata external enclosures to 4-bay enclosures. I am adding 2TB of video every 3-4 months and it will be greatly increasing to about 4TB every 2 months very soon.

As long as you are not creating any RAID drives in the tower, you should be fine. I haven't tested this exact situation, but when I built my tower, I first formatted the drives via a USB/SATA adapter, then used them in the tower so it should work.