eSATA - Bad Connector Design

[Jerry Norman]

I've read through the problems several of you have had with eSATA on the XPS 435MT. I would like to install a bare drive caddy in the empty 2nd DVD bay on my XPS and wonder if anyone here has tried that. Here are my questions:

1. Will the caddy fit in the bay - it looks like it would be a tight squeeze to get it in.

2. Can you easily remove the front door to the bay?

3. Will a SATA used in this manner be hot swappable in this computer?

[Martin Mayer]

eSATA connectors have always seems like a hastily-thought-out "enhancement" to (internal) SATA connectors to me.

Let's hope Intel's Light Peak will soon supercede it.

Light Peak looks like an idea whose time should have come years ago - SPDIF/TOSlink for audio has been around for what? ten years at least? and Light Peak looks like similar technology to me - low cost, robust, high bandwidth - what more could you want of an interconnection system?

Let's hope everybody adopts it, and it becomes a genuinely cross-platform standard.

[Seth Bloombaum]

Originally Posted by Jerry Norman

...I would like to install a bare drive caddy in the empty 2nd DVD bay...
3. Will a SATA used in this manner be hot swappable in this computer?

I installed an IDE caddy system in a hard drive bay my editing computer a few years ago, at the same time I installed the same system in an external enclosure.

I never use the caddy internal bay, because, while technically it is "hot swap", I can't power down the drive independently of the PC. I find the external much more useful for this reason.

Not sure if this will apply to SATA caddy - but worth checking out before you purchase/install.

Having said that, a caddy system is GREAT! Those old projects are extremely accessable, I use it all the time!