Thanks for the report and the Amazon link. My daughter just sent me an
Amazon gift card for some photo rework I did for her and her husband and
now I know what I'm going to use it for.
I have two eSATA connectors on my Dell XPS desktop but they are the
result of installing an eSATA PCI card. I discovered that the unused
SATA connections internal to the machine will not work with eSATA
drives. When I tried connecting my eSATA drives to the internal
connectors the drives were not seen at all and wouldn't even spin up.
As soon as I installed the eSATA card they were recognized and would
power up. They're also seen as removable hardware although still
classified as a "hard drive" and not as "removable storage".
I'm running XP and haven't seen the "refresh the drive list problem" you
mention. As soon as I power them up they are recognized and added to
the drives list. If I power them down or disable them with the "safely
remove hardware" function they disappear from the drives list. I know
there is a difference between SATA and eSATA cables. Maybe the eSATA
cable in conjunction with the eSATA PCI card manage an interrupt saying
"hey, look over here, I just added a drive".
I was a little taken aback at your bravado in using "quick format" with
a brand new drive. Even though it might take hours to do so, I always
do a full format on a brand new drive in order to test the writeability
of every sector on the disk.
As to how to store drives sans cases I think a shallow Tupperware or
similar plastic container for cheeses and cold meats might be about
right. We used to have some which finally deteriorated but I think we
had them for about 20 years. Probably just about the right size for a
drive and a small foam pad.
Chuck Norcutt
Moose wrote:
> Chuck Norcutt wrote:
>> Hey, that's cool! I'll be waiting on your report.
>
> I guess weather was good and UPS staffed up for the holidays. The
> package arrived yesterday afternoon.
>
> I opened up the docking station, connected it to power and the eSATA
> header on the desktop, opened the 1.5TB drive, inserted it into the dock.
>
> I don't know about other OSs and installations. My Vista doesn't react
> to changes in SATA connections automagically. With USB, it always
> notices changes. With Firewire, it usually does; sometimes I have to
> turn the drive off and on again. With SATA drives, I suppose it assumes
> they are all inside and can be counted to remain the same as at boot.
> Anyway, I have to ask the disk manager to rescan disks when I change
> which disk is attached to the eSATA port.
>
> The same was true of the docking station. But one click on rescan, and
> there was the new disk on the new dock. Initialize, assign a drive
> letter and quick format, and I was in business in moments.
>
> I copied over 400GB from an internal 500GB drive, then almost 100GB from
> another internal drive. All absolutely normal, as though I had installed
> the new drive inside the box or in an external, eSATA enclosure. With
> most of it hanging out in the air, the drive is running cooler than the
> primary drive and only a bit warmer than the two 500GB drives inside
> with cooling fans.
>
> Looks like a winner to me. Oddly enough, it appears the makers are
> conservative in their claims. The box says it works with drives up to
> 1TB; the web site says 1.5TB. It seems they actually waited until there
> was a 1.5TB drive to try with it before making claims.
>
> It was a better deal from TigerDirect with HD, flat rate $1.99 shipping
> and a $20 rebate for using PayPal, but by itself, is $5 cheaper plus
> free shipping from Amazon at the moment.
> <http://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-BlacX-eSATA-Docking-Station/dp/B001A4HAFS/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1229806542&sr=8-1>
>
>
>
> Next is to move the 1.5TB into the computer and one or two 500GBs out.
> Then I need to find a safe, yet convenient way to store bare drives.
> I've looked at kraft boxes on the web, but nothing the right size so far.
>
> Moose
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