what can i do useful with an eSATA port?

[madeirabhoy]

trying to improve my 2011 imac, got a thunderbolt SSD on the way, and thinking about buying a thunderbolt to usb 3 adaptor.

now it seems whatever make I see on the internet, all about 80 quid, they all come either with a gigabyte Ethernet socket (no real use to me) or an eSATA port. ive never encountered eSATA, what can I do with it?

I see one of the amazon offers is to get the adaptor with a cable
UGREEN Esata Cable, eSATAp to SATA Cable Dual Power USB 12V 5V Combo to 22 Pin For 2.5" 3.5" HDD 50cm

does that mean that id be able to use the cable to attach an internal drive, such as a normal usb external drive with the caddy removed? would this be faster ?

 

[hobowankenobi]

Think of eSATA as just an external SATA connection. The e is for external.

The only real difference is the robustness of the connection. The standard SATA connection is simple, small, and inexpensive, but not robust enough to stand up to hundreds of connect/disconnect cycles...plus the issue of getting bumped and disconnected, or even damaged.

eSATA was, for a time, popular because it was faster than any other low cost consumer friendly external data connection bus. Now with USB 3 and beyond, Thunderbolt 2 and beyond, there is little reason to use eSATA on a newish Mac. The best (only?) reason to use it would be if you already had some eSATA external storage you wanted to continue using.

 

[madeirabhoy]

Think of eSATA as just an external SATA connection. The e is for external.

The only real difference is the robustness of the connection. The standard SATA connection is simple, small, and inexpensive, but not robust enough to stand up to hundreds of connect/disconnect cycles...plus the issue of getting bumped and disconnected, or even damaged.

eSATA was, for a time, popular because it was faster than any other low cost consumer friendly external data connection bus. Now with USB 3 and beyond, Thunderbolt 2 and beyond, there is little reason to use eSATA on a newish Mac. The best (only?) reason to use it would be if you already had some eSATA external storage you wanted to continue using.

ive bought a cable to go with it, figuring, I sometimes have problems with usb drives where it starts acting up and buying a caddy works as its the power supply or casing, so at least for an extra tenner for the cable I can use this.