Review: Newer Technology’s Mac Pro eSATA Extender Cable; The $25 way to add eSATA to your Mac Pro
Posted by Dr. Macenstein
USB and FireWire are all well and good, but these days all the cool kids are talking about SATA. The Serial ATA protocol is the latest and (in theory) fastest way to hook up peripherals to your computer. With a theoretical transfer rate of 3.0 Gbit/second, SATA 300 drives are used inside every Mac Pro, and provide a degree of speed that was unheard of (or at least unaffordable) just a couple years ago. And these days more and more peripheral makers are slapping an external SATA (or eSATA) connection on their devices. It is becoming common to see a high-end external hard drive sport not only the traditional FireWire and USB connections, but also an eSATA port as well.
“Great!” you say. “I own a Mac Pro. But I don’t see a eSATA port on the back. What gives?” Well, Apple was pretty sneaky. While the Mac Pros sport a wealth of FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and USB 2 ports, you will not see any eSATA ports. At least not on the OUTSIDE.
It’s what’s inside that counts
Deep (and I do mean DEEP) inside every Mac Pro are 2 hidden SATA connections that are all but inaccessible. I have no idea how they ended up there, but on every Mac Pro’s motherboard, located just behind the fan assembly, are 2 Serial ATA ports that are just BEGGING to be used. Unfortunately, Apple did not make this easy, and the Mac Pro’s beautifully designed interiors make connecting to these ports in a way that would not hamper airflow next to impossible. Lucky for us, Newer Technology has developed a solution, and… it’s affordable!
Above: the eSATA ports are hidden deep inside your Mac Pro, behind the fan assembly.Answer to your eSATA prayers
Whether or not you knew those ports were there, you paid for them, so why not use them? Newer Tech’s Mac Pro eSATA Extender Cable allows you to take advantage of those ports by routing 2 external SATA connections from the motherboard to the rear of your Mac Pro, all for about $25. Compare that to the cost of buying a standalone PCI-X card for $110-$200, and you’ve got a pretty good argument for a do-it-yourself geek project.
Warning, not your average Mac add-on
It is only fair that before I get your hopes up, I should point out that this is not your basic “Oh, I’ll pop in a new graphics or sound card”-type of installation. While the directions claim all you will need to complete the install are 2 small phillips screwdrivers (a P1 and a P0), the reality of the install process is it can be (and was for me) much more difficult than I thought.
Above: If you are lucky, you’ll only need a phillips P1 and P0 screwdriver to complete the install, however we recommend you have a kit like this handy (Newer sells their own for about $13).Newer Technology’s site does not really point out just how difficult the process will be, although when the cable shows up, thankfully the detailed, full-colored installation guide does. I have to hand it to Newer, the directions are very straightforward. At no time did I not know what I was supposed to do, the problem was actually doing it. The 2 main problems I faced were 1) I am a 6-foot 3-inch man who’s hands are larger than the average Chinese woman’s who likely assembled my Mac Pro, and 2) I happen to have a Mac Pro Quad model which suffered from a manufacturing defect. Newer mentions that certain models of Mac Pros had some improperly installed screws where instead of using loctite being applied on the screw standoff, Apple used loctite on the screws themselves, into the standoffs, which basically means when you attempt to turn these screws, the standoffs themselves turn, instead of the screws. I was forced to enlist the aid of Helper Monkey here and by using 2 pairs of small needle nose pliers, we eventually were able to free the screws (after completely stripping one first, of course).
Above: The full color instructions provided with the extender cable are excellent. It is being able to do what they say that can sometimes be tricky.Aside from that debacle, there were 2 other bottle necks for me. One was the removal of the fan assembly screw, which although I have the requisite computer geek tool set and appropriate screwdrivers, I just had a heck of a time fitting my hand in to reach the screw and apply enough pressure to set it free. The second was in removing the fan assembly itself. The directions call for you to “wiggle, tug, and pull” the assembly out. Well, after about 15 minutes of wiggling, tugging, and pulling I did indeed remove the fan assembly, although at many points along the way I thought for sure I was going to break something. Now that the assembly and other interior parts have been removed once, I have no doubt they will all be easier to remove a second time, if need be, but I think I will just send Newer Technology a check for $25 and keep the cable in there.
Above: You more or less need to disembowel you Mac Pro. The Fan Assembly gave me the most trouble (aside from the stripped screw).Ok, so fast forwarding through the installation. Like I said, the directions are excellent, and if you are comfortable messing around inside your computer, then this really isn’t a huge deal, but I did get nervous a time or two when I felt I had to apply more pressure than I thought I should in order to remove some parts.
As for the eSATA extender cable itself, Newer designed it to be the exact length necessary to connect to those 2 hidden ports and work its way to the back of the machine (you tuck the cable up behind the black SATA drive connectors in the 4 hard drive bays) and to the faceplate in the back.
Above: the eSATA cable (red) installed and tucked up behind the drive bay connectors, routed to the top dead plate.An important difference between eSATA and the other guys
One thing I should point out to those unfamiliar with eSATA is an eSATA connection is not “hot-swappable” like USB and FireWire connections. In order to be recognized, you must have the hard drive powered on and connected via eSATA before you boot your Mac (like the SCSI connections of old). You’ll notice when connected via eSATA, our Quad drive does not display the “eject” icon in the Finder that it does when connected via USB or FireWire. You actually CAN eject it by unmounting it in the Disk Utility app, and then reconnect via USB or FireWire if you choose to.
Above: The same OWC Quad drive attached via USB2 (left) and eSATA (right). Notice the lack of an eject icon on the eSATA connection.Performance
Once everything was installed and put back where it should be (note to those with an x1900 graphics card, the order of reinstallation is slightly different due to the length of the card vs the standard Mac Pro graphics card) I decided to run some tests. Luckily, I happen to have access to an OWC Mercury Elite Pro 1 Terabyte Quad Interface drive we are also testing in the lab. The nice thing about the Quad drive is it has USB 2, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and an eSATA port on it, making it an ideal candidate to compare speeds.
For my test I created a 50.2 GB folder consisting of around 210,000 files. Included were a system folder, some music files, photos, and some larger movies (over 1.5 GB each). I figured this should give a good overall impression of how well the drive moved data over various connections. I compared the results to the time it took to copy that same folder from one of the Mac Pro’s internal SATA drives to another. The results are below. (All tests done on a Mac Pro Quad 2.66 GHz machine with 5 GB of RAM running OS X 10.4.9).
As expected, you can see that USB 2 is a joke, taking over 67 minutes to move the folder to the drive. FireWire 400 was the next slowest (although still showed quite an improvement over USB 2) with a time of 28:13, and FireWire 800 came in with a time of 22:16. The eSATA cable brought in the lowest write time 18:14, even beating the internal drive to drive transfer of 20:15. Oddly enough, on my second test, the “read from” test where I then copied that same 50.2 GB folder back OFF the drive, the FireWire 800 actually beat the eSATA by 15 seconds.
Buying advice
So, is there a compelling argument for rushing out to add eSATA to your computer? Well, yes and no. Your average home user is not going to need eSATA, and likely doesn’t even need FireWire 800 at this point (although your average home user likely doesn’t own a Mac Pro either). However, the video pro and power user might. Now, while the results of the eSATA connection bested those of the FireWire 800, it did not exactly blow it away either. However, the full potential of eSATA comes when you run 2 or more drives together as a RAID array. I did not have 2 eSATA drives handy to test this, however Newer Tech’s support says you can run a RAID off the eSATA Extender Cable. Reports have put the speed gains of an eSATA RAID setup in the 2x or more category, and that’s pretty impressive.
To me the most compelling reason to buy the eSATA Extender Cable is the price. At 1/4 to 1/8th the price of a PCI-card solution, you can add 2 eSATA ports to your Mac Pro without generating the extra heat or blocking airflow that may be a factor with a PCI card solution. It is important to note, however, that the cable does take up a card slot because the connections at the back occupy one of the expansion ports. Also, the cable is designed to fit perfectly in the Mac Pro, but only in the topmost slot. If you have a PCI card that for some reason needs to occupy the topmost slot in order to function (rare, but it happens), then this solution will not work for you.
Conclusion
The eSATA extender cable is the only $25 solution out there to add eSATA ports to your Mac Pro. The installation process is not for beginners, but the cost savings make it an attractive upgrading project for the more technically inclined. If you do not already own a set of small computer-sized screwdrivers, you’ll to invest in a set (Newer Technology sells a kit for $12.95) in order to complete the install. The speed gains over FireWire 800 may not be substantial in a one drive setup, but those considering an eSATA RAID will enjoy a nice speed boost.
The NewerTech eSATA Extender Cable
Price: $24.99
Pros: Very affordable solution for adding 2 eSATA ports to your Mac Pro, does not generate the excess heat a PCI card might, supports RAID configurations.
Cons: Installation process is difficult.
As a Mac tech, I can tell you, the insides of a Mac Pro aren’t as delicate as you may fear. You DO sometimes have to pull pretty hard to loosen some parts, but it shouldn’t be a problem. Or maybe just because I’ve done it so many times it doesn’t feel wrong.
🙂
You may want to create an automator application to eject those hard drives.
Automator > Finder > Eject Disk
(This action eject a mounted disk or volume)
Keep it in your Dock and you’ll be able to eject them without launching Disk Utility 🙂
With this configuration, will apple disk utility support hardware raid configuration for combination of internal and external drives. I’ve used the pci card solution and I wasn’t able to raid internal and external drives together. thank you for your help.
james
This is absolutely great! I’m wondering if the same can be done with a Quicksilver G4? I purchased the cable before I realized I couldn’t find the SATA ports inside my G4. I’m pulling my hair out, please help!
do you know how old the g4 is? they use sd and ddr1 ram. they literally predate sata.
Sorry Matthew, there aren’t any SATA ports in a G4.
🙁
-The Doc
Thanks for letting me know! I think I’m going to have to suck it up and get a SATA card.. any recommendations?
I’d check out sonnet.
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/computercards/index.html
scroll down the the PCI cards (not the e or x)
Good luck.
-The Doc
Well Doc, I took your advice and purchased a Tempo Serial ATA card (http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_serial_ata.html), but I’m still having problems. I installed it and also installed an external PCI port (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000HZM1YG/002-6428906-3891235)?) but once I finally hooked up my external drive.. nothing happened. I can’t find it in the Disk Utitliy and I’m wondering if it’s because I formatted it using a different computer.
What I basically did was install the Tempo card and then connect the external PCI port to that card. Is that even close to correct?
Many thanks in advance,
Matthew
Crap.
Well, that’s why I usualy steer clear of giving advice.
🙂
It sounds like what you did should have worked.
Does your SATA card show up in the System Profiler?
If so, I’d guess your culprit is the extender cable.
Have you contacted Sonnet to see if they have any recomendations for connecting an extenal drive?
– The Doc
Hey, no worries! You got me farther than I would have gotten with anyone else.
My SATA PCI card does show up in the system profiler, it says that it is an ATA type and a PCI bus, but not much else.
I wonder if I need to get a Mac-specific extender cable? That would suck as I’ve already purchased a different one.
I did contact Sonnet but they take forever to reply. I’ve already received one email and written back.
Thanks much for the help, I’ll let you know if I can figure it out. Of course, if you have ideas let me know. 😀
Matthew
Hey Matthew,
Also, this might seem obvious, but you need to have your SATA hard drive attached and turned on BEFORE you turn on your computer in order for it to show up.
SATA isn’t like USB and FIREWIRE, it’s like the OLD days.
there shouldn’t be any such thing as a Mac or PC-specific cable. they all use the same parts.
My only theory might be that Sonnet might have a driver or something to enable the card?
But, assuming you’ve tried that, I have no other ides, sorry.
-The Doc
Wow, I actually didn’t know that you needed to hook it up before starting up. You think they’d put something like that in the manuals, I seriously don’t know why these things can’t be explained more with the product.
I just tried turning off completely, unplugging the external drive completely then plugging back in and starting up. No dice. I might try again.
I am wondering though, would the drive pop up in a different directory than it would if I was using a USB or FireWire cable?
I’ll get in touch with Sonnet about enabling the card. Many thanks!
Matthew
Matthew,
No, it has been my experience, using the eSATA cable that the drive just shows up on your desktop like a firewire drive, except it does not have the “eject” icon next to it in the Finder’s Sidebar, since they don’t want you to eject it. Think of it as an “external INTERNAL” drive. It needs to be on when you turn on your computer, and on when you shut it off.
Doc,
Thanks a ton for your help. I ended up reading a bunch of things and figured it all out. You’re the best, keep it up!
Matthew
Now…a further question…if those ports are already on the Mac Pro mobo, and you don’t mind a less-neat solution, why not just purchase a regular eSATA cable (should just be a couple of bucks at a computer store) and run it out a PCI card hole (easily removed), out the back of the computer, and to your external eSATA drive?
It won’t have the pretty face plate of the Newer Tech solution, but why spend $25 if you can spend $2?
(Not sure this works or if there are unknowns I didn’t think of; I’m just thinking out loud.)
Yeah Motley, I can see where you’d think that. However, they are placed in a fairly hard to get at spot. This particular chord is sized pretty much exactly to fit, and the connectors are angled in such a way as to coincide with the MacPro’s motherboard in particular. See the topmost picture.
Plus, at the end of the day, you don’t want a hole in the back of your machine. But I would say for most people, assuming you have an open slot, an eSATA card is the way to go/
Will this work with a G5 Power Mac?
Nope. See comment 5, it applies to all non-intel Mac Pros (G4 and G5 towers).
-The Doc
If you are able, please email me a copy of the installation manual (or scanned copy) for the eSATA Extender Cable kit. Thank you,!
Could these spare onboard SATA connectors be used for a new type internal SATA dvd writer?
Also, does the SATA cable power the drive, or do you need a separate power connection?
Andy,
you need a power cable. Essentially think of this as adding USB ports to your Mac. To connect a USB 500 GB lacie drive, you usually also have to power it. Same type of thing, just a faster connection.
-The Doc
Thanks
Hi,
I recently purchaseda WD external drive with an eSATA port. it did not come with a chord.
1. Is it possible to connect the WD external hard dirve via an eSATA chord to a MacBook Pro, with the following specifications to?:
Hardware Overview:
Model Name: MacBook Pro 15″
Model Identifier: MacBookPro1,1
Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 2 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP11.0055.B08
SMC Version: 1.2f10
Serial Number:
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled
Hi DM, just wanted to let you know that your note about powering the drive and attaching before you power up the MP was a saver for me. Thought i’d tried everything i could think of and not solved the problem. Had decided that the MP 2008 must be different to the prev version. Have posted a link to your write up on macrumors
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=4880304#post4880304
hope you don’t mind.
rtrt
Hi,
The sonnet D400RAID enclosure “requires a sata raid controller card” (another £300 or so) … silly question, but can you just use this cable to get the e-sata ports and hook it up? I want to use RAID5 … as i’m writing this i’m thinking it’s less and less possible – but anyone have any idea whether it would work without the card?
Cheers
To answer my own question – no, it’s not possible!
🙂
I dunno, this seems a bit redundant to me. My SATA enclosure came with its own eSata slot, which, aside from a lot of fumbling to get it connected, works just the same (be it only one port). And yes, I actually got it connected without totally removing the fan enclosure: I just removed one screw and fidgeted with it for about 20 minutes before I got the connector in… so who knows which is “easiest”.
Hi there, how long is the cable, as I live in the UK and need to get one of these. Also, what are the two connections that it uses (straight or l shaped?) Does anyone know where i can get this in the UK or an equivalent? Many thanks, H
So should I assume with an external sata drive that you don’t need to eject it when shutting down? Just have it turned on when powing the computer on and of?
Although they have no “eject” icon in the Finder sidebar, you can still drag any disk icon on your desktop (except the boot disk) to the trash to unmount it. No Disk Utility required. I imagine this would work with eSATA drives too.
Is this eSATA connector+bracket a common PC item that might be available for less than the Mac-specific one from Newer?
found this http://www.span.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=28_1204&products_id=8125
no idea if it works, cant see why not though. They come in 10, 30, 45 & 100cm versions (presumably internal cable lenght).
Could anyone confim the length of cable needed to fit inside a macpro ?
The Newertech backplate site says their product only works in the top pci slot, so if these other (cheaper) options work, they could also enable use in lower slots.
The reason there are unused SATA connectors on the system (mother?) board is for future optical drives.
I was devistated to find that all the new blu-ray writers are now internal and SATA and my brand new Mac Pro 2008 didn’t have a SATA port to plug to drive into.
Well it looks like Apple have planned ahead and this is all good.
I put the eSATA extender card in and hooked up an external 1Tb My Book drive. It mounted ok on reboot with drive on, but the files were unreadable. Could not copy back and forth. Reformated the drive and could copy files, but they copied 1/2 the speed of USB 2.0 ??? Is it possible the internal SATA ports on my 2007 Mac Pro Quad core 3.0Ghz machine is incompatible with E SATA?
zmacman
I went ahead and purchased the Newer Tech eSATA extender, and actually went through the entire installation process by the book. Besides one troublesome screw that kept falling during the reassembly, I thought it was much easier than I thought it would be, plus I learned a lot about the innards of my early 2008 Mac Pro.
Now for the bad news. My Mac crashes every time I try to start it connected to a fairly new LaCie external (with current firmware). The drive is powered on before the computer (as it has to be), and the drive works flawlessly with FW400. But no luck with the eSATA connection.
I figured I would call the Newer Tech support line, and was very disappointed with the support. Newer Tech treats the product as cable, not an eSATA solution (too bad all the articles tend to make you think of this product as a solution). So as long as the cable is functioning, that’s where Newer Tech ends the tech support. Of course, Apple does not support the use of these SATA ports, so there is no turning to Apple for advice, or having any reason to assume they might fix any issues on their end. And how can you start blaming the external drive manufacturer, when you’re trying to connect their drive to a full on hack, rather than an official and supported eSATA port?
Upon a little further research, there seems to be scores of people complaining on various boards about problems with eSATA and their Leopard macs (to be fair, there are also people having no problems). There’s talk of various chipsets, etc used in the external drives, some of which don’t work right. But it’s a whole can of worms I wasn’t expecting, and I don’t think any of the product reviews prepare you for these types of potential roadblocks.
On top of that, your FW800 vs. eSATA speed test shows a drive connected with eSATA is just barely faster than with FW800…
So, at this juncture, I would NOT recommend the Newer Technology extender cable to most users, unless you are very knowledgeable about eSATA and feel confident your external drives will play nice with the unsupported Apple SATA ports. I haven’t seen this eSATA compatibility covered in any other reviews, so feel free to educate me if you think I’m in error.
Don’t forgoet the importance of quality cables when dealing with eSATA. I’ve had flaky performance with this setup on my Mac Pro for months. I assumed one of the two drives was bad, or that the logic board on my Mac Pro was bad with the particular port i was using. A little trouble shooting turned up that the 6′ eSATA cable I’d purchased with the NewerTech internal was the culprit.
As far as transfer speeds, it is indistinguishable from my internal drives using the OWC Mercury Elite Pro enclosure for two SATA drives. Other brands seem to have some issues with the chipset (FreeAgent Pros from Seagate would not work) and a NextStar enclosure must be forced to 1.5 SATA speed to work with a Maxtor drive).
Cables and enclosure can’t be skimped on I guess.
I installed a NT cable awhile back and have had intermittent problems. Oft times I’ll turn on the Mercury Elite Pro drive, start up the computer and either get a warning that the drive cannot be read OR the drive doesn’t show up at all. I was also getting weird freezes on start up. I’m using 10.5. After much tweaking I discovered the problem is the following: If you have any other drive on and connected at start-up (USB ore firewire and this includes a USB hub), then the eSATA causes problems. I know this is related to 10.5 because I have 10.4 installed on another internal bay drive on the same computer and I do not have the same issue at startup. SO, when using 10.5, I disconnect my USB hub, turn on the eSATA drive, startup the computer, and after everything is running, then I connect my USB hub and turn on any other drives. I wish someone at Apple would acknowledge 10.5’s issues with USB (I’ve had other USB problems on other computers running 10.5)
I hope this helps someone.
Actually in my research it turns out that problems with connection or write errors corrupt data boils down to that most all cables esata out there suck many people have had issues with external esata drive connections using both pci sata cards and the NT cable. Its tricky to because the appears to be mounted just fine, in my case Timemachine would report an error w/ the backup. unplug and replug fixed the errror and TM was able to complete every time but after about a month same thing happened and when you verify in Disk Utility you will come to find that the data is fubar. Well that is often the culprit and I’d appreciate any recomendations for a cable that has a good fit.
Try really short e-SATA cables. I tried several 6+ft cables including some “high-end” and always had problems with large transfers and data corruption. Then I started using 3-4ft cheap e-SATA cables and they work fine. I use a Lycom e-SATA card (MacGurus) Macpro 2.66, 10.5.
A.
This is also a great solution if you want to boot your computer in Windows with a full-speed hard-drive and without the incredible hassle of trying to make a USB bootable version of Windows (which is ridiculously difficult to do right and I’m not convinced even works on a Mac Pro). Since the majority of eSata hard-drives will instantly behave just like an internal drive as far as your computer, BIOS etc. are concerned.
To anyone who is interested, the installation manual can be downloaded from here:
http://www.newertech.com/downloads/nwtmpqxe32.pdf
Anyone know if the newly released Mac Pro boxes with Nehalem chipsets have a similar motherboard inclusion of SATA connectors?
MacSales tech support just told me that the new (Early 2009) Mac Pros still have the connectors, but one is now used for the optical drive. So, only one of the ports can be used… to find the connector, follow the cable from the optical drive…
Dale
What MacSales support forgot to mention though is that these connectors are located all the way on the other (front) side of the motherboard, so it’s now impossible to use this kit. At least without some kind of extension cable running from the front to the back inside the computer. DOH!
Found this post while researching getting an eSata card for my new Mac Pro, and ended up learning how to fix the eSata drive hooked up to my cable box (In the past, I didn’t always power down the cab;e box, just rebooted it).
This one post has saved me $100+ for a new eSata card, plus helped me record the all of the season finale.
COOL!
Thanks!
Lance
A question: would Disk Utility recognize a newly connected eSATA drive without rebooting, and allow one to mount it? Or does the Mac absolutely require a reboot any time you change drives? I am interested in adquiring an eSATA dual drive base for “naked” drives (see link below) and that would be a showstopper.
http://www.sharkoon.com/html/produkte/externe_gehaeuse/sata_quickport_duo/index_en.html
using newer tech esata extender cable on gen 1 Mac Pro along with newer tech Voyager bare drive dock. Things are VERY slow! Slower than USB. any ideas?
Very interesting solution…does anyone know if it supports using the eSATA ports with a port multiplier enclosure, like the SeriTek5/PM?
Cheers!
wow thank you for the great tips. I might go this route and run a raid. So weird, I guess I would be running a raid , without a raid card, and using two esata ports with out a PCI card.
Anyone have any clue what kinda read speeds I can get from a dual 2T raid 0 with this set up?
Thank you, thank you for the note about e-sata cable connection not being hot swappable. After thinking there was a problem with the installation or the cable (short) I tried the proper sequence, et voila!
Now, a question related to a comment above:
“Although they have no “eject” icon in the Finder sidebar, you can still drag any disk icon on your desktop (except the boot disk) to the trash to unmount it. No Disk Utility required. I imagine this would work with eSATA drives too.”
Is this true? Dragging the e-sata cable connected external drive to the trash, and following proper start-up sequence next time, should the e-sata connected external hd be expected to mount properly?
Thanks so much!
It’s 2012 and I doubt anyone is reading this. However, I plan on buying this cable and connecting it to an eSATA OWC enclosure with two SSDs using RAID 0. I should easily get 3Gb/s speed.
Has anyone tried this? Any problems?
Thanks