External HD

I am a Windows professional who recently made the switch and bought two iMacs (20" and 24"). I love them. My daughter got the 20" and I got the 24" Well now that I have had them a few weeks, I am getting ready to move completely off my old Dell. The problem is my Dell had an eSata drive and I added a sweet 500 GB External Sata to it. I would like to be able to use that drive on my Mac but it doesn't seem to have any external Sata configuration. Why is that? Sata is without a doubt better than USB or Firewire. I would assume there moust be something I am missing. Is there a hack or some solution for attaching a Sata drive to my Mac?

If not, I assume the next best choice is Firewire. I do have a few smaller USB and Firewire drives. I would really hate to have to downgrade to Fireiwre or USB.

Any help would be most welcome.

Sorry, I think you're going to need to get some class of SATA - USB or Firewire interface, I've never seen a computer with an external SATA interface.

External Sata

skaheadpunk said:

Sorry, I think you're going to need to get some class of SATA - USB or Firewire interface, I've never seen a computer with an external SATA interface.

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When I bought the external Sata drive it came with a cable that you could plug into the Sata port and then put it into one of the slots in the back of the computer. Then you plug the external drive into that external slot. I also have seen other PCs with an external Sata slot.

Since Sata is a bus speed connection, it is just like having an internal drive. In fact, on my Dell, the external drive was faster than my internal. In tests, it moved data at a much higher rate.

Since I take a lot of photos, I need a large amount of storage and I would prefer the fastest access to that storage possible.

I wonder if I posted in the wrong area. Is there a better place to post this sort of question? I would have expected more response than I got. I can only assume I asked this question in the wrong place.

Well, the switchers forum is pretty busy and the thread's had 60 views.

Honestly, I think maybe nobody knows how to connect an external SATA drive to an iMac. A tower, maybe, but I can't see how you can add much to an iMac.

I think Firewire's your best bet.

Yeah, I don't think the iMac's are expandable for that type of thing. I don't know that you'll have much luck trying to get it setup the same way you had with the PC.

Bummer man. My first negative with my Mac. I was so euphoric and now this! I am grief stricken. What to do? Buy a Mac Pro? Hmm, I wonder if the wife will notice.

VerbalKint said:

Bummer man. My first negative with my Mac. I was so euphoric and now this! I am grief stricken. What to do? Buy a Mac Pro? Hmm, I wonder if the wife will notice.

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Maybe after the receipt.... =P

What receipt? That's what company credit card's are for!

If you're a serious photographer, you'll be filling drives in no time, especially if you're using RAW format and/or video clips. I went with a Lacie 1TB 3-way (FW400/FW800/USB2.0). I have a couple of external USB drives that I am transferring images and data over from to the Lacie. Once I have the IOMEGA USB drive clear, I'll set it up as a temp drive on the iMac. Eventually, I'll just buy another 1TB Lacie and sell the USBs.

I would recommend getting a firewire drive its not only faster than USB but doesn't hog the CPU…

You might consider moving the drive into one of these enclosures with firewire 400 and SATA drive compatibility.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/External-Enclosures/

Wow guys, thanks for the input. I kind of had decided to go for FireWire especially 800. It is much faster than USB and I like the idea that it offloads processing. The bummer is the expense and the loss of use for my nice eSata external drive. I guess I can find a use on a server. In fact It will be a valuable extension to our over loaded file server.

BTW, our environment is purely personal use. I am not a professional photographer. I am a serious amateur but amateur nonetheless. While I have gotten two new iMacs and I do love them, I still have and will keep my Windows servers. Where Windows sucks as a GUI, it rocks as a server platform. Especially for someone like me who has access to tons of free software and support. I have an annual subscription that costs about $300 per year and provides me with Windows servers, SQL Server, Exchange Serve, Etc. Also in my day job I am part of a team of over a hundred IT professionals who support a bunch of Windows products. So if I need a answer about say an Exchange server problem, I can ask one of three guys who do nothing but support Exchange servers all day. I specialize in SQL Server and data architecture so I can nail that down.

One of the reasons I do this is to provide me with a variety of technology to use as a sandbox so to speak but also because I do run a boutique web hosting company. I founded one of the first ISPs in the Northeast Florida area back in the days before Netscape and Windows 95. When I sold the company, several client insisted on staying with me. So I made arrangements to host a few dedicated servers at the offices of a customer who has a T1. I hope that somewhat explains why I maintain such overkill in a home network environment and puts some perspective on my goals regarding my switching to Mac.

One of the many reasons I decided to jump into the Mac world is that I see opportunity to expand my part time consulting services. I have a few customers who also have switched especially at home. Well if I haven't used a Mac how can I help them? Now I can not only help them, in doing so, I can open up other opportunities they may not of considered.

Anyway, I didn't really want to get so out of hand but I felt that a few folks posted suggestions based on misunderstanding my goals and what I hope to get from my computers. While I greatly appreciate the input, I would hate to waste anyone's valuable time on misinformation.

Having said all that:

Does anyone have a good resource for FireWire 800 enclosures?

Had you chose a MacPro, you would have been able to slap in an eSATA card in there and used the drives just fine.

skaheadpunk said:

Sorry, I think you're going to need to get some class of SATA - USB or Firewire interface, I've never seen a computer with an external SATA interface.

Click to expand...

baggss said:

Had you chose a MacPro, you would have been able to slap in an eSATA card in there and used the drives just fine.

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Yeah, now I know that! Having said that, the price difference is pretty big plus the 24" which is mine, was a gift from a customer. I don't think I would have felt I could have gotten him to give me a Pro. If I knew I would need to capability, I could have, but just for the ability to access an external eSata? Not really. Any way I am still in love with my iMac and this doesn't change that one bit.

VerbalKint said:

Having said all that:

Does anyone have a good resource for FireWire 800 enclosures?

Click to expand...

Try the link I gave you above