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retrofitting iMac of eSATA

JusticeiroJusticeiro Registered Users Posts: 1,177 Major grins
edited December 10, 2007 in Digital Darkroom
I have an iMac that ha sonly USB ports. Is it possible to get an iMac retorfitted to accept eSATA cables?
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    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited November 21, 2007
    Justiceiro wrote:
    I have an iMac that ha sonly USB ports. Is it possible to get an iMac retorfitted to accept eSATA cables?


    ??? No Firewire ports? Seems odd.
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    RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,937 moderator
    edited November 21, 2007
    Justiceiro wrote:
    I have an iMac that ha sonly USB ports. Is it possible to get an iMac retorfitted to accept eSATA cables?

    I strongly doubt it. iMacs are not easily upgraded and not that many new computers have incorporated eSATA yet.
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    JusticeiroJusticeiro Registered Users Posts: 1,177 Major grins
    edited November 21, 2007
    DavidTO wrote:
    ??? No Firewire ports? Seems odd.

    I'm a total dork when it comes to computers, but I believe that eSATA can't fit into firewire ports w/o an adaptor. Also, umless you have an eSATA port, you can't take advantage of the higher speeds.

    I was hoping someone would chime in and say "Oh yeah, Tekserve in manhattan will do that for you for $25." Oh well. I guess I'll have to stick to firewire.
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    RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,937 moderator
    edited November 21, 2007
    Justiceiro wrote:
    I'm a total dork when it comes to computers, but I believe that eSATA can't fit into firewire ports w/o an adaptor. Also, umless you have an eSATA port, you can't take advantage of the higher speeds.

    I was hoping someone would chime in and say "Oh yeah, Tekserve in manhattan will do that for you for $25." Oh well. I guess I'll have to stick to firewire.

    eSATA is a completely different technology. It is faster than USB 2 and Firewire 800, but as far as I know, no adaptor exists. You might be able to find a PCI card, though I don't know whether iMacs accept them. If you have Firewire 800, you should just stick to that till you get your next generation machine.
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    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited November 21, 2007
    Justiceiro wrote:
    I'm a total dork when it comes to computers, but I believe that eSATA can't fit into firewire ports w/o an adaptor. Also, umless you have an eSATA port, you can't take advantage of the higher speeds.

    I was hoping someone would chime in and say "Oh yeah, Tekserve in manhattan will do that for you for $25." Oh well. I guess I'll have to stick to firewire.


    Actually, my point was to use the FW ports instead of the USB. FW kicks USB's butt. :D

    re: SATA. No.

    Is this a new iMac? If not, which model?
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    JusticeiroJusticeiro Registered Users Posts: 1,177 Major grins
    edited November 21, 2007
    DavidTO wrote:
    Actually, my point was to use the FW ports instead of the USB. FW kicks USB's butt. :D

    re: SATA. No.

    Is this a new iMac? If not, which model?

    It's about 8 month old. I'm getting some external hard drives (the Western Digital, I think). I believe they have firewire capabilities.
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    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited November 21, 2007
    Justiceiro wrote:
    It's about 8 month old. I'm getting some external hard drives (the Western Digital, I think). I believe they have firewire capabilities.


    If it's a 24" it should have FW800, and you should get drives to match. If not, then you're stuck with FW400. :D
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    JusticeiroJusticeiro Registered Users Posts: 1,177 Major grins
    edited November 22, 2007
    DavidTO wrote:
    If it's a 24" it should have FW800, and you should get drives to match. If not, then you're stuck with FW400. :D

    It is a 24". Where exactly is the fw800 port?
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    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited November 26, 2007
    Justiceiro wrote:
    It is a 24". Where exactly is the fw800 port?


    Here it is on the current model:

    apple_-_imac_-_technology-20071126-204503.jpg
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    colourboxcolourbox Registered Users Posts: 2,095 Major grins
    edited November 27, 2007
    Yes, you should definitely use interfaces in this order of speed as available:

    eSATA
    Gigabit Ethernet (I get better transfers between machines than with IP Over FireWire 800)
    FireWire 800
    FireWire 400
    USB 2
    USB 1

    The second important piece is the drive, always get one with multiple fast interfaces. My current drives have FireWire 800, FireWire 400, and USB 2 ports on the back so I'm never shut out of any machine I own now or soon. Enclosures are now available with eSATA, FireWire 800/400, and USB so that you can buy a drive now, have it compatible with your current computer, and yet fast enough for your next one. I find these worth the extra cost for the extra ports.
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    omgitsacameraomgitsacamera Registered Users Posts: 55 Big grins
    edited December 9, 2007
    i found this:

    http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ministackv3

    has 1 eSATA + FW 400(1)/800(2) + USB(3) and a hard drive.
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    CatOneCatOne Registered Users Posts: 957 Major grins
    edited December 10, 2007
    colourbox wrote:
    Yes, you should definitely use interfaces in this order of speed as available:

    eSATA
    Gigabit Ethernet (I get better transfers between machines than with IP Over FireWire 800)
    FireWire 800
    FireWire 400
    USB 2
    USB 1

    The second important piece is the drive, always get one with multiple fast interfaces. My current drives have FireWire 800, FireWire 400, and USB 2 ports on the back so I'm never shut out of any machine I own now or soon. Enclosures are now available with eSATA, FireWire 800/400, and USB so that you can buy a drive now, have it compatible with your current computer, and yet fast enough for your next one. I find these worth the extra cost for the extra ports.

    Nonsense.

    FW800 is going to be faster than GigE in 95% of cases. Firewire uses a SCSI protocol, GigE is a network stack and there is almost always overhead. And it's a network stack... there's a lot more configuration to go through for a NAS device than for a direct-attached drive. Apples and oranges here.

    This is to say nothing of the drive speed itself -- depending on the drive often the mechanism itself can't do more than 35-40 MB/sec. So the bus speed is irrelevant.

    Finally, while eSATA has the fastest interface speed, there's the issue of compatibility. No way to plug in an eSATA drive to most laptops, which is where the external drives are most useful.
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