| Su | Mo | Tu | We | Th | Fr | Sa |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 |
Browse archives
Syndicate
AcomData External SATA Drive
Submitted by reeses on Sat, 2006-03-25 01:31. | electronics
The AcomData External SATA Drive has the distinction of being the very first thing I have ever returned to a store. Ever. I've put up with a lot of expensive dreck just to avoid the inconvenience of gathering up my receipt and packaging, driving to the store, standing in line, and explaining to someone why I should get my money back. AcomData has given me reason to do this.
How did they manage to overcome my sloth?
The drive came with a PCI SATA card with an external connector. I thought this was a nice idea, because not everyone had external SATA or E-SATA connectivity, and for a desktop, the option was pop out one of the PCI slot covers to run the cable out from the motherboard, which isn't a smart idea, but one I was prepared to execute.
However, I bought a PCMCIA SATA card for my Mac on the same trip. I knew there was a very real possibility that it wouldn't work. It claimed to require some version of Windows or Linux, but it was $40, so I figured I'd give it a shot in case the vendor had updated drivers on their site. No such luck.
Because of my two options, the PCI card seemed to be one of those things that cost $2.50 to make, but recover a lot of otherwise-would-be lost sales, and at any rate, superfluous to my purchase.
Not so!
If you look carefully at this picture, you'll notice the square SATA connector, but you'll also see a little round connector. What are you, little round connector?
Power supply.
That's right. It turns out that this external (i.e., "portable") hard drive has no power supply, but is instead fed by a 5v line out from the pci card. The four-pin header on the top of the PCI card is where the host PC's power supply feeds data in, to be routed out through this jack.
After realising the futility of using it on the Mac, I gave up and installed the PCI card on my Linux box, only to find that it totally screwed up my LVM volumes, so it came back out, went in the box, and back home to Fry's.
What's the point of an external drive if you're tied to a single computer, can't hot-swap devices, and have to buy an additional stupid, disruptive, redundant PCI card for each additional machine with which you want to use the drive?
delicious
digg
reddit
technorati